Cosmic Toothache

Cosmic Toothache

Albert turned the zirconium cipher-cube every angle geometry would permit, but he could not find a way to make his reader accept it. He went so far as to remove a deep-cleansing cloth from his dental kit – which, under the universal terms of policy, would incur an itemized expense he could not be certain of being recompensed for – to wipe away what might have been invisible impurities. Still, nothing. He could not get his reader to recognize the miner’s insurance information.

“It looks as if I’ll have to charge you currency,” Albert said. “You can put in for reimbursement later, but I can’t begin treatment until I have assurance the full payment will be met.”

The miner, so far from being humanoid that it had no analogue to vocal cords, telepathed its answer. “It’s my star-forsaken guild,” it blinked. “I’m paid up. If there’s a problem, it’s at their end. There’s ten thousand of us members standing behind that card, and that means you gotta do something for this tooth. And you gotta do it now.”

“I understand your frustration and your pain,” Albert enunciated as if to flaunt his capacity for actual speech, “but I am constrained by the network’s terms and conditions. If I accept a contract without evidence of its current validity, I could forfeit my place within the network. I assure you, they are very strict.”

The miner gave no indication of emotion, but, then, it was unclear where emotion might register on its eel-like features or its giant circular mouth. Instead, Albert felt a fleshy tentacle undulate around his waist, casually, almost absent-mindedly, threatening to squeeze him.

“This is all very irregular,” Albert continued. “I have already incurred considerable expense traveling a quarter of a light year, and then there is the minimum treatment charge. And all of that comes before I have even performed a preliminary exam. What exactly do you expect of me?”

In answer, the miner pulsed the muscles that encircled Albert. “I expect you to look at my tooth,” it thought at him. “And I don’t intend to wait any longer.”

Interstellar dentistry seeming suddenly a foolish way to earn a living, Albert gulped his acquiescence. “I’ll just need my tools,” he said. And then, in a tone perhaps too soft for the miner to hear, he added, “But I will need your signature on several forms to indicate your acceptance of the financial responsibility for the care I am about to provide.”

He did not need to ask the creature to open wide because, given its anatomical nature, its jaw fell naturally to a 360-degree opening. From what Albert understood, it fed on the static electrical charges of the minerals it consumed, defecating ore pure enough to sell. Its teeth were not merely part of its digestive process but also its primary mining equipment.

Albert had read about such creatures in dental school, but he had never seen one this close. The wonder of it momentarily set aside his anxiety over his fee and how an unauthorized, unpaid procedure could jeopardize his place in the network, and it made him forget the threat of the tentacle set to squeeze out everything he’d eaten in the last week. He looked, and he inadvertently opened his own jaw at what he saw.

The miner’s teeth were – there was no other way to say it – living diamond. Each was at least two human fingers wide and, though serrated and rough-edged, striking in its clarity. As he observed, though, he noticed one tooth sporting a star-like shape just off center. As the light from his headlamp danced across it, he felt drawn to a beauty he couldn’t quite articulate. The flaw captivated him. It marked the tooth as somehow more arresting than the relentlessly perfect others.

“Is this the problem?” he asked as he probed it with the largest pick in his pack.

The miner emoted a gasp of pain, underscoring it with a tightening of the tentacle that made Albert belch.

“I see,” Albert said, lapsing into the typical banter of his profession. “Does it hurt when I do this?” The tentacle again told him all he needed to know.

“Do you want a temporary fix?” he asked. “I can numb it up for a few days. Or, if you like, I can try to put a bridge over that.”

One advantage of the creature’s telepathy was that he could communicate just as clearly when Albert had his hands in its mouth. “Fix it,” it declared. “Fix it good.”

To Albert’s ethical credit, he had not until that moment formulated a plan to escape with his life and his credit intact. And yet, the temptation proved overwhelming.

“I’ll need to numb it,” he said. “And since I don’t know your biochemistry all that well – no offense, of course – I am going to have to guess the proper dose of anesthetic.”

The miner thought his assent but gave a reminder of the menace of the tentacle, shaking it just enough to remind Albert of his relative puniness.

So, Albert went to work. He filled a vial of the strongest narcotic the profession authorized, so strong that there was a black market for it that – at the cost of his network privileges and career – would have brought him six months of comfortable living. He tried to calm the miner – “Now, this will hurt a moment, but only a moment” – and made the injection.

The creature did not lose consciousness. Albert checked on that through a subtle attempt at slipping out of its grip, but it lapsed into a fugue state, respirating at a slow but steady rate and responding a few beats slowly to the questions he asked: “Do you get many visitors out here in the asteroid belt?” “Does the guild offer decent retirement?” “How about those Chelsea Supernovas? Any chance they can win the league this year?”

Working to control his thoughts – one could never be certain how much a telepath could overhear – Albert set about shaving and crafting the zirconium cipher-cube that, as he reflected, the miner must have known was a poor forgery. He added serrations and carved a vaguely Y-shaped root to it.

Then, in what he knew would be the part of the operation calling for the most adept handiwork, he told the creature to hold tight. “This part could hurt,” he said. “It’s a big adjustment.” He grabbed his pliers, got them in for a tight grip on the tooth, and grunted himself as cover for what he was doing.

The tooth slid clear.

As deftly as he could, he swapped the tooth for the cipher-cube and, shoving to the limit of his muscles, fit it back into the socket. There came a bubble of what must have been the creature’s blood, then a reassuring pop. He worked to keep from congratulating himself too exuberantly; somehow, he had measured the replacement tooth just right.

“Just about finished,” he said. “Can you open and close your mouth for me to see how it’s coming?”

The miner took a moment to respond, but then it began a horrifying churning, rotating its teeth in a way that reminded Albert that it enjoyed snacking on the mountains of deep space asteroids. The new zirconium false tooth blended in so well that, except for knowing to look for it, Albert would not have been able to distinguish it from the others.

“Okay,” Albert said. “I think that does it. How do you feel?”

The creature thought back a vision somewhere beneath words, but the gist of it seemed to be that it felt less discomfort than before.

“Good,” Albert said. “And it should continue to feel better from here on.” To his dubious credit, he did think that was true.

“Now,” he continued, “can I ask you please to release me and to sign these forms acknowledging the treatment?”

The miner did undo its grasp, letting the tentacle go slack enough that it fell to Albert’s feet and unwound around them. Then it thought its reply, “I won’t be signing anything. I’ve decided not to eat you because there’s not enough nutrition in your bones. You are welcome.”

Albert worked to play his part. “I’ll be reporting this to the network and your guild,” he pretend-threatened, knowing he sounded impossibly weak to the miner.” He gathered his tools, explaining at one point that he’d ruined at least two picks on the hard substance of the diamond teeth. “Do you have any idea the expense I’ve had to go to for this treatment?”

Then, as he stepped into the airlock of his vehicle, he called out “You haven’t heard the last from me,” making certain to feign that he was suppressing his fear.

But, he thought as he picked up momentum and zoomed beyond the asteroid and into the blackness between solar systems, the creature had indeed heard the last of him. He held the tooth, a six-ounce hunk of diamond that featured a priceless star in its midst. He tossed it in the air and caught it as it fell back slowly in the limited gravity of his cabin.

To hell with the network and its paperwork, he thought. He’d been paid very well after all.