Meeting Cellupica Jovita and Vern Conville

In a port city, somewhere along the equator of a civilized world, a well-developed frontier planet.

As for Wuglug … his last few retirement payments have not come through and … he’s now trying to find someone trustworthy to go into … some kind of business with before the rest of the credits run out. He’s presumably sold most of his wordly possessions already to make it this far. If he can find a young Drasalite or two who are a tad more … nimble? He’ll try to be as nice as he possibly can be.

Druk is trying to write an ethnography of starport life of whatever society he’s in and he’s trying to embed himself into the space scum for a few months.

“What do you mean ‘space scum’ brother?” says a Dralasite three bar stools away “you not talking about me, are you?”

The dude extrudes a pseudopod to reach for another drink … “I mean, there are funny people around …”

“Do you mind answering some questions, brother?” Druk slithers over. “My name is Druk, Drugedru Druk. I want to learn about the people living around here, how you earn a living, how you speak to each other, everything.”

“Ah! So many healthy young pseudopods wiggling all at once! Hello there fellas! Nobody shedding spores I hope? I need to find a paying job and I don’t mind you writing that down. But what would be even better … is the actual job.”

Drugedru Druk scribbles in his notebook and mutters, “even better is the actual job… That’s right!”

“How do we spot the sophont that offers the actual job?” Druk produces an eye-stalk and looks around.

Druk overhears two patrons, a human (male, they think) and a big Yazirian female talking about a job they applied for and were denied. The conversation is slurred as the primates are intoxicated, but it sounds as if there’s an investigation agency looking for some freelance investigators. Details are vague.

Perhaps of more interest to Druk, they get the feeling the human and the Yazirian are quite close socially, unusual in their experience as the aggregate behavior of species tends to be to congregate together.

Druk gets up and wobbles over to two patrons, notepad and pen in hand. “Greetings, sophonts! I don’t mean to be rude so please forgive this intrusion. I’m researching the job market for a new book of mine. If you’re willing to answer a few short questions I’d be happy to buy another round. How does that sound?”

“Well said, well said! … Like … who was trying to hire you? Bunch of Drasalites? Hah!”

The female turns to you a little blearily, her tinted goggles pushed up on her head to reveal huge, dark eyes. At the mention of exchanging answers for another round, her muzzle crinkles in what you know is a Yazirian smile; her human counterpart likewise offers a wide grin at the prospect. “Of course, sophont - we’ll talk your ear - uh - we’ll talk until you tell us to stop, if you ply us with drinks,” she says, her voice surprisingly high-pitched. The human male perches on his seat, leaning forward so you can see both clearly. “Ask away.”

Blugna turns a bit on his barstool to try and catch what’s being said. He does the dralasite equivalent of an eyebrow raise …

Druk looks down as the interview flow-diagram in the notebook and says, “OK, so first question: Where does one learn about job opportunities? And do you have an example based on your recent experience?”

Sadly Wuglug has not enough dexterity to extrude a pseudopod for the facepalm, so he skips it. “Ha! Good one! What my young colleague here is getting to good sir, lady, is that perhaps the two of you have legal recourse against who denied you that job. So who’s the villain causing you to drown your troubles with a bunch of poor wobbly souls like ourselves?”

“Well, there’s the Labor Exchange for most of the planetside and orbital work…” she fumbles out her comm, and opens the app, showing you how she sorts by classification, pay, or qualifications. “We hear that there’s a bit of a recession going on here - some corporations had mass layoffs here and the market is glutted with skilled workers. Most of the stuff is just low-skill/no-skill stuff…” she scrolls the list, showing you that indeed most of the open contracts are for low-skilled work, such as service or labor tasks. “And you can see the skilled positions are swamped with applicants.” she picks a job in the tech field - systems engineer, which she has apparently bookmarked. As the the entry expands to show the details, Her taloned finger points to a number at the very top, its label identifying it as current applicants. The number is currently well over 2.000 applicants, and as she shows it to you it increments higher “But… there are smaller local community-run services, too. You can sometimes find good gigs there.” she closes the app and opens another - it appears to be a community site for the prefecture the bar you’re in resides.

“The jobs in these little sites can be eclectic, and the pay can vary. But sometimes there are some interesting things. This was one we just came from…” she selects a post and opens it. It appears to be by an investigation firm, looking for contract investigators for a job, details of which will be disclosed upon interview. You can see the firm’s contact information and address. “It’s a small firm - an owner and maybe a few on-staff investigators. They’re a Vrusk - K’Kra? K-Kor? Something like that… i wish some of the Vrusk would come up with PanGalactic names we can all use.” she glances at her companion, who nods. “Which reminds me, I’m Jovita - Cellupica Jovica, and my buddy here is Vern Conville.” she extends her long, slim, hand, careful to angle her talons so they won’t interfere with a handshake.

She turns to Wuglug, a little wobbly. “It wasn’t like he - they? he - the owner, - tried to pull a fast one. We heard about the details of the case he was hiring, the skills and what he needed, and honestly…” she looks to her human companion we didn’t feel like we could do what he wanted. Also, there is always that ‘Pay commensurate with experience’ bit, which means we’d have to haggle about money, and I hate arguing about money. Makes me feel… I dunno. Cheap, I guess?” she nods a little, self-reflecting for a moment. “Like I have to justify myself to get what I’m worth.” She finally seems to realize there are three Dralasites sitting together. “You guys a team or… whatsit - a pod? Apologies if that’s rude - I can’t remember if that’s too personal to ask.”

Three Drasalites looking at each other with shoulder-shruggy wobbles before turning back to them, presumably.

Wuglug wobbles a nod towards TALONS. “I see, I see … and … so what … did they need done that … ah .. you didn’t feel comfortable with? I cannot imagine that it could have possibly been a matter of qualifications, that seems … preposterously Vrusky! If you know what I mean…” Wuglug then fumbles for his communicator and realizes that we’re not playing the 1981 version but do indeed have state-of-the-art sPhones. He reconfigures his one pseudopod available for such things and then starts scrolling.

The human speaks up before Jovica can respond “If you talk with the guy, you can get the details. Jovica and I served a tour with the Fed Exploration Corps, so we have the basics, but we’re primarily tech and gearheads.” he puts a companionable hand on her shoulder, and she looks like she might nuzzle it for a moment “I’m the gearhead - good with vehicles and hardware,” he nods at the robot bartender “while she’s better with information systems and networks.”

“I am pleasantly relaxed to meet you both, Cellupica Jovita and Vern Conville. I hope our names satisfy you PanGalactic usability and vocalisation requirements. This is vat sibling Wuglug Mogrog, I’m Drugedru Druke and the shy one is pluripotent Blugna Snorgka. Fed Exploration Corps sounds like a lot of experience! How did you manage to build up the reputation to get hired by such a prestigious corporation?” Druk looks at the notebook and underlines “exploration”. Then his eye stalks swivel back.

“Hey Wuglug! Why don’t you try looking up this operation? We could interview them, too. See how they decide to pick teams, what goes into the decision…”

“Cellupica Jovita and Vern Conville, in your esteemed opinion, what would be the going rate for a trio of Drasalite operators? You know, without a lot of prior experience? Asking for a friend or two, of course.”

Wuglug proceeds to re-pseudo-pod himself from two legs to a single wide stumpy leg (wide enough so he can’t fall over) and extrudes a second pseudopod for manual dexterity operations on the small semi-smart-communicator. “Hold on, gettin’ to it…”

Druk has a follow-up question: “Also, do you usually have insurance? Rescue and Retrieval options?” The eye-stalks twitch nervously.

Wuglug complains about a few cookie banners in the way, also a CAPTCHA, it’s hard to get right on these old models.

Jovica nods at Drugedru “I was recruited as a pathfinder for FEC initially - the teams that do initial on-planet surveys. I would write software and patches for our drones and other mecha to better suit the local conditions or solve problems, and eventually, someone Jovica elbows Vern brought this to the attention of the chain of command, and I got bumped up to systems engineer.” Jovica takes a slow drink as Vern leans around her. “I had family connections that got me an entry level position in the vehicle maintenance pool, and I spent time with the pathfinder teams at their outposts. We served on a few surveys together, decided we could work well together, and the rest is more or less history.” He smiles, and also drinks, finishing his container.

Jovica looks at Drugedru and Wuglug “It depends on the job and your skills, of course.” she points at the investigation job on her comm “This guy wants on-site investigators - people who will physically go to locations and snoop. I was hoping he was looking for a data miner, but no… I guess other firms have already gone that route. He’s looking for physical bodies who can poke around physical locations. If you’re skilled at that, or can pass yourselves off as such I’d say… 50 credits a day, plus expenses, for each of you, wouldn’t be out of line.” She laughs, a high-pitched yipping sound “Of course I don’t know if he can pay that amount - we didn’t even get to the money discussion before we decided it wasn’t for us.”

“As for insurance - all we have is each other to keep our eyes out. I know there are trauma team services available, but since we mainly do our work indoors these days, we haven’t had much use for that. I’m pretty sure most of the major medical centers have trauma team contracts, and there are quite a few independent operators who help out folks who are surveying the less-developed areas of this world.”

“On site, yes, that’s … right up our alley … right?” He fumbles with the communicator a bit more. “Ah, there it is, no problemo. I’ll click in for an appointment regarding the investigation job … right?” Wuglug is trying to get some kind of pseudo-poddy nodding out of his compadres.

generic wobbling and nodding