Van Serai Hotel

The Van Serai Hotel was an abandoned hotel on Darknon Station. It was home to several squatters, most who came to Darknon Station as runaways, fugitives, or vagabonds and never left. Occasionally, a spacer would claim a room for the night in preference over the cramped quarters of his starship.

The hotel once overlooked the bustling concourse of Darknon Station. After it ceased its formal use, the hotel's windows were covered with plastic boards and sheets of tarpaulin, and several of the upper levels were sealed off. The corridors began collecting dust, but most of the doors still functioned properly, allowing some security for occupants of the rooms.

The squatters, though mostly harmless, tended to suffer from some degree of dementia. Many simply sat around rooms or the lobby, wearing rags and meager clothing. The sounds of their moaning or incoherent gibbering had led to stories that Van Serai was cursed, though most spacers dismissed the rumors. Platt Okeefe sometimes found the squatters to be helpful. She once paid a squatter to sit outside the room of one of her competitors. For a few extra credits, the squatter moaned and babbled throughout the night to keep Okeefe's competitor awake and ultimately made him late for an cargo pickup appointment. Okeefe capitalized on her competitor's tardiness and made the pickup herself.

The Darknon Station layout schematic in Platt's Starport Guide labels Van Serai as a "hostel", though the rest of the text description calls it a "hotel".