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At the mention of Vaan’s name, Cat’s eyes glowed and he eeked out an automated meow. Purser Frank jumped. He looked at the robotic cat on the table. Cat jiggled from foot to foot. I was pretty sure a coil had broken inside of Cat, which kept him from actually moving forward or back. I picked him up and covered his solar panel. His eyes went dark, and the vibration stopped.
I hadn’t talked to Vaan since the breakup. It was inevitable that we’d see each other again because that’s how these things went. It was just my luck that our reunion would take place while I was little more than a blackmailed stowaway on a spaceship with a murderer. It didn’t get much worse than that.
I thanked Purser Frank for escorting me to my quarters and then said goodnight. It had been a long day, and I wanted to change out of my now mangled blue evening dress. I doubted there would be any more opportunities for me to dress for dinner, so it didn’t much matter that this particular outfit was beyond repair.
After changing into my sleeping uniform, a loose-fitting jumpsuit with the same Moon Unit insignia that had been on my working uniform, I pulled covers back from the bed and slipped between them. The bedding was made of a new synthetic fabric that adjusted to individual body temperatures within five seconds. The designers of the Moon Unit series of ships had considered every way possible to keep the crew’s supplies lightweight so paying passengers could bring whatever they felt they’d need to make their stay comfortable. Because of that, my room was compact. In addition to the bed, there was the white table where Cat sat, a matching chair, and the closet unit. My orientation packet had arrived with an empty standard-issue crew suitcase and instructions only to bring what would fit inside. Like everything else that related to the Moon Unit, the suitcase had the ship’s insignia emblazoned on the outside. The architects of the ship might have had trouble with the first four in their fleet, but the one thing they’d worked out was branding.
The thin layer of heat-sensitive fabric on top of me adjusted to my Plunian core temperature and I closed my eyes. So much had happened in one day and I had six more to go. The last thing I remember thinking was what could possibly happen tomorrow?
***
I woke to Cat’s meow on repeat. When I built him, I used parts from a broken alarm clock. The ship had been programmed to go on full light at Zulu Five, and since Cat’s operations were fueled by a solar panel, his wake-up meow had been triggered. I threw my pillow across the room at him, and he went silent. Thank the galaxy for small favors and good aim.
The crew’s quarters had standard-issue isolation chambers where purified atoms bombarded us and prepared us for our full day of work. It was the first day that my coworkers and I would jockey for position. I had Cat to thank for the fact that I was among the first there.
I stripped, activated the isolation chamber, and rotated for the required thirty seconds, then dressed in my day two uniform and headed to the employee lounge. A wall of food service machines offered wake-up beverages and protein packs. I inserted my ID card in front of the first machine and pressed the button. Nothing happened. I tried two more times with no success. It could have been a computer malfunction. Three little green Martians, members of the communication crew, came in, and I stepped aside. They each activated the very machine I couldn’t get to work.
It wasn’t a computer malfunction.
One of the communication crew members, a friendly looking Martian with sandy blond hair and freckles, stood to the side and waved me forward. “You were here first,” he said. “Besides, I’m still deciding between blue protein and green protein. Depending on what you want, you might make my choice a little easier.”
I stepped forward and inserted my card into the machine again. Again, nothing happened. The Martian leaned closer. “Did you break it?” he said.
“No! No. I mean, I don’t think so. My card’s been giving me trouble.”
“Let me see it,” he said.
Reluctantly, I held out my card. The little green man lifted a small device from the side of his belt and fed my card into it. “What are you doing?” I asked.
“Relax. I’m checking to make sure it’s not demagnetized.”
He held the device up and watched the screen. A series of colorful lights flashed in a somewhat random pattern, and then the machine beeped repeatedly. Two additional Martians joined him.
“Beryn, what’s going on?” one asked.
“I don’t know. This Plunian couldn’t get her card to work in the machine, so I scanned it.”
Beryn kept his eyes on the screen while the other Martians stared at me. I felt like a space amoeba in a Petri dish. I wanted my card, but it was in Beryn’s machine and short of grabbing it from him and running, I didn’t know how to get it back.
Beryn looked up. “Your card has a security flag on it. You’re being tracked.” The little green men stepped away from me, but Beryn didn’t eject my card. “I heard some of the officers talking about a crime committed on the ship yesterday. They think there’s an imposter on board.”
This time I stepped back, away from the group. Our initial encounter had been conversational, but I knew from the BOP that if these men had reason to believe I—or anybody—was acting without Moon Unit’s mission top of mind, they were in their rights to subdue me. And even though their small Martian stature made them appear less than threatening, there was the unfortunate ten-to-one ratio that wasn’t in my favor.
I looked around the room. Even though I’d been on the early side, the cafeteria was now near capacity, filled with over twenty crew members. My brain imprinted with the colors of their uniforms and in a second cataloged them: medical, communications, supply, and flex. Not a single face was familiar. Or friendly. I backed away from them, first one step, and then two.
Beryn wasn’t willing to let me leave that easily. He grabbed my wrist. My nerves had turned my temperature hot and seconds after he touched my skin, he pulled his hand away. “What are you, some kind of freak?” he asked. He looked around the room. “She burned me. Who let a stupid Plunian onto the ship anyway?”
Two other Martians grabbed my arms and held me into place. I twisted to get loose but couldn’t. Beryn pulled a spectrometer off his belt and held it up. “There’s one way to find out if you’re the impostor. Get a sample of your blood and analyze the spectrum.”
I wriggled to free myself, but more small green hands held me from behind. The tip of Beryn’s spectrometer was a centimeter from my arm. He could pierce my skin with the flick of his thumb and gain a sample if he wanted. There was no telling what would happen to me if he did.