“Oh, but Doc, I don’t want to be here,” she said, clinging to him. “It’s not safe for me here. I just want to stay with him. Someone is going to break in here and who’s going to stop them– and I don’t have anything here!”

“Someone will bring you your things,” he said. 

She could have wept in frustration. “I don’t want my stupid ball and cards, I need protection.”

“You’re safe here. Nobody can break into these doors. You can set a passcode. Nobody knows it. You have a lens. You can even set alerts for when someone walks by your door, if it makes you feel better. No one knows you’re here except for the people in that room just now.”

“If that bad Bru– if that bad Refaite is on the security team, he’ll find out where I am! Doc, he wants to hurt– I can’t fight a Refaite,” she said, limply. 

“You’re a known quantity now. You’re no longer a ghost on this ship, Ruby,” he said, pressing her pass into her hand then. “No one can harm you… Not in any way. No more drugs, no more Pilings, no more. The team will still be keeping an eye on you. You can set an alarm for your door– all you have to do is hit the panic button and someone from the security team will come to you. And I bet you know perfectly well who would come running first. You need to breathe, girl.”

She laughed slightly hysterically then. How had he learned the tone with which to use ‘girl’? What human had he interacted with before her? Or were there many? Dead or alive, or just gone away? 

“I’d still rather be with him,” she said, after she caught her breath. “And he wants me, so I don’t know why we have to–”

“Ruby,” Doc said gently. “This is his job… At least for now. You should just feel lucky no one questioned the difference between Pilings time of death and when you were brought to my medical bay.” 

She froze then. She knew Doc knew, but they’d never discussed it. Outside of their brief and circumspect conversation about anatomy when they’d first met, they hadn’t talked about it again. He’d asked her again and again if she was ‘okay’ and she understood why he was asking. But they’d never really talked about it. 

“Sit,” Doc directed. 

She looked around the room for the first time. It felt oddly like walking into a very small child’s playroom. But it was only because everything was actually scaled for a human in this cabin. Desk, chair, countertop, bed, all were human-appropriate. After living for months in Refaite-sized rooms, this felt Lilliputian. She sat at the desk. 

“I have things to go over with you, and not much time. But I need you to understand something, all right? I know you think life was cheap on Earth. It is a thousand times cheaper off-planet. Now breathe, and listen to me, and think about what I’m going to say next without interrupting me or saying a goddamn thing. If your Refaite, with minor investigation, and what I understand to be a mere memo of disapprobation, killed a human for suspicious activity, including what he himself referred to as assault… How kindly do you think they’ll look upon him for the way he’s been using you?” 

“He’s not–” she began saying when he leaned toward her, clicking his beak.

“I said breathe and listen. Not interrupt or say a goddamn thing,” he said. 

She shifted uncomfortably. Biting her tongue because she still wanted to say he hadn’t ‘used’ her. Or… She’d allowed it. At first. But things had changed and–

“Count your Milky Way lucky stars that there are no monitors in the cargo hold,” Doc said. 

She opened her mouth and swiftly closed it. Feeling oddly childish, she folded her hands in her lap, crossing her ankles and nodded. 

“I can’t stay much longer, and I have more to tell you before I leave you alone,” he said, instantly holding up three tentacles in a ‘hush’ gesture when he heard her mouth popping open again. 

“The security team retrieved a good deal of physical cash in Pilings rooms,” Doc said. “They assumed that was the totality of his take– which wasn’t a bad guess, my understanding was that it was a chunk of cash. Our friend, the Quinametzin who made your pass, helped us with another little task. We’ve been skimming Pilings’ digital funds for days. We gave a fairly substantial cut to our Quinametzin, for his trouble, and his silence. But we’ve been funneling it into your chip Ruby. You’re not set for life, but you’re going to be comfortable for likely a good long while, so long as you don’t have any vices I don’t know about.” 

“Oh,” she breathed. 

“And you have your Refaite to thank for that,” Doc said. “And I don’t know if you know just how uncomfortable he is when he doesn’t feel law-abiding. He’s bent a lot of his own rules for you. I don’t think he meant to. I think he’s incredibly conflicted about what this journey has been for him. I’m guessing you’re a bit more flexible. A bit more willing to live in the gray. Based on your little performance in the tribunal just now, which I heartily applaud, I think you’re pretty comfortable being the clawing, surviving cat on the ship. Killing rats in exchange for meals, accepting pats when it serves you. I admire cats a great deal, and I admire you. But understand, your thought processes, your scale of comfort are nearly totally divergent. So be thankful, and perhaps try your best to cause him no strife.”

“Okay,” she said, lip trembling. “But just… Ask him to come to me?”

“Sweetheart,” he said, finally softening, finally not using the snipping, commanding tone with her any more. “I don’t think he’s going to–”

“Give me a minute,” she said. “Pass him a letter for me?”

He clicked his beak, then waved his tentacle at her in a ‘go on’ way. She almost burst into tears when she realized that of course her notebook wasn’t there. Doc clicked again, taking a little memo pad from his hip pocket, and something more like a marker than a pen. She flipped a messy page over and wrote quickly. Heading it with his symbol at the top. And just come to me soon, in incredibly clumsy, blocky Refaite.

She handed it off to Doc, who clicked, tucking it carefully into his pocket. 

“C’mere,” he said, gesturing to her door pad. Giving her the rundown on all the alerts and codes she could put in. Which one was her panic button, while she nodded and memorized.

“Ruby,” he said, heading back to the door. “Don’t be a dumb coward when you’re not. You’re a brave, smart little girl.”

“Uh-huh,” she said, definitely feeling more like a dumb coward than anything else.

Once Doc was gone, she really began feeling forsaken. Jack’s cabin was smaller than the Brute’s– no surprise there. It was obvious to her that the Brute outranked Jack. It was entirely sterile. She whipped open cabinets and the desk, and saw nothing at all. Edgy and nervous and terribly unhappy. She hadn’t felt so in-space since having her face pressed to the window of the airlock. It was easy to forget how unmoored and alone you were on the spaceship. Surrounded by walls, the sound of the engines sometimes. No windows, no portholes. More like being in a well-lit cave. But right now, she could feel the weight of endlessness crushing in on her.

Her door blipped, after two hours of her pacing the one-room cabin. Shying away from the bed, as if she’d find Jack’s corpse under the mattress.

She went to it, and peered through the appropriately mounted lens to see outside. Ecstatic, to see her Brute standing there. She quickly hit the open buttons, ready to fly into his arms, already grinning. But he wasn’t alone. With one of the Brutes from the tribunal. The one who had heard her speak Refaite. Both of them holding rubber tubs. He held her food, the other held what she assumed was the rest of her belongings.  

Once the door was open, they set the tubs down in the threshold, neither of them stepping through the doorway.

“Come in…?” she said, hesitantly. Speaking English. She could feel the birdy attention of the other Refaite, waiting to see if the idiotic Weakling could do another parrot-trick. 

“We have many duties to attend to, and no need to enter your quarters,” her Brute said. Startling her again with the godforsaken translator. 

She started breathing heavily, through her nose, trying not to let her eyes well up. She knew her Brute would know what that signaled, but she wasn’t sure if the other would. Besides, she didn’t want to cry. 

“Thank you,” she finally said, breathlessly. Crouching, hooking her fingers around each of the bins and dragging them through the door. Before she was even standing upright again, they’d both marched off. The other Brute looked back at her several times, glancing over its shoulder to watch her sneaking her things back though the doorway. She watched for a moment, to see if hers would turn at all. But he didn’t. Finally, turning her back on his, her face away from the intrusive eyes of the other, she closed her door. 

She didn’t know what to do, so she dragged the bins over to the desk. Curling herself up in the kneehole. Kicking out in frustration, spilling the tub that held her ready-meals. He’d packed in extra water tabs, she saw. One of his glasses, too big for her hands. Face to her knees, arms wrapped around her shins, she stayed buried under the desk for a long time. How was she supposed to go to bed? She couldn’t sleep in Jack’s bed. 

Finally, she started laying out the things from the other tub. Ball, pens, cards, cribbage board, workout block… What was the point of having the Mmishac board if there was no one else to play with?

When she got to her notebook, she tossed that as hard as she could across the room. Letting it hit with a clunk against the wall. Knowing it was silly and embarrassing to act out her anger and fear like this, but utterly unable to stop her tantrum. When she looked at it, fallen half open on it’s face on the floor, she realized pages must have come loose.

She crawled to it, snatching up the looseness, still more irritated than anything else. One of the loose pieces had been the wrapper from the fruit he’d given her. She snarled, crumpling it into her fist. Instantly releasing it in a spasm of regret. But of course it just spread back open again. Some sort of plasticated thing, not able to be ruined by being crunched in her hand.

The other, she thought was paper that must have come loose. But it wasn’t. Her letter, her clumsy blocky recreations of Refaite characters; come to me soon. Again, crunching it in her fist, until she realized there was red ink on the other side. The pen he’d given her. 

You’ll be safest if I don’t.

She fell onto her back on the floor, letter fluttering to her chest. Too angry, too tired to cry. After a while, she sat up. Picking up her notebook. Giving it a futile shake to see if anything else would fly free. Giving it a quick flip through. A page had been torn out of it, she realized. Finger on the ragged seam. Trying to remember what had been on that page. She so often sketched mindlessly. Just pen to page while her thoughts moved along. 

She flipped back and forth. Trying to figure out what was missing. It was something recent, closer to the end of the book. 

It finally hit her. Little vignettes, just as she usually did. A quick sketch of her new nose ring. His hand holding jerky. A strawberry between his canines. He must have wanted it. 

She passed hours in a daze. Knowing she was skipping meals, unable to work up an appetite. Not working out, nor drawing. Listlessly reading nonsense novels from the library deck. Fussy. Unable to sleep. Napping occasionally underneath the desk or up in the chair. Never for long. Always waking with a start. Certain she heard someone battering at her door. 

From the fact that she’d charged the deck twice, she decided between 45 and 50 hours had elapsed since the Brutes had dropped off her things. 

She began pacing again. These quarters were nine steps, toe to heel. Nine and her toes in the other direction. 

After another five hours, she worked her way backward. In another two hours or so, it was roughly what she guessed was the time he usually went to the mess hall. Basing this on when he used to return to his cabin, and the fact that her leftovers were usually room temperature, not cold. She could show up halfway through what she was estimating was the service time. Look around and find him. Based on the size of the training grounds, even the mess hall wouldn’t be that big. 

It took a long time to steel herself. And once she opened the door, she stood vibrating still inside the room. Screaming at herself to step out! It took longer than she’d ever be willing to admit to do so. 

She went back inside, after the door slid shut, though. Grabbing up her first pen, holding it close in her fist, and burying her fist in the pocket. Was it a good weapon? Hardly. But the barrel was thick, the material strong metal, not plastic. She couldn’t reach a Refaite’s eye, but she reckoned a sharp upward thrust where skin felt thin over their belly, or maybe the inside of a leg, would have some power to at least create a lull in an attack and an opening for escape. 

Shit.

She stood in the center of the hallway. Where was the mess hall? She couldn’t even navigate to any of the few places she had been, forget where she hadn’t been. She didn’t even think she could get back to medical bay and ask Doc for help. She didn’t think that he’d be too willing to help her in an ambush, anyway.

There were no maps or anything around here. No title cards outside of doors. Just endless rivers of unmarked doorways. 

She stood, considering just starting to run and seeing when it took her when she heard what she could only think of as an inquisitive burble. 

“Missus… Human?” a voice asked.

She was about to take off running, but at least it didn’t sound like a Refaite, or a Gray.

She turned, seeing it was a Nomo. Tent’s might have been the most alien looking alien to her, but Nomos were right behind. Reminding her of something like a very tall sardine with limbs and whiskers. In soft, pretty colors that always surprised her. She knew the slurs for them, too; Fishy and Ugly Mermaids. 

She turned, at least her torso. Keeping her hips twisted, feet ready to run.

“We met at the hearing for officer Pilings… Do you require assistance?” it asked.

She realized this must have been the one sitting beside her. Or hoped it was the sympathetic one who had been sitting beside her.

She slipped into fawning like a comfortable pair of shoes.

“Oh, yes, please! I don’t know anything. I’m very scared, this is my first time on a spaceship and–”

“Of course, of course,” the Nomo said, approaching her rapidly now. She thought it’s fluttery and rather pretty facial whiskers were going to start beating at her face. “Where do you need to go?”

“I’m hungry please, Uncle,” she threw out the affectionate respect to see if it would land, if the translator would do this favor, if the Nomos had anything similar in whatever their cultural heritage was.

“Oh, of course, bebe,” the Nomo almost cooed. 

Another moment of internal triumph. 

Tucking a cartilaginous limb around her elbow comfortably, it started guiding her down the hallway.

"How are you adjusting, bebe? Did the doctor clear you? More and more these days we have illicit drugs on-board ship, and they wreck absolute havoc, and we seem to simply hire more and more criminals. And seemingly they are getting worse all the time! Imagine stealing a little thing like you and forcing her off her home planet! And there are so few of you humans left… A shame, really, a shame.” 

She patted the limb wrapped around her. Watching the skin flush more yellow as she did. A busybody and a catastrophist. Making sure to look up and sideways through her lashes at him. Enjoying the waving flutters of his facial whiskers. Flittering as if there were a breeze in these airless corridors. 

“The doctor said I’m weak but healthy, Uncle,” she lied smoothly. “I’ll be all right soon enough, with no lasting trouble. I just need to be careful. Thank you for your concern… Everyone has been so kind to me.”

“The civilized peoples of the universe have a duty to do right by each other. My people feel an especial urging to conservation. I’ve always rather had an interest in humans, since so many of your peoples have been lost in exploration and colonization,” he said. Eyes turning down on her. Feeling that same hot and prying curiosity in his tone. Everyone wanted to hear the horror stories. Take a sip of the trauma and shudder in disbelief at the cruelty. 

“And I’m no explorer or adventurer, Uncle,” she said, laughing. Voice going higher. Making sure to talk softly so she wouldn’t crack. “I’m just lost.”

He burbled again softly, a sound of sorrow or maybe ersatz sympathy.

“Pilings really ought not have taken a female human, either. An especially cruel crime against yourself and humans. For the females are the ones who bear young; yes? So many humans are fetishized and fewer and fewer of you are reproducing…” 

Internally, she went quite cool. But the coolness helped her play up the act. A little disgusted, but not moving from him, or taking her hand from his limb on her. 

“I wouldn’t know about that, Uncle. I’ve never been off-planet, or even to the trading cities on Earth to meet anyone besides humans at the treaty trade areas.”

She began to hear babble, rising noise. There was an open doorway ahead of them. 

“Here we are, bebe. Sit with myself and my colleagues,” he said.

They entered the mess hall then. The noise was baffling. Unlike how a large public space would be built on Earth– with higher ceilings, this was the same as the rest of the ship. So conversation, utensils and kitchen noise bounced off walls and low ceilings in echoing rounds. Hardly an enjoyable place to eat. She probably wouldn’t take her meals here, if she worked aboard ship. But it was dauntingly huge. With three rows of mass-produced steel tables. The first was physically the largest– comfortably sized for Brutes, Tent’s and Quinametzins. The middle appropriate for Indrids, Venusians and Nomos. The last reminded her of grade school cafeteria tables, clearly for the Grays. 

The makeup of the tables weren’t actually split along specie lines, however. There was a good deal of mixing. It seemed that most individuals chose where they sat by jobs and duties. She saw similar style uniforms sitting together, rather than sitting along specie lines. Obviously, many of the Grays bunched together, but she saw several sitting at the big tables. 

Head on a swivel, she looked around for her Brute. Scanning the big tables first, of course. Every time she saw Refaite mottled skin, she got excited. It was never him, though. It was especially hard to tell when their backs were to her. The blur of everyone in similar drab uniforms, worse.  

Even if he wasn’t here tonight, she’d come back. Which might have to happen anyway, because she wasn’t quite sure how she was going to shake this intrusive Nomo.

He took her over to one of the mid-sized tables. A few more Nomos, a singular Brute, two Grays, and many Venusians. She saw they all had the same insignia over their left breast. Which she had seen a few at the tribunal as well. Not like her Brutes, which she realized identified him as security, and chief officer. She wasn’t sure what the symbol was, but she’d guess she was currently sitting at what would be the “C-Suite” table at a company picnic. 

“Brothers,” the Nomo said. “This is the human rescued from the cargo hold.”

They looked up, either in boredom or interest. A few of them clearly recognized her from the tribunal, and she nodded and smiled at them as friendly as she could. The Nomo handed her into a seat. 

“Thank you for letting me join you,” she said politely. 

“Of course, of course, are you settling well?” a Venusian asked. She stared carefully, trying to figure out if it was the head from the tribunal. But fairly sure it wasn’t– slightly paler than the leader. 

“Yes, thank you,” she said, folding her hands in her lap and letting the conversation bubble back up to the level it had been at before.

She started glancing around surreptitiously. She felt many staring eyes on her, but that was no surprise. Besides, she was used to being watched. Let them look. It wouldn’t be all that surprising for a newly rescued kidnap victim to stare. Nor for an Earth born-and-bred human to stare at aliens. She felt she could comfortably scan all around her. 

She shifted, and as she did, she found him. Sitting at a table, close to the mess line, his back to her. 

“I see something I want,” she said, pointing to the mess line.

“Ah, of course,” the Nomo said, clearly about to stand. “I forgot to get you a tray–”

“Not necessary,” she said hurriedly. “It’s been… so long since I’ve been able to stretch my legs or walk. I don’t mind getting my own.” 

She shot up out of her seat before he could protest any further. Making her way in a slow, wavering walk to the mess line. Hoping he’d see her and intercept. Making sure to cross his eye line as she did. 

Reaching the food, she stared in wonder at all the options. Wanting to grab massive handfuls of everything. Wondering if anything would make her sick or kill her. Noticing then little flags sticking out of most of the food compartments. Silhouettes. Seeing the horned and heavy browed Brute, whiskery Nomo, three-eyed Venusian, many limbed Tent’s and hugely wide Quinametzins. She found some compartments showed all silhouettes, others only some. A few with a heavy purple slash through the silhouettes. She slid along. Seeing, at last, what she understood to be the human silhouette. Little head, arms and legs. A purple slash over it. So that, she probably couldn’t eat. But everything else seemed, at the very least, to do her no harm. She sniffed a little. Throwing a glance over her shoulder.

He’d definitely seen her. Because he was pointedly looking away from her. She slid a tray along, grabbing little bites of anything that smelled or looked appetizing. Ready to absolutely binge on fresh food. Stomach rumbling for the first time in a long time, and realizing how long it had been since she’d last eaten. Had it been the last time he’d brought his leftover tray back to her? 

She suddenly saw that jerky. The one he called Pet’s favorite. Looking over her shoulder at him again. He was still ignoring her. She saw the little flag; Refaite and human silhouette on it. Wondering if that was why he’d gotten that as the first thing he brought to her. One of the few things that just had the two of their silhouettes on it.

She leaned forward, meaning to grab double handfuls of it. Wondering how to transport several servings of it back to her new cabin. She couldn’t quite reach. Looking around for longer tongs, or something to step on. Considering mounting the metallic lip, where the trays were supposed to rest. Just put a knee up there and lunge for what she wanted.

“I would be glad to assist, human, so long as it tells me what it is reaching for,” a translated voice said over her head. She looked up and for a second, her heart leapt. Refaite… but not hers. She stared at it for a bit longer. The curious Refaite, the one who’d asked for another taste of her speaking his language. 

She weighed her options. She felt absolutely no violence from this one at all. Less, even, than she’d felt off her own. Of course, it was intimidating, her head almost all the way between her shoulders to look up at it. But unlike the bad Brute, she sensed no ill intent from this one. And its curiosity was less prurient than the Nomos and others. 

“Thank you,” she said, pointing to the jerky.

It prised up several pieces for her, laying them on the tray.

“More, please… sir,” she tried. Leaving it in English this time. 

It huffed, getting her more.

“A healthy pick, human. A good energy source. A good fighting food,” it said. 

“It tastes good to me,” she said, glancing over her shoulder again. Now her Brute was watching the two of them, intently. 

It huffed again, and she knew this time it was amusement. Leaning on the bar for trays, it  bent forward, to look at her better. 

“Come on,” he said, and even with the translator it sounded more like a purr. “Do your trick again. No one believes me. And officer No’ahz isn’t backing me up.”

“No’ahz?” she questioned.

“Your minder,” he said.

She’d never heard his name. He’d never told her. Of course, she’d never told him her name either. She didn’t know how to feel about it. That the first time she heard it was from a stranger’s mouth. That the first time she’d said it, it wasn’t in his ear. 

“You pronounce well,” he pushed. “Did he teach you? Or are you just a clever little Wea– Human?”

She noticed and filed away the fact that he’d stopped himself from calling her a Weakling. She didn’t know what to do with the information, she just marked it. Based on her Brute… No’ahz, she didn’t think coy or victim would work on him. 

“Have you ever met a human before?” she asked. Beginning to slide her tray along again. 

“In my usual stomping grounds, you’re all long-dead,” he said. “You’re a sneaky little thing, aren’t you? And No’ahz isn’t saying a single thing about you.”

“What do you want to know?” she asked, finally reaching the end of the line. Waiting for her Brute to come to her. She didn’t feel in need of a rescue, but the whole point of being here was to see him again. She was beginning to be overwhelmed by the cacophony, of hearing a couple of hundred translated voices speaking all at once. Of the conflicting smells of the kitchen. 

“More,” he said, lifting his forearms up, blades out in the way she knew was a bit like a shrug.

“But your time is up,” she said, pantomiming sadness for him, shrugging herself. 

She walked back to the bureaucrats table. Crying out in her mind for her Brute to follow after her. Escort her all the way back to his room and back to bed. Of course, he didn’t.

She sat back at the table. The conversation didn’t even pause this time. Eating little bits of everything. Shoving the things that weren’t any good to the far corners of her tray. Covertly pocketing the jerky for later snacking in her hip pocket. 

There was a sudden outburst from the small tables. A speedy jabbering, with rapidly raised volumes. She fisted her hand back around the pen in her pocket. It was getting noisier by the microsecond, and the Grays at the small tables were scattering. She sensed a riot brewing, made all the more frightening because she couldn’t place the source or reason. She began to stand, but the Nomo forced her back into her seat.

“It is nothing,” he said.

A Gray across from her looked at her. Almost making her shiver, because it looked so like the ones that had accosted her in the training grounds.

“Ignore the synths,” it said to her. And he spoke alone. “As their organics wind down they become… unmanageable. But we haven’t found a better solution to labor than synths.” 

She had known there were both “natural” and built Zeta Reticulans. And she’d actually seen a few on Earth. But she’d never be able to visually tell the difference. She was realizing now that apparently the synths worked as a hive. That the organics were individuals. But she still wouldn’t be able to tell the difference just from looking at them. And she assumed the dislike or hatred of humans was built in the synths by the organics, so it didn’t really matter. 

The outburst became widespread. And mirrored on the opposite side of the hall. The table her Brute was sitting at exploded into action. Seven Refaites leaving the table in a coordinated squad, cutting swiftly across the mess hall toward the building riot. 

Wiping her hand on the inside of her pocket to remove sweat, she began to withdraw the pen. The fight was roiling outward from the table it had started at. And while no one around her seemed particularly concerned, she knew she’d be at a disadvantage compared to them. Besides, like privileged people everywhere, they were sure of their safety. She wasn’t, and never would be.

The security team arrived at the far end of the mess hall and began cutting down synths indiscriminately and so rapidly that she was stunned. She glanced briefly at the Gray across from her. But it continued calmly eating its meal, barely watching the fray. Then she looked at the Brute at the table. It nodded briefly in approbation at the action, but also returned to eating. Further troubled that the Grays bled, and nearly human-like. More pink than red, but similarly viscous. And they screamed. She wanted to cower under the table. Not least of all, because no one else seemed at all surprised or upset by what was happening. She had no love for the Grays and would likely always shy away from them because of the synths in the training grounds. But hearing their high and squealing cries was impossibly horrible. She covered her ears but couldn’t look away. Watching the nearly rehearsed and repetitive downward strikes of the Brutes arm blades. Slicing open bulbous heads and spineless backs. Worse still because they made no noise whatsoever as they killed. Seeming bored, utterly untroubled and making no effort whatsoever. A Brute lifted a screaming Gray off the ground by its wrist. She watched as its arm came loose from its mooring in the Gray’s torso. The thing hanging limp and screaming several feet off the floor. He suddenly snapped it in the air like a wet towel, and she watched it get suddenly… longer, as the joints in its back all loosened. Still screaming, subtly falling apart before her eyes, the Brute dropped it onto one of the steel chairs. She watched it try to struggle up, head shifting, the arm that wasn’t dislocated waving wildly while the other lay limp. And then the Brute dropped a knee on its head. A sudden upward spurt of brilliantly pink blood. Dousing the Brutes pants, the underside of the table and the stool.

“You’ll ruin your appetite, bebe,” the Nomo said, tapping her tray to try and get her attention back to her food.

Hysteria was rising in her again. No one was acknowledging the carnage, not really. It felt like a nightmare. 

Silence suddenly reigned. 

“Team TL18 to mess hall,” rang out over an intercom she didn’t know existed. Never having heard it in the Brute’s cabin. “Decontamination.”

In less than a minute, a team of Grays entered through the mess hall doorway as a bumbling group. Twenty-five or so, with buckets and cleaning supplies. Beginning to clean up the massacre. Two of them working as a team to lift corpses and drop them in buckets. Other’s mopping the floor, still others swapping the table and stools. 

Watching this was a thousand times worse than watching the killings. Grays lifting and tossing other eviscerated and still screaming Grays into shallow buckets. How the blood began to be diluted, turning pale and beautifully rose pink on the metal.

She was suddenly lifted out of her chair and into the air. She began kicking and crying out. The Nomo she’d been sitting next to her raised a fluttering arm upward.

“It would be best if I escorted the human back to its quarters,” a translated voice. “It is not accustomed to these kinds of environs.” 

“It is nothing to be concerned with, Missus human,” the Gray said. “Mere synths falling apart. Being dispatched. I know it seems frightful, but they’re hardly real.”

They seem real to me, she thought, hearing echoing screams. Still held a few inches from the ground, she turned around, tendons creaking in her neck. Her Brute.

“I’ve finished my meal,” she said, to the table at large. “And I’m very… I’m very worn.” 

“The ship's doctor did say you weren’t at full health,” the Nomo said hesitantly.

“I’d like to go back to my room,” she said. As her Brute set her back on her feet, she heard a spattering sound. More of that almost flower-pink blood dripping wetly from his blades down to the floor, staining her socks. 

She felt her meal rising back up her throat. How the Grays seemed stuffed with blood and soft, light gray organ sacks. And that when blades slid through them, they burst at the seams like overfull balloons. She gulped, backing against her Brute. Grabbing her officiously at the elbow, he started walking her hurriedly toward the doorway of the mess hall. 

As they came closer to the doorway, they also crossed closer to the ‘small’ side of the hall. There was an ever-widening puddle of bloody water spreading across the smooth floor. She saw floating mucosal blobs in it as well. Something that reminded her of a cow’s cud, an arm without a torso. She stared at up at him, his eyes straight ahead, claws punishingly digging into the soft part of her upper arm. Begging him. Though he didn’t glance down at her, he must have known. Lifting her suddenly, one arm around her waist, the other still gripping her upper arm. Draping her over the crook of his elbow, as he used to. Walking her through the watered down gore so she didn’t have to. She closed her eyes, though, because her face was toward the floor, and she was closer to it. Doing her best to hold her breath. She didn’t know how it would smell, but she didn’t want it in her nostrils when she was returned to her cabin. 

Once they were out of the mess hall, he set her back on the ground. Though she wished he hadn’t. They hurried along, not speaking. When they made it to her door, he stood close behind her as she plugged in her passcode. She almost sighed in relief as he followed her through the door.

“Do I have to be worried about that bad Refaite?” she asked him, as soon as the door slid shut.

“No,” he said. “There are too many eyes on you now. In fact, I shouldn’t be seen with you. There will be too many questions about why I’m interested in you, and why you’re interested in me.”

She was about to nag about the translator, but thought better of it. From his stance, she could tell he was impatient to be out of the room.

“What about the other one?” she asked. “In the mess hall?”

“He’s a good warrior, but too clever for his own good. Do not be concerned about him,” he said.

‘Too clever for his own good’ did indeed feel like something to be concerned about, but she didn’t contradict. 

“Stay with me,” she said. Holding up a hand to stop his objections. “Just for a little while. You look… Your body is hard used. I can help you… Clean you up.” He was slathered in gore, from the knees down and the elbows down. He saw her eyes on his blades, and stepped back from her.

“Just… Stay in your rooms,” he said, heavily. “Not safe for little females.” 

“I wasn’t going to be ignored,” she said. “You abandoned me.”

“I am keeping you safe,” he said. “Think for a minute… If I keep returning to you. If I linger around you. If I show up where I ought not, when I have no reason to any longer… How long do you think it will be that other’s start sniffing around, wondering why I want to be with you?”

“Just stay for a while now, then,” she said. “Let me clean you up. No one will notice that you’re gone after… all that at the mess hall. I can take care of you.” 

“Being with you is like being in the nursery again,” he said. “Being taken care of… And nurtured… It’s not good for me.”

She let out a sharp exhale. Finally stripping off her socks, because she felt them tackily sealing to her skin with the blood they’d sopped up. 

“You act as if I don’t understand you,” he said. “When I do. We’re the same. Used for our bodies. Evaluated by our usefulness to others, and how easy to use we are. When we’re found useful and easy, they take a bite. Just a little bite. Enough to make us bleed, but no so much that we perish. And they bite, bite, bite. Pleased and astounded to see how much damage we can take and still stand. Until we’re stripped bones, standing and still moving. Then they become disgusted and astounded to see that we go on. Our weapons might be different. I see yours; playing at baby–” he tapped his throat, to indicate her high-pitched voice, trying to show wide eyes and only succeeding in letting his nictitating membrane slide over his eyes. “Playing at seducer, playing at caretaker. It’s just different tactics for the same purpose– survival. But I am not a baby, nor seducer, nor your caretaker. Whatever it was that we were, or were doing, has passed. Whatever is next is up to you, and I cannot, and shall not, be a part of it.” 

“Then call me protected, warrior,” she snarled. 

She’d never been sarcastic with him before, but he certainly knew what bared teeth meant. She didn’t like how he saw through her. Didn’t like that he called what she did either tactical or survival. That it made her sound underhanded, unethical and cowardly. It clearly wasn’t what he meant. Whatever morality he was raised with didn’t mark any of her behaviors as either bad or good. But she knew what she looked like to other humans. 

He turned his back to her, moving toward the door. 

“No’ahz,” she said.

He stopped, palm over the button to open the door. Forehead leaning up against the steel. He didn’t ask how she’d learned it. Nor even seemed surprised that she did.

“Be safe, Ruby,” he said. Shocking her. The door slid open, he stepped through.

“How do you know my name?” she asked.

“From your pass,” he said, letting the door close.