“You're lucky I'm on board, you know?” Kwil, the Crimson Indigo's second in command told me. He had spikes coming out of him like a porcupine, and compound eyes and mandibles like a bug, but he stood like a human on two arms and two legs, and that meant they had a bed we could fit in on board. A heavy respirator hung over the lower half of his pointed face, connecting to canisters on his back. One bed meant they could synthesize more. He also used the same kind of toilet as us, I discovered much to my relief.

  He told us this in the Crimson Indigo’s dining commons. The ship felt sorta like a ghost, a massive complex of expansive rooms with almost nobody to be seen. The white and grey colours didn't make the interior any less sterile.

  Kwil was officially the ship's ‘Security Officer’ but I wasn't sure how much that meant considering there only seemed to actually be three crew members.

  “Where is everybody?” I asked, not in the slightest resisting the urge to drag my fingers across every surface I could see.

  “Well… Yzptxl’s in a shallow grave, Miska’s ashes were scattered somewhere near the Betelgeuse system, Bren is at the bottom of a methane sea with lead weights dangling from his shell, and Bucky… Bucky’s avoiding making dinner.

  The Captain was showing my friends to their rooms, Kwil had pulled me aside and asked me if he could test something out when it became clear I was the furthest away from any manic episodes or breakdowns. Not dinner-making Bucky was the third of our saviours. I hunted about on the floor, scanning this way and that until I found him, hiding under the table. He looked a bit like a soccer ball (I'd seen them before on the television) only all of the hexagons were flat surfaces, with little feelers coming off them, allowing him to drag or roll himself around wherever he pleased. Every bulkhead on board the ship had a retrofitted little Bucky-door installed with a small pressure pad he could roll onto to trigger it.

  “What… I don't mean to sound rude…” I asked Kwil. “What exactly does he do?”

  “I happen to be the best astronavigator you've ever met,” for some reason the translator decided that Bucky was a middle aged British gentleman of the snarky butlery variety, somewhere between Alfred and Jeeves.

  I raised a hand. “Erm… you're kinda the only astronavigator I've ever met.”

  “Well there it is,” Bucky rolled past my feet, clicking as the edges of the hexagons scraped against the floor. “If I'm the only one you've met, then I must be the best.”

  I raised an eyebrow.

  Kwil pulled me along by the shoulder. “Ignore him, he's an eccentric, and he's very proud of it. Thinks the little academic schtick is charming.”

  “It's not merely charming, it's delightful,” he called back as he passed through a Bucky-door.

  “How… how is he actually communicating? Not through the translator, I mean in his own way. I don't hear anything, and his colour isn't changing.”

  Kwil lead me to a machine of the kitchen wall as we spoke. It had about the proportions of a microwave turned ninety degrees.

  “He releases pheromones through his skin that indicate the message he's trying to get across. The translator unit can read them. Put your hand in the machine, please.”

  “It's not gonna chop it off, or crush it, or even stab it with anything?”

  “No of course…” Kwil paused as though he'd remembered something important. “It probably won't stab you with anything, now put your hand in if you don't mind.”

  “What is it?” My head was going to explode from excitement, but I was tired and wasn't sure more excitement was what I needed right then.

  “We're going to figure out what your body can metabolize so the ship can synthesize it.”

  I gulped. I'd had more than enough of bonesaws for the day. Still. This was some Subnautica shit. I reached into the hollow cavity in the centre of the machine, and a thin green laser scanned my hand, roving from my fingertips to my wrist.

  “Compiling,” a neutral female voice said. Even the machines had built-in translators.

  While I waited, I couldn't help but ask Kwil, who was sounding progressively more tired with each answer. “What do you eat?”

  “Lots of proteins made to imitate the ones in my body. My species come from a planet with a methane atmosphere,” he pointed out his respirator. “And lots of sulfur in the environment too. So I need to have sulfur in my body or it struggles. Now can we please have some quiet time.”

  I set my jaw and watched the analyzer do exactly nothing while it processed my genetic makeup. It was a struggle.

  “So what's up with the q-”

  “Would you look at that!” Kwil interrupted. “Looks like it's ready. He tapped a few chunky analogue buttons. Looks like it's got every macroelement you need loaded into it besides zinc. We'll need to land somewhere and top up on that before you die.”

  The panic caught up to the fascination in an instant, and my heart felt like it was going to stop any second. “How long will it take me to die without any zinc? They only teach this flavour of science in gym classes.”

  This seemed to amuse Kwil, whose bristles flattened against his skin, which the translator treated as a laugh. “Honestly… I have no idea, but we'll make landing in a few days, so you should be fine.”

  “Does zinc deficiency make your skin peel off? Or your teeth fall out?” I asked myself.

  “Just eat whatever else it is this thing can make you, at least we'll know if your teeth are going to fall out sooner rather than later that way.”

  “You're not very nice, you know that?”

  “My job is shooting people for a living. What part of that screams gentle language and a friendly demeanour?”

  Something occurred to me. “You think I could get this thing to make a McRib?”

  His quills flared out. “A what?”

  “Uhh, you know that big animal my little sister forced you to let on board?”

  Mel had somehow convinced the captain, even as he was pulsing ochre regret to bring the cow on board, along with as many of the other animals as she could before Kwil started threatening to shoot them on the spot. Even as I spoke to him, a blearly looking chicken clucked and bobbed across the dining commons.

  “Yes?”

  “That, but deader, and with more seasoning.”

  “The downside to a machine that can make anything is that, as it happens, most things are non-descript flavourless grey goop.”

  “Well, it was worth a try.”

  Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.

  He shrugged. “If you're a F’llll’zz’vkra’vkra’vkra’grvu you get a full selection of delicacies.”

  “There is absolutely no way you didn't just make that name up.”

  “Of course that's probably because they really like grey goop.”

  “I refuse to believe that F’llll- F’llll’v- Fl- whatever is a real name!”

  “They don't have very efficient linguistic patterns.”

  I tried to turn the machine on, only to realize I couldn't read the symbols on any of the buttons. “How do I ask for grey goop?”

  “Ladies and Man, dinner is served!” I swaggered into the blank white four-bedded room we'd be staying in, carrying a tray piled with three-dee printed plates of grey goop. I'd say I'd tasted some, but I'd tried to taste some was probably a more accurate description.

  I was met with absolute silence. Three faces looked up at me in three different stages of crisis

  “Come on guys, a little enthusiasm? We're trying space-food for the first time! And it's got everything our bodies need except for zinc!”

  The stranger ran a hand through his hair. “No zinc?”

  “They said they'll pick some up later in the week.”

  “Good,” he released his thick black hair and stroked it almost like it was a pet. “Can't be having these beautiful waves fall out.”

  He cracked a smile, the first I'd seen from him, and I couldn't help but laugh.

  Hiding her face from me, Jackie got to her feet and stormed out of the room.

  Mel was sitting on her bed, glaring at me.

  “What did I do?”

  “Oh, maybe it has something to do with the fact that you still haven't noticed that we aren't on a silly little adventure and that we're actually stuck out here? Mom and Dad are gonna think we got kidnapped or murdered.”

  “We did get kidnapped-”

  “That's the whole point, Tommy! We're gonna end up on milk cartons for fu-”

  “Language.”

  “Oh God, Tommy just shut up! You're my big brother, why do I need to tell you how to be a normal freaking human being!” and she strutted after Jackie.

  I slumped down on my cot, considerably discouraged. “Could that have gone worse?”

  The stranger grunted. “I could've walked out too.”

  I didn't let myself cry. If it'd been just Mel in the room I might've, but guys don't cry around guys. It's just now how it works.

  “Are you planning to?”

  “Only if you piss me off.”

  “It's bound to happen soon enough, it's a talent of mine,” I slouched, poking at my grey goop, and setting two full plates aside on the girls’s beds.

  “Oh believe me, I've noticed.”

  “I just… I mean I know it's scary and everything, it's really scary, so scary I might explode any second, but I just don't get how they can look out into an endless expanse of stars and not feel the slightest hint of excitement or freedom or curiosity. We have access to a millionfold what our ancestors could and the only thing they can think of is going home.”

  The Stranger shuffled uncomfortably on his cot. It had divots in it for slotting in methane canisters.

  “Your sister's just a kid, one planet’s big enough for her, as for Jackie… I don't think she isn't curious. I think she's disappointed.”

  “Disappointed? How could you be disappointed? We're not alone in the universe and now we know it, this is the single most amazing discovery anyone of our generation has ever made!”

  “We went to space and discovered aliens, and discovered that even in their faster than light society, everything still comes down to evil CEOs stepping on everyone below them. Guess she just hoped that the future would be a little more Star Trek and a little less Blade Runner. Oh and being forcibly separated from your family sucks. That too.”

  Something deeply embarrassing occurred to me. “I am so sorry. I just realized I don't even know your name.”

  He held out a hand. “Jean. Jean Bhatia.”

  I caught it and gave it a firm pump. “Tommy Wong.”

  “I picked that up when the girls were taking turns shouting at you.”

  “You were shouting too before.”

  “I was in an adjustment phase.”

  “So we're cool?”

  “We're cool. For now,” he winked.

  “We're both going to have panic attacks the minute we try to go to sleep, aren't we,” my laugh cracked.

  “Yep.”

  The sense of good humour drained out of the room and the reality of what was happening finally sank in. For real this time. I thought about what Mel said. Goddam milk cartons. What would Mom and Dad do? He'd probably pretend he was tough and stay all stoic looking while he fell apart on the inside. She’d melt down for the first month and then end up being the one who'd actually have to carry his emotionally crippled spirit forward. All because we were gone. God, some idiot part of me felt selfish for even thinking someone could care about me so much. Then I felt selfish because I hadn't thought about them nearly as much as they'd probably been thinking about me. I felt guilty for assuming they'd be thinking about me that much. The loop reset.

  Jean ate some of his grey goop.

  After swishing it around his mouth a bit, and making an attempt to chew, he declared. “I think I want to go home too.”

  “Yeah?” I said, still lost in thought

  “Not sure space is worth it without McRibs.”

  “There's always Mel’s new cow? What was she calling it. I couldn't hear any words other than ‘dinner’ while looking at it.”

  “Your own sister's pet cow and you can't remember its name!” he affected outrage.

  “I'm sorry that's number thirty four as far as the ranking of weird shit that's happened today goes.”

  We drifted back into silence… back into feeling bad with nowhere to put the emotions.

  “You should talk to them,” he said after a while, softly.

  “What?”

  “The girls. We're stuck with them either way, no point spending time butting heads. Talk to them.”

  “When did you go all Gandhi,” he'd seemed so confrontational when we met.

  “I'm not always an asshole, dude. I was just… I was having a really bad day when we met is all.”

  I didn't push.

  I knocked on the door of the room Jackie was hiding in.

  “Eat a dick!”

  “Can I eat it after I come in and talk?”

  She didn't respond.

  I considered just turning around right then and there, but somehow I felt like that would just make things even worse.

  “I'm coming in now!”

  More silence.

  I tapped the door panel, and let it slide apart, revealing a storage closet. It had all the usual things you'd expect to find in a closet, sweeping machines, spare parts, emo teenagers.

  She was huddled on the floor, clutching her knees.

  “Can I…” I screwed up my eyes for any spare space in the closet. “Can I come in?”

  She nodded. I sat down beside her. I'm not tall, but I have long legs, and the stuck out at a weird angle as I tried to cram myself in with her without invading her personal space.

  “I'm sorry I've been a dick,” I finally said, when I couldn't think of a prettier way to phrase it.

  Jackie sniffed. “How are you so okay?”

  “A mix of being autistic, delusional, and just plain old stupid, I think.”

  “When are we gonna go home, Tommy?”

  I placed an awkward hand on her shoulder. “I don't know… I don't know. But we will. We will. I promise. We'll get these Glorax assholes off the Earth's back, and we'll go home and we'll tell our parents we're okay and everything with go back to… well I can't say it'll be normal, but it'll be a new normal I guess. With aliens in it.”

  “You remember when we went to the lake together?” she asked.

  I remembered. I stifled a laugh. The queasy look on her face had been priceless.

  “Yeah. You got to the point where your toes couldn't touch the silt, and even though you were a way better swimmer than me you flipped out and started thrashing and panicking. Almost pulled me down with you.”

  “It was just... Something about such a big emptiness that terrified me. So much nowhere to swim in… the room we were in before with the beds… I looked out the window and…”

  I patted her on the back hoping that would somehow magically make her feel better.

  She hid her face in her hoodie. “I don't like it here, Tommy.”

  I wished I could just agree with her and tell her I didn't like it either, but I couldn't lie, so I just kept my mouth shut. She leapt out of her hoodie and pressed her face into my chest. Some snot was mixing with the tears on my chest but I didn't have the heart to tell her.

  “We'll figure something out… I mean we've already got more friends up here than we did down there.”

  I relaxed a little. The Captain seemed nice. We'd figure something out. I was sure we would.

  After a minute, she pulled her face out and wiped her eyes with her palms. “Thanks, Tommy.”

  “Come on,” I smiled. “Let's go get some grey goo.”

  I was trying to figure out the best approach for Mel when a synthetic beep started repeatedly droning, puncturing my ears. Indigo lights flashed over and over. Alarm bells. We were being boarded.