[Moose]

  He wasn’t sure why this visit was so much shorter.

  He had just settled in, doing his best to get comfortable, because he expected another all-nighter.

  What he got instead was a loud request for a shower from Kitty.

  As the girl had padded in, he noticed Pup and her friends back at the door. Though it seemed Pup’s friends didn’t want to stick around for this conversation.

  “We can’t have a shower yet Kitty, we are trading. We have to leave first.”

  That didn’t appear to be what she wanted to hear. She turned to Pup and started chirping, causing the smaller girl to shake her head and seem defeated.

  “Pup say done. Say not trade. Small things, not big things. Not like.”

  ‘That was certainly a sentence.’

  He really didn’t know how to parse that one, but a few back and forths between the three-person telephone got him a rough idea. They got some things but didn’t have everything he was looking for.

  ‘Shame. Could have really used those information books.’

  “Alright, if everyone is ready and we are set to leave we can go. You will still need to wait for a shower though.”

  A quick chirp and a double nod, one of which was unnecessary, got him turned around and back at the controls. Disembarking was almost as easy as docking, the ship doing a lot of the work. He imagined that the station was using guides and route calculators to send location and piloting data to the ship. It’s what he would have done, and had seen done for lesser things, for a traffic space like this. The three dimensions would make the calculations cost more, but it gave a lot more options as well. It probably worked out to be better overall, compared to ground traffic.

  Something neat to think about, but little more than a way to idle away the time as the ship maneuvered away from the station. He wasn’t about to leave the ship without a pilot in an active space like this. Even if they had true AI, he knew two heads were always better.

  ‘Not that I’ve seen anything to indicate they have a general intelligence. I would have expected to see some kind of sign if we had that kind of computing power out there.’

  He waited for about an hour as the ship sped away from the station, not leaving until they had passed the outermost planet’s orbit. He hoped the map was as detailed as it appeared, he had been basing a lot of his calculations on some relative measurements. It did seem to have a scale calculator, or at least a number that changed as he zoomed in and out, so he could tell if he was at the same scale if he had to stop in the middle of a calculation.

  ‘It’s great that a lot of the math for the jumps is all symbolic. With the computer plugging in all the numbers as it goes, I just need to make sure all the equations are right and set the correct variables. We would still be stuck in dead space if I had to do all that solving without a calculator.’

  You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

  He shivered at the thought of trying to do proofs out here. It would be a nightmare.

  Not being an asshole, he didn’t like leaving the ship somewhere that others we likely to find it in their way. He bet they all had competent crews and didn’t need the sometimes days it took him to figure out where they were going next.

  Kitty was very insistent for some reason though. He knew she enjoyed the shower quite a bit, but she normally would figure it out herself if she wanted one badly enough. The fact she insisted he be there only really happened if she was feeling neglected.

  ‘I suppose that tends to happen when we leave a system. I take so long with the math that she basically gets forgotten. Maybe she’s getting ahead of it this time?’

  Not that he really minded. Once the ship was safely out beyond the higher traffic areas that he had seen, he really wasn’t in any rush. He was very happy to have a decent night’s rest in his own bed rather than being stuck in the chair that was much too small for him.

  ‘Hmm, maybe I should see if I can move those benches in the mess hall. If I can find the right tool, I’m sure I can remove the top of that swivel chair. If that stapler is beefy enough for metal, I might be able to cobble a nice seat out of a bench and a crate lid. At least that way it won’t feel like I’m sitting on a pole.’

  Musing on the various ways he could staple a chair together, he let Kitty half lead half pull him into the showers. It was so routine at this point that he barely paid the girl any attention as she chirped away.

  ‘I guess Pup joined us.’

  Kitty used only his english when they were alone. If there were others, namely Pup, around, she would switch between the two seemingly at random. When he had needed to rethink his indifference to Pup after he had noticed the sizing trends, he had started paying more attention to her location. The fact she might be a gown adult, uh… female, had never entered his mind before then. He had absolutely no idea what the life cycle for aliens was, so he had gone purely off her size before. Now that that wasn’t an option, he had to face the fact she very well might not be young.

  He had dismissed it again fairly quickly. Pup was so small compared to him that it short circuited that part of his brain. Being conscious of that kind of thing just didn’t compute when any two-person activity would need to be ‘creatively interpreted’ to being with. Best just to ignore it completely.

  It helped to avoid barreling into cultural problems as well.

  That had caused a brief side tangent to Kitty though. Something which he immediately about-faced on and pretended it didn’t exist. Whatever it was. Despite, or maybe because of, the fact she was currently wrapped around his waist, he didn’t have the willpower to face that kind of introspection. Unraveling that rat’s nest of ethics and unknowns could wait until he had literally nothing else to do.

  Or more likely until Kitty forced the issue.

  ‘I just hope she has a much better vocabulary by that point.’

  It was almost certainly a pipe dream, he could probably plot the inevitability on a graph with how much she seemed to be experimenting with things.

  At least whatever quest she embarked on to sleep had yet to lead her in that direction. He still didn’t know why she insisted that her ear had to be connected to his chest. The fact she didn’t seem to care one bit about the location or configuration of the rest of her body baffled any attempts to figure it out.

  It did let him move her to a spot where he could work in his little book though. Which was good, as it let him calm down and focus on something academic before bed. He was testing his translation skills today. He had written down their need for crew members, attempting to get a list going.

  ‘At least Pup keeps a little distance. Compared to Kitty anyways. That intense stare will probably follow me into dreamland though.’

  He shivered a bit.

  Life was strange.