[Pup]

  She guessed that Moose wasn’t happy with how lazy he got to be.

  ‘Kitty did say he is really lazy. He does a lot of work though, so I thought she was just wrong.’

  She had learned at this point though that Kitty was rarely wrong, she just was very hard to understand.

  If Moose wanted to be lazy but couldn’t because he worked too much, she started to see the shape of what he wanted.

  ‘How do I be a quartermaster? I know what a mechanic is, and he probably wants someone to handle flying, but what is a quarter and why does it need a master?’

  She knew what a master was of course, she had had a few. Moose was the best one she could ask for, so she guessed it made sense that he could do that job as well, but it didn’t give her tips on how she could help. Or how she could learn.

  ‘Do I need to have a slave to be a master? Can… can slaves own slaves?’

  She knew she couldn’t do a lot of things as a slave. Being a slave did mean she didn’t need to worry about any of this stuff, at least before now, but it stopped her from doing a lot of things. She had heard numerous times that the crew wanted a slave to do ‘something’, but they always got told off, saying there was no way a slave could do that something.

  ‘It makes sense. I don’t know what I need to do to own a slave. I was never there when someone wanted to own me.’

  It seemed like she had found her way to a lot more work than she had anticipated.

  It worked out well in the end.

  She didn’t know where they were going, but it took a long time to get there.

  Aside from Kitty asking a few times if she knew where Moose had gone, both Moose and Kitty seemed to vanish for long stretches of time. Only really showing up to enjoy food or the rain.

  She embraced it.

  She did her best to get as much attention from Moose, usually whatever was left over after Kitty was sated, when the three found themselves in the rain or in the bedroom. Food time was for food, obviously, she made sure not to ruin that.

  It wasn’t a lesson she was ever bound to forget.

  Moose still did work on the little book before he slept. If he slept. Moose seemed to be in the middle of work when she finally felt the dreams take her. Every time. She wasn’t sure how he managed to stay awake for so long, but she wished more than once that he would do those things in the mornings when she could be there the whole time.

  ‘Learning would be faster if I could do it without forgetting half the things because of sleep.’

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  Even with that though, she was doing well. In her opinion. Between coping from Moose and getting the two passengers to tell her what everything meant, she was learning a lot.

  ‘Not what I want to learn though.’

  She had found Kitty right once again. Moose seemed to have two different kinds of words. One was in trade, which was what she was learning. It had taken time to understand Kitty, as she called trade ‘small words’, but once she figured out how the woman viewed them, she discovered that Moose had… other words.

  Words that were magic.

  According to Kitty, they were Moose’s words. The words Moose spoke and Kitty tried to speak. The words that made magic happen.

  Moose words.

  Once she figured that out, she desperately wanted to learn them. She couldn’t though. The passengers couldn’t read or even understand what she meant when she described what she wanted. The only one that could teach her was Kitty.

  And Kitty wanted to trade for each word.

  She said that was how they worked.

  Not only was that another revelation, it set another goal for herself. She needed to find a way to trade with Kitty for words and to make Moose happy for head pats and rumbles.

  ‘Ah, Moose used magic on me for the head pats!’

  She stopped on the ramp. No wonder the head pats were so good! The rumbles were magic words, she had been the target of magic!

  “Something wrong?”

  The growl actually escaped this time, but she stopped it quickly enough. She didn’t like her happy moments getting interrupted by the passengers. It turned them back into intruders, except for her happy moments rather than her home.

  Which was worse.

  Fortunately, she only needed to shake her head and Baylor kept walking. She had learned their names, but didn’t like to use them. Not unless she had too.

  It was a good thing then that they weren’t trading here. The Crova couldn’t find a buyer for the cargo they had and no one thought they needed to buy more. The storeroom seemed pretty full.

  This station seemed to have open docks for large ships though, some kind of travel hub according to what she heard. It was strange not coming into an industrial section right off the ship though.

  “You only need to authorize for the fees, I can look for people by myself.”

  She let a little growl into her voice.

  “It’s not people for you, I’m finding people. I found you just fine.”

  She might not like the fact that they were taking opportunities from her, but if Moose wanted more people she would get him some.

  “If you want a reward tell me where to find a human. Maybe even a human slave.”

  She watched the male closely, making sure he didn’t lie. He did seem very surprised though.

  “What? First of all, you can’t find human slaves. Even with a collar, they aren’t controllable. No one is willing to trade in them. Secondly, why do you want a slave? Didn’t you say you were a slave? Why get someone like you?”

  That… made her plans change. If she could be a master by getting a human slave, she could do three things at once. Surely that was good enough for a head pat. Since it was a human ship, she needed a human mechanic. If there were no human slaves, she would need to take things one step at a time.

  “Fine, if there are no human slaves we can just find a human. Why does me being a slave change anything?”

  It seemed he didn’t have an answer for her.

  “Ugh, fine. We can look for a human. I don’t think we will find a slave here, the stations too nice for that.”

  That was good enough for her, so she followed the male into the station.

  Nothing seemed to be happening, everyone the male talked to not being helpful, right up until they were told that there was someone staying in a nearby room that might be able to help.

  When the door shut and a mechanical sounding voice spoke, she decided they probably weren’t helpful.

  “You are elusive. Stay there until I can come collect you.”

  Baylor didn’t seem to like that, but he started frantically working everywhere but the door.

  ‘Why is he so dumb?’

  If a door wouldn’t open and there were people on the other side, you bang on the door. That was common sense.

  She didn’t expect it to open as fast as it did. She shouldn’t have been surprised though.

  ‘Why is it never Moose?’