Apollonia felt exhausted. Her feet hurt as she left Resources, hating the dim lighting down here. Several times she thought she heard Boku-boku lingering just out of sight, but when she checked her tablet it said there were none nearby.

"Is anyone out there, Angel?" she asked the little dog. But the dog in the bee costume only got excited when she heard her name, wagging her tail so hard her entire rear end shook.

"Don't think I didn't notice you napping when I was working," she said to the dog. "So now's your chance to work and tell me if I'm alone!"

Angel just started panting in excitement, dancing around her legs.

Well, she decided, it didn't seem like anyone in the Sapient Union to stalk her, even those weird little shits, so it was probably just her tired nerves.

Her poor mood put her in a klepto mindset; back on New Vitriol one stole whenever they could get away with it. Sure, if you got caught you might get a kicking or a night in lock-up, but you always needed stuff, and even if you didn't need the thing you took, you could probably barter it for something you did.

But what was the point on the Craton? No one lacked for anything. The whole goddamn Union was like that, as far as she knew, except maybe on the fringe colonies.

Finally finding her way back to the lift, she was surprised to see Kiseleva as the doors opened.

The woman gave her a curt nod, and Apollonia felt even slouchier as she moved to stand next to her in the small lift.

"How was your training?" the woman asked.

"Boring," Apollonia replied. She noticed that Angel had sat down to her side, watching her.

She had missed the parade, done a piss-poor job, pissed off her co-workers, and it had all been stuff better suited to drones.

"Was this just about seeing how I dealt with boring shit?" she asked.

Kiseleva glanced over to her. "That was a factor. Being an officer in the Voidfleet means doing the tasks that need to be done. Even if they are dull."

"It sure was dull," Apollonia said.

Kiseleva turned more to look at her. "Thousands of years ago, humans sailed the oceans of Earth in wooden vessels. They often relied upon the wind - you know what wind is, yes?"

"Of course I do," Apollonia said back, a little snappishly.

"Sometimes the wind would die down," Kiseleva continued. "And the boat would be dead in the water - unable to move. Do you know what they did then?"

"What?" Apollonia asked.

"They waited," Kiseleva said. "They called them the doldrums."

"Are you saying we are in the doldrums now? Because really it did not seem dull at the giant and awesome party you pulled me out of."

"You do not want to hear it now," Kiseleva said. "But it was for your own good."

Apollonia glared at her. For the first time since Gohhi she thought about peering into a mind; she could do it, she imagined. If she focused enough.

Look into Kiseleva's mind; find something that would freak her out, get her to fuck off and stop saying this stupid, banal stuff.

But even as she had the thought she mentally recoiled.

No. The last time she had done that she'd touched a serial killer's mind.

It had left marks in her.

Sometimes, she woke up in the night, and thought she might have been dreaming his dreams.

Angel barked, once, sharply, snapping her out of her depths.

"Are you all right?" Kiseleva asked, her expression serious.

The mood in the elevator had turned. Not just from her mood, Apollonia realized. Her . . . presence, or whatever it was, seemed to palpably ooze from the walls.

Looking up, the lights in the elevator themselves seemed dimmer. The whole space smaller, more claustrophobic. Kiseleva would be getting the brunt of it.

"Yeah, I'm all right," Apollonia said, suddenly feeling much more sober than before. She looked down at Angel, but the dog seemed cowed, nervous.

Whining about missing the parade suddenly seemed a very small thing.

The doors to the lift opened.

"Let's go," she said to Kiseleva. She still felt glum, but at least she wasn't being petulant anymore.

Kiseleva seemed thrown off; Apollonia could see her struggling on some level to comprehend the change that had just occurred. But to her credit she was continuing on.

"Follow me," the woman said. "I know you are tired, but there is something else I wish to show you. I think you will appreciate it."

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

They were back on the ship proper - in the science area again. It was bright enough in here that the dinginess she seemed to have created receded slightly.

Apollonia hoped that Kiseleva meant she might actually get to see the astronavigation stuff, and she followed the woman with a cautious optimism.

But maybe she had ruined that chance with her change.

Kiseleva was watching her. It was subtle; it was only the woman's eyes glancing slightly her way. But she was, and her expression while doing it was . . . odd. It wasn't fear, or hate, but it was something.

"Something bothering you, Sergeant?" Apollonia asked.

Her words came out more challengingly than she intended, and Kiseleva looked at her with a frown. "I must admit something; I did not know you were as young as you are, and it bothers me that I did not see it. It seems obvious, looking at you now, that you are young."

"People often get surprised," Apollonia said. "Even when I was kid people often seemed to think I wasn't. Maybe I just have a serious face or they couldn't look past how I made them feel."

"Perhaps I expected too much from you in prior training," Kiseleva admitted. "And have judged you too harshly. You have gone through a lot for someone your age."

Apollonia knew she had, but it felt weird to just agree. She said nothing to that, but nodded a little, partly in thanks but mostly just for acknowledgement.

Kiseleva was just looking forward again as they moved, but there still seemed something antsy about her.

"Was there something else on your mind?" Apollonia prompted.

Kiseleva glanced away. "It is nothing," she said.

"Does that nothing have to do with that mission?" Apollonia pressed.

Kiseleva stopped and turned to face her fully.

"Yes," she admitted. "It does."

"What, then?"

Kiseleva shook her head. "It is not appropriate for me to say these things."

"Well that just makes it sound bad," Apollonia said. "Up until two minutes ago you were ready to chew me out for being whiny. But now . . ." She tilted her head. "I freaked you out, didn't I?"

"You did," Kiseleva told her bluntly. "Two minutes ago you were a petulant child. Then, in a moment, you changed. It's like you're . . ." she snorted and looked away.

Apollonia leaned slightly into her field of view, raising her eyebrows in question.

"It's like you're suddenly the ranking officer and I feel out of line," Kiseleva said, sounding confused.

"Well, why don't you just go ahead and say what you were thinking? I don't mind," Apollonia replied, feeling oddly calm now. Kiseleva normally intimidated her, but at the moment, after her more sobering realization, fear of the woman seemed almost silly. Not that Kiseleva wasn't obviously a dangerous woman in the right circumstances, but this was not that kind of situation.

"I was thinking," Kiseleva said slowly. "That I wish I could have resisted that effect that froze us all - the way you did."

"You don't know the baggage that comes with it," Apollonia replied, a dry laugh coming out. "It's a sacrifice," she added.

Kiseleva was silent a moment longer, then nodded. She turned to face forward again.

"I understand," she replied.

"It's the only thing I'm good for, really," Apollonia said. It wasn't even self-pity talking. She just knew it was true; she had no skills or talents, she was not good at . . . anything. Not even at an amateur level.

Kiseleva shrugged. "I wonder, Apollonia Nor, if you truly want to do anything, or if you just wish to justify your existence?"

"What?" Apollonia asked, eyes widening as she was caught off-guard.

"It seems to me that you balk at many tasks. But you wish to be more than just passively useful. You undoubtedly are; your simple existence is justification enough, from a value standpoint, if that is how you wish to reckon your worth. It is not how the Union views life, but I cannot stop you from making your own judgments."

Apollonia looked down and away from the woman, her mind roiling again.

"Your childhood, as abrupt and terrible as it was, did not prepare you for being a member of society," Kiseleva continued. "And so it leaves you now feeling like a parasite."

"I'm not a parasite!" Apollonia snapped.

"No," Kiseleva replied. "You are not. But I fear it is how you view yourself."

She turned, beckoning Apollonia. "Come."

They walked again, coming to a set of white double doors with a massive insignia and words on it that read;

Astronavigation

Charting the Stars

Apollonia felt a slight tingle down her spine as Kiseleva opened the doors.

Angel ran in, wildly sniffing, with Apollonia and Kiseleva following at a more sedate pace.

The room was huge; extending up through five normal decks, with a huge hologram in the middle. In the center was the Craton, and out beyond it, at distances she knew to be - literally - astronomical, were stars.

One point of light was in front of her, and she reached up, waving her hand through it. Her fingers tingled as she touched it and she laughed.

"I never thought I'd touch a star," she said.

Kiseleva walked to the middle.

"This is our current sector of space, twenty-five light years out in all directions. In that area are over a thousand major objects - stars and brown dwarfs. Anything that holds its own noticeable system."

Apollonia stared at how many there were. "These are their actual relative positions?"

"Yes," Kiseleva said. She took a long, slow breath. "It is a tiny piece of our galaxy, yet overwhelming in its scale already."

"It sure is," Apollonia said. "So . . . how do we reckon our position?"

"There are many ways," Kiseleva said. "And I will show you, if you wish."

The door to the room opened again, and Apollonia stepped back guiltily, as if touching a holographic star was akin to stealing.

In the doorway, looking as surprised as Apollonia felt, was Urle's eldest daughter, Hannah.

She was a cute kid, Apollonia thought. She had large eyes and a very serious expression, belied slightly by her costume of a lion with a huge mane. If she'd had makeup or a mask, she'd removed them, and her eyes widened as she saw them.

"Oh, sorry," she said. "I didn't know I was interrupting."

"It is fine," Kiseleva said. "You may come in."

"Uh, yeah. Welcome," Apollonia said.

Hannah watched her curiously, only peeling her eyes off to look to Kiseleva as she came up to her.

"I just wanted to do some practice," she said. Angel ran up to her, and she petted the dog fondly. "Oh, hi Angel!"

"That is fine," Kiseleva said. She looked up at the stars, considering a moment, then looked back to Hannah. "Show me how to find Earth."

Hannah looked up from the dog, her face scrunched up as she studied the stars. "It's pretty hard without a clue . . ."

"There are three F-type stars on this map," Kiseleva told her. "One of them lies between us and Earth."

With a nod, Hannah stepped forward into the middle of the room, looking up. She reached a hand up, moving it in a certain way, and the whole collection of stars moved.

"Whoa," Apollonia said, stepping back out of the way. "I didn't even know we could do that."

"I'm just trying to find the F-type stars," Hannah said. "Once I find those I can start trying to figure out which way Earth is!"

Kiseleva came over to stand next to Apollonia.

"How can she find the F-type stars?" Apollonia asked quietly.

"None are labeled, but she can analyze their spectra. But before she can do that she must sort the visible stars by brightness. F-type stars are a larger type of star, though not the largest."

"You use the shift of the light to determine their distance, right?" Apollonia said, a long-ago memory of learning awakening in her head.

"Yes," Kiseleva said, seeming pleased. "Through accounting for that shift, you can determine their distance and therefore their absolute luminosity. Once you have that you can determine their mass."

"Handy that she has an app for that," Apollonia noted.

"She wrote her own," Kiseleva said, smiling a sly smile.

"Wow," Apollonia said, her eyes widening.

"There! That's Phi Ceti!" Hannah said excitedly, pointing. "I recognize it because it's a variable F7 star! Sol is 50 light years that way!"

Kiseleva applauded lightly, and Apollonia joined her.

"That was really impressive!" Apollonia said, coming up to the kid and clapping her on the shoulder.

Hannah beamed at her. "Thanks! I've been working hard on it! Candy?" She held up a bag that said SQIPZ on it.

Apollonia had never had those.

"Sure," she said, taking one. It just looked like a colorful little sphere. When she popped it into her mouth it created a burst of flavor. "Wow, that's good."

"Yeah! Elliot gave them to me," Hannah said. "They're really good!"

"It is getting rather late," Kiseleva said. "Perhaps you should go home now, Hannah."

"Yeah," she said reluctantly, glancing up at Apollonia. "It was nice seeing you again, Ms. Nor."

"You don't have to be so formal," Apollonia said quickly.

"Take Angel with you," Kiseleva told the girl. She glanced at Apollonia. "If you are okay with that. The dog should return to her home bed."

"Yeah, that's fine," Apollonia said, reaching down to pet the little dog one more time. "I'll see you around, little bee. You did good, thanks for sticking up for me with Phadom."

"Phadom in Resources?" Hannah asked as she squatted down to pick up Angel, who seemed perfectly happy to be carried. "I go to class with his son. He's also Phadom, but he's Phadom Po. It's like 'junior' in Bokese."

"Oh," Apollonia said, surprised. What did a little Boku-boku look like? It might be adorable.

"Well, bye Teach, bye Apple!"

Still holding Angel, she ran off, and Apollonia sighed. Her nickname was catching on, and part of her missed Angel already.

"Why did she call you teacher?" she asked Kiseleva.

"I am the teacher of the Astronav Pioneers Club," Kiseleva said.

"Wow, isn't that a lot on your plate with being in Response, too?"

"It is my hobby," Kiseleva told her. "I do it simply because I enjoy it - though I am a rated Astronavigator."

"Wow," Apollonia said. "I have no idea what that means." She sighed, her amusement falling away.

Kiseleva studied her in silence for a moment. "You find this exciting, and for that I am glad. But you must look beyond simple childish excitement. Even at her age, Hannah is considering becoming an astronavigator. Is that what you want, Apollonia? Because if it is, it can be so."

"I don't know," Apollonia said. "You're right, it's cool. And maybe I could do that, I don't know. But, damn, that kid can do that and I barely know anything. I feel humbled. I've just never thought about what I wanted to be, for real. Everything I've ever thought of was a fantasy. An escape, not a future."

Kiseleva reached up and put her hand on Apollonia's shoulder, the warmth of it comforting.

"I think," she said, "that you need to let go of your fear of being viewed as a dead weight. Once you do that, you can figure out what it is that you truly love, and what you want to do with your life."