The waves were high today, Apollonia thought, watching them beat against the pilings that made up the base of the Outpost Alexa.

The waves were high every day, she reminded herself ruefully. Every single day on this planet looked like footage from some monstrous storm on Earth.

When it got really bad, when the winds racing a hundred or more knots came in, the waves towered like tsunamis. Never quite reaching the outpost, but sometimes there was a warning to use only indoor corridors.

She imagined the outpost swayed at times, under those winds and waves, but Cenz himself had assured her;

"This rig and its pylons are constructed from some of the strongest carbon materials. They can be used to make space elevators or towers that breach the atmosphere. This rig will be the last thing to fall on this world, even after the mountains have crumbled."

Among the pylons below, the porpishes were playing, jumping from one wave to another. Sometimes they even looked up at her, seeming to beg for attention.

"Eh, I got Everett down to sleep," Zey said, coming up next to her. "What're you looking at? Oh, those things. They're creepy as hell, if you ask me."

"The porpishes?"

"Is that what they're called?"

"It's what I call them," Apollonia replied with a smile.

"Yeah, well, they need to mind their own business," Zey said, glancing down at them critically. They seemed even more excited now that two humans were looking down on them.

"They just want to play," Apollonia said. "I think we're still new and neat to them."

"Yeah, play with our dead bodies," Zey replied. "One researcher tried swimming with them early on, I heard. They dragged him down and when they figured out he was using a rebreather they pulled it off him and he drowned. Then they kept playing with the corpse."

"That's just a rumor," Apollonia said. Though, it was probably true. "You said you got Everett to calm down?"

"Yeah. Whatever that drug those !Xomyi gave him, it finally seems to be wearing off. Man thought he was Tarzan."

Apollonia laughed even though it wasn't funny. The young diplomat had been invited by the !Xomyi he'd been with to try some mystic drug in a ceremony. It apparently hit humans far harder than !Xomyi. After he'd taken it, he'd acted a complete fool, even eating a huge amount of their food.

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It had overwhelmed the processor in his stomach, and since they'd brought him in he'd been vomiting and pooping almost constantly. All the while, though, he was still trying to climb the walls.

It wasn't the first time they'd seen it. An advisory bulletin had been sent out, but there was a lot of difficulty; rejecting some sacred rite you were asked to partake in could ruin the trust that had been built.

Well, at least it had given her experience, Apollonia thought. She'd never thought she'd have to clean a grown person's butt, but now she felt like an old hand at it.

The first time had been the worst. She'd only had to watch as Zey had worked.

"Don't we have a drone that can do this?" she'd muttered.

"On the ship we have plenty. But down here, we only have one soft arm."

"Soft arm?"

Later, Zey had shown her the robot arm made of a soft, warm polymer that felt like human flesh. "You don't want something hard-edged going in sensitive places," the nurse had told her.

Which made sense. It made less sense not to be using it.

"You still need to learn," Zey had said with a shrug.

"Sure, but then we can use the gummy arm, right?"

"You know what the gummy arm can't do?" Zey asked. "It can't be a person. Replacing the human element of health care - of most fields - is just something we don't do."

"Surely we could make robots that look and sound like us, though," Apollonia had pointed out.

"Don't get me started on that can of worms," Zey had said. "Now show me what you've learned."

And so Apollonia had cleaned butts.

Now she was well experienced at it, and it hardly even seemed a big deal.

A long way to come, she thought.

"He's probably going to have one hell of a hangover tomorrow," she said out loud.

"Tomorrow he's gonna wish he wasn't alive," Zey replied, sighing. "Short of scrubbing all his blood and organs, we've done all we can for him."

"Wow, we can do that?"

"Yeah. Not assistant-grade stuff, but yeah," Zey said. "We have a portable internal scrubber here, but it's only for serious cases."

"Who would have thought that the !Xomyi have such primo shit?" Apollonia thought aloud.

"Pfft," Zey replied, waving the idea away.

Apollonia let her gaze go to the mainland.

Zey was quiet, messing with her system, but after a while she leaned up next to Apple.

"You look like a love-sick puppy, looking out there," she said. "Is it Alisher?"

"Huh?" Apollonia asked, caught off-guard. "Oh, no. He's great and all, I'm just . . . thinking about the mainland. All those dinosaurs."

"The not-dinosaurs that want to rip your face off and eat it," Zey said. "Not the handsome, dashing officer who clearly really likes you?"

"That's right," Apollonia replied, almost defensively. Sure, Alisher was great, but dinosaurs . . . well, these ones were going to be gone soon!

"You two still having dinner on the regular?"

"Yeah," Apollonia said. "Last night. I had some noodles . . ."

"Dark, you're dating him and you're thinking about the noodles?"

Apollonia watched Zey for a moment, feeling a gulf between them. Food still rated as just one of the most important things to her mind.

Alisher was great, she thought. So great that she kept telling herself he was great.

And he truly was. He was kind, respectful, talented, funny . . .

Her thoughts drifted elsewhere.

"So imagine," she said suddenly, forcing the topic to a subject she actually wanted. "If I was out there."

"Okay," Zey replied warily.

"And I found a little adorable dinosaur. Maybe it's a baby. Like, not a baby of something that'll get huge. And not like helpless. But, you know, adorable."

Zey narrowed her eyes.

"And it sees me, and it's like 'you're my new mom'. I'd have no choice but to take it in! I mean, the whole world is doomed anyway, so what does it matter? It'd be an act of mercy."

Zey crossed her arms, one eyebrow going up.

"I'd name him Little Zey," Apollonia said on a whim, loving Zey's look of disbelief. "And he'd be much smarter than we expected. Like, nearly as smart as a person. And my little buddy."

Zey clicked her tongue, let out a long-suffering sigh, and turned away. "This is what happens when I leave you alone."

"He'd be a great sidekick!" Apollonia added.

A ding came on both of their systems. It was an automated alert, telling them that Everett was up again. And stuff was coming out of him.

"It's my turn," Apollonia said with a sigh, pushing off the railing. "I'll take care of it."