The door closed behind Elliot, and Zeela looked back to Iago. “Okay, what’s troubling you this much, Iago?”

He was still on the floor, and with difficulty started to get up. She came over to help, but he waved her away.

“I’ve been having a problem with my cleaning drones,” he said shortly, the effort of standing seeming to make him winded.

“Is that all?” she asked, injecting just enough doubt to hopefully prod him to say more.

He didn’t take the bait. “Yeah. They’re acting weird.”

Looking around at the stuff that had been hastily shoved into piles, she summoned a special set of cleaning drones. They took a minute to arrive, but were more capable than standard ones, for more serious situations.

While they waited, Iago got up – he seemed to be trying to exaggerate how easy it was – and moved to sit in his chair.

“What kind of problems have the drones been having?” she asked him, once he was seated. The new drones arrived and began to eagerly clean up the piles of junk, sorting and trashing expertly.

She watched Iago for a reaction to them, but he only gave them an idle glance and then seemed to tune them out, as most did.

“They just weren’t cleaning properly,” he said, but it sounded evasive.

“I’ll send them off to get maintenance and get you a new set,” she said. “In the meantime I’ll have these ones assigned to you – just to make sure everything stays clean! This is unacceptable, how messy they’ve let this room get! I’m so sorry about that.”

The man nodded. “Thank you, Zeela.”

She waited a moment before asking her next question. “When was the last time you spoke to Dr. Y?” she asked.

“The doctor?” he replied, a hint of annoyance in his voice.

“To make sure you’re okay,” she said gently. “It’s very normal, Iago . . .”

He waved a hand. “No, I’m fine,” he insisted.

She saw some confusion go over his face. Perhaps he wasn’t even sure why he was saying what he was.

Because he was clearly lying to her face.

“Thanks for coming to deal with it. I guess I didn’t really need to bother you after all-“

“Is your chair damaged?” she cut in. “You’re bleeding!”

Iago lifted his arm sharply. There was a smear of red, but the cut was not deep.

“Fisc,” he spat, a dirty spacer’s curse.

“I forgot,” he admitted. “The arm got damaged. Maybe the drones caused it, I don’t know.”

That seemed highly unlikely, but she accepted it for now.

A small first-aid drone buzzed over, and administered a skin spray and sealant that stopped the bleeding. He scratched at it idly, the skin now healed as if the cut had never been there.

“Well, I’ll get a new chair sent down right away – and for goodness’s sake, stop sitting in it, you’ll cut yourself again! Blood is supposed to stay on the inside, Iago!” she chided.

He smiled at her, and though it faded quickly to something serious and he looked away, she took it as a good sign.

The man hated to show weakness, she thought.

“I’ve sent you a permission to message me directly,” she told him, patting his shoulder. “At any hour! If you have any more problems with the drones.”

“All right,” he replied.

“Just promise you’ll reach out if you need more help.”

He hesitated, then nodded. “Thanks. And I know you’re swamped with work, so . . . thank you for making the time.”

“Of course,” she said. “This election is a bite, though! But soon enough it’ll be over and things will be back to normal.”

He glanced up at her. “You think Brooks will be re-elected?”

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

“I don’t think it’d be appropriate for me to give my opinion,” she admitted. “But I certainly think things will calm down.” Which was, without saying, her opinion on the larger question of the tribunal.

People could imagine Brooks no longer being their mayor; but not their captain? That seemed to be something most were not even considering.

She went to the door, glancing back. “How about I send you something nice for dinner?” she volunteered. He could have ordered whatever he wanted, naturally, but few had as much intimate knowledge of the culinary works of the various chefs aboard the Craton than her. Her monthly reviews of new dishes from the ship’s restaurants was famous on the ship’s blog.

“That’d be nice,” he replied limply.

She stepped out, and just caught a glimpse of his head hang as the door whisked closed.

He needed help, she thought. But right now, the most she could do for him was send some food that might bring comfort.

----------------------------------------

I really have other things I need to be doing, Zeela thought, as she made her way to the Bilge.

She had heard once that the term had something to do with the old boats that humans had used to travel about on oceans in Earth’s history. But nowadays, it was just a nickname for the Resource Deck.

It was not a whole deck, but it occupied most of one, containing most of the bulk supplies the ship needed. And in the heart of it, was Ham Sulp’s office.

The man lurked in the Bilge most of the time, like a spider in its web. Or maybe a dragon with its gold hoard – though for Sulp his hoard was bulk goods and many, many tons of nurdles that could be melted and molded into any shape needed by the ship’s many 3D printers.

Making her way through the maze of crates of nurdles, dodging the drones that were endlessly sweeping up dropped ones – seriously, how did so many get loose? – she managed to find the door to the office area.

Hidden behind a stack of crates, Zeela hit the chime, though surely Sulp already knew she was here.

He liked to make mazes of his crates, and especially to hide his door, coming up with new innovative designs when too many people learned how to find it easily. “Never make it too easy for people to find you,” he had told her once. “Or they’ll drop in all the time.”

Of course, she was an exception.

The door opened for her and she went in.

“Zeela,” he said warmly, spitting out some of his green tea chew and rising to greet her.

It was vital that she had good relations with the man for the ship to run smoothly, and so she had done everything she could to cultivate a good relationship. Sulp had realized the importance as well, and after several years on the ship they had become true friends. Probably Sulp’s only close friend on board, she thought.

“What brings you down to the Bilge?” he asked.

“Oh, just wanted to personally check on what you found on the drones that came from Iago Caraval’s quarters. Have you found out what was causing their problem?”

Sulp grunted, brow furrowing. It was odd for her to come check on something prosaic, but that meant there had to be something important about it.

“We ran the basic diagnosts,” he said, cutting off the word as he popped fresh chew in his mouth. “But no issues, ‘sides the fact that his boy apparently liked to glue eyeballs on them.”

“Eyeballs?”

“The googly kind. Honestly I had wondered who had made an order for 3,000 googly eyes – guess it was him. Sure would like to know what else he’s be-dewed with eyeballs at this point.”

She had to hold back her laugh. She had gotten some reports of statues in the gardens getting eyes . . . But telling him that gem would have to wait.

“They really hadn’t been doing their job,” she said. “The room was a mess.”

“Would it have killed him to report this himself? Or stars forbid, just clean his own room?”

“The man went through a trauma, Ham.”

Sulp just shrugged. “I’ll keep diving deeper and see if there’s a real problem. But . . . from searching the log, it seems more like he was just telling them not to clean.”

“What?” she asked.

“I see at least forty-two commands to stop cleaning and go into hibernation from the man over the past few days. Or at least that’s how the drones were interpreting things he said. We can always look to see if there’s an issue with their speech recognition.”

“I see. Well . . . hopefully he’ll have better luck with the current set.”

Sulp grunted again and turned away. “We also bumped his new chair up the queue as you requested. Should be done in a few minutes and we’ll get it up to him.”

“Thank you. There is one more thing, though. I know you were going to leave in a few hours to see a friend-“

Sulp glanced up at her. “It’s a supply run.”

“Oh, you could send anyone on that. You just want to see Eabor, and that’s fine, but I thought maybe you could do something else for me?”

The man frowned. “If I’m on-duty, and it’s not too much trouble, and if I’m in the mood-“

“Here,” she said, handing over a hard copy of the orders.

His jaw fell open. “You’re shitting me.”

“No, if I was, it’d be something even more absurd, like a trained ostrich.”

“I’d rather that than a spacehound. You know they shed, right? At least an ostrich has some good meat, but spacehounds taste-“

“Tat tat!” she said, holding up a hand. “I don’t want to know what kinds of living creatures you’ve eaten. I don’t even like to think about what kind of lifeforms people used to eat.”

“Fair ’nuff. All right, though. Five of the spacehounds?” He shook his head. “People are gonna pet their fur off.”

“It’s a trial run,” she said. “They’re already trained, and if they’re being pet too much they’ll go to their rest area. You know the Captain always liked the idea, but the waitlist for Sol System spacehounds is so long-“

“Shouldn’t be so picky,” Sulp said, still eying the paper. “Some good dogs from a good spacer colony will be a lot better.”

Zeela did not agree with that. True spacer breeds were often as temperamental as Sulp. Not biters, but they still were not the friendly, helpful companions most people thought of.

“Well, it’s the perfect time all around. We could use a morale boost.”

“True enough. How’s the preparations for the election going, by the way?”

“Just fine,” she lied. She was going to be very behind, but she’d make it up.

He did not pick up on that, instead turning away, still looking at the paperwork and shaking his head. He brought out a tablet and scanned the documents before tucking them away.

“That is on my way,” he admitted. “I’ll do it. But you owe me one.”

“I’ll get you a great dinner when you return,” she promised with a smile.