The alcohol is a seductress, as I’m reminded of way too late. When Captain Lister comes to address the crew, I’m seeing three of him.

“"Thanks to your combined efforts, we've recovered Flux with no casualties," he says and pauses for the fists slamming on tables to subside, "as you all know, a group of traffickers have been taking our loved ones and selling them off, never to be seen again. We were fortunate enough to find her, but we didn't locate...."

My thoughts race too quickly to care what else he has to say. In a perhaps too-little-too-late fashion, I turn to my nibbled bread and rip a bite-sized chunk out of it. I stare off into the void as I chew, bread soggy and heavy in my mouth.

I lose myself in the mechanical process of eating until a hand taps my shoulder. I jump up on the defense, catch my drunken balance on the table, and look up to see Amon again.

"Are you here to kick me out of the bar?" I ask in my best attempt not to slur. His grimace assures me I've failed.

"Well, this is a mess hall, not a bar. I wanted to check on you. Alex had some jokes that were honestly funny, but I know that had to be rough. Are you okay?" He looks sincere. But for what reason? If pirates aren't supposed to be tough then they've done a damn good job of building up a savage facade.

"I'm fine. Just a little drunk but I'm finer than ever," I say with the biggest grin I can muster.

"That bad, huh?" Amon says and laughs. The redness rushing to his cheeks shows he might be close to my state of mind. "I could be too late saying this but be careful. They might be moving you to scullery duty and you don't want to be hungover for that."

"One of the...people tried telling me to take it slow. What are they? Is that a question I can ask?"

"I think you can get away with that. They're called Kobus. They're working in exchange for travel."

"Traveling where?" I had no shame in being nosy now.

Amon hesitates and then says, "Hang around long enough and one of them may tell you," effectively shutting me out of further questions. He reaches down and grabs my goblet, downing the remains and wiping the excess from his mustache with another. A third arm steals a pitcher off a passing Kobu's platter. I reach for it but he recoils.

"I think you're cut off, Greenhorn. You can barely stand."

"Don't tell me what to do," I half-joke.

"Half of the point of me being on the ship is to tell all of you what to do," he half-jokes back.

"What's the other half?"

Amon grins and says, "I'm not going to answer that because I don't want to spoil that surprise for you." I feel the blood rush to my cheeks.

Any response I try to form is violently disrupted by a shove to my side, knocking me back onto the table. The edge slams into a rib but doesn't crack it, unluckily for whoever pushed me.

I'm back up and I slug the offender in the face. They stumble back long enough for me to register it's Dione. A drunk Dione, furiously glaring at me while others stare on in horror. There's the smallest cut on her cheek from my knuckles scraping the cheekbone.

She slugs me back and I see sparkles as I fall back onto the bench, my entire body numbing from the force. Everyone surrounds us. Dione makes an effort to get at me but another Nymph grabs her shoulders and angrily whispers at her until she stalks away.

There's so much pain in my left eye that I'm afraid to open it. Amon forces it open and winces. "That's gonna swell up pretty bad but you'll keep your eye," he says to me. My shoulders drop in relief and he grabs them, using his other two hands to hold my head up and wipe blood from my lip. With him this close, I see his scalp isn't completely smooth. There's two small bumps on the top of his head, almost in alignment with his ears. A moment later I'm thinking about the fight again.

"I'm shocked she didn't knock me out," I say almost absentmindedly.

"Me too. You can take a fucking punch, girl," he praises.

I look around with my good eye. Captain Lister is still around, staring at me with a reserved sort of anger. My gaze darts back to Amon attempting to patch me up.

"I'm gonna need some stuff from the cabins to bandage your lip and eye," he says.

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"Is there not a med bay around here?" Surely they'd have everything he needs.

"Triker works hard enough during work hours without two drunkards bothering him after dinner. The cabins all have basic first aid, and you're really only in need of a bandage and sleep."

He forces me up and we're stumbling away with each other for support. We take turns being the other's crutch until we get to the lift, which we fall into. The floors zoom by once again with us on the floor with our heads leaning against each other.

The doors open and crewmates see us, laughing a bit as they step over and roll us out of it. I'm just now standing back up when the doors close and they're gone. Amon has more help getting up with his extra arms and leans against the wall. The neon lights flash painfully bright at us as if it knows we're intoxicated and is bullying us for it. They go up and up but the world spins too much if I try following them.

"Do ya remember what apartment you're in?" He asks me with several hiccups breaking up the sentence.

"Definitely. Maybe...we'll find it," I reply with a notable lack of confidence. He sighs and makes me lead the way, both of us staying near the buildings in case we need to hold onto them.

We round the corner and I point at a unit with a red beacon. "I know that's it!" I proclaim.

“No, that’s–”

My uncertain legs have enough renewed strength to take me across the street, hand slapping the door panel, it sliding open, all before I hear whatever Amon has to say.

It's not my room. For one, it's actually decorated. Large moving pictures of atmospheric landscapes adorn the walls, broken up by smaller ones of people, arranged in organized clusters around the room. There's a desk with a large monitor on top and a large rug spanning from the desk to the bed.

The bed also has two women in it, a human and an even stranger sort of woman than the Kobus. Her many arms are holding the human one’s legs up while a mass of silver hair is buried in between those legs. She has one set of human arms and the other four are fuzzy and long and protrude from her back. Her skin is in tones of gray and black like the arms, the body human until you get to below the knees where they become very hairy and have fuzzy hooves for feet.

The other woman, right before she noticed me, has her fingers furled into the other's hair, her own long black hair wildly splayed around her head. Her breasts spill over her heaving chest like two pillowy mounds, her curvy body dancing in reaction to what her lover’s doing.

Her body jerks abruptly at the realization they're no longer alone and she's pulling the arms off her as I yell an apology and slam my hand on the panel. I stare at the door for a lifetime.

"Why didn't you listen to me?" Amon hisses quietly, making me jump.

"Why aren't there locks on the doors?" I hiss back.

"This isn't a neighborhood, Greenhorn!" A quiet shout but a shout nonetheless.

"Forgive me for thinking that, Mr. Hospitality!" We awkwardly stare at each other for a minute. Thankfully, no angry sounds approach from the other side.

"Let's just get out of Sunisa's doorway," He says, making me jump again.

"That was her?" I exclaim. He shushes me and yanks me away.

With some renewed clarity I manage to find my cabin and make a mental note to remember it's near an ugly mess of wires and neon circuit boards. Amon sets me on the bed and disappears into the bathroom. Alone for a brief moment, I take the time to process what I've just seen. I really wish I hadn't seen that. Sunisa was already beautiful but to see her like that? I may never recover.

When he returns I look him over, terrible possibilities trying to will themselves into existence. He's stiffer now, clearly a bit sobered by what he's seen too. He breathes heavier now, and his hands shake as he applies my bandages. That could be the alcohol, but there's more than just the pink glow in his eyes now.

"Are you half-Mer?" I ask. I've picked up on that by now; those with Mer in their lineage, the actual star sailors, have certain traits. It's found in the pink in their eyes, and their sharp teeth and bigger bodies. Mers might be the oldest race we know, creatures that travel through the vacuum of space and have the ability to travel through wormholes. Their carnivorous appetites have them seeking celestial whales on their migratory paths. The only thing Amon is missing are the horns. They're round, coming out of the tops of the heads and circling down near the ears, and used to navigate the universe.

"Good guess. How'd you know? Let me guess: it was this gorgeous gut right here," he says with a boisterous laugh and slaps his firm belly. It's more of a solid mass of muscle than he acts like it is, and I have a sudden urge to run my fingers across it despite never really having the irresistible urge to reach out and touch a man like that before. The booze makes me not care.

"I like that belly of yours," I blurt. His hands on my face pause and the color leaves his face.

"Thanks, Greenhorn."

"Call me Nova."

"I'd rather not."

"Don't want to forget you're my superior? Who cares? We're all rogues now." I reach out and give his cheek a stroke before one of his hands catches it and gently places it on the bed.

"I care about taking advantage of an incapacitated person with one eye. You're so damn drunk, girl. You'd regret it in the morning."

"You don't know that."

"Oh yeah I do. Do you even swing this way?"

"Swing?" I'd never heard that one. Is that code for something?

"Your orientation. Aren't humans more rigid about their sexualities?"

"Not so much anymore. Nymphs being able to actively change how they present kind of threw us all for a loop," I say. We laugh together at this, whatever weird energy finally discharged, and he pulls off my shoes.

"In you go, Green," Amon says after pulling the thin blanket back for me. I crawl in, face scrunching up into the pillow. He tries to get me to flip over for water but I'm already going. Swing dances around in my head and my drifting thought is a question.

Did Amon call me a lesbian?