Cam. C// ameron Ollis //.
Cam //eron
Cameron Ollis was the most beautiful person aboard the Stellarship Soter.
Hermes watched him move gracefully through the white and chrome passageways of the ship, turning heads with every step. His hair was white blond, and his complexion was so pale that it nearly glowed, and he had silvery blue eyes that were always focused far off, like his thoughts were far away from the stretch of space in which Soter traveled.
There was his compelling androgyny, too. Although Cam was quite tall, his hands and feet were proportionally small, and his square face was offset by round eyes, round lips, and a button of a nose.
He smiled as he nearly ran into another member of the crew exiting the engineering bay and his accompanying laugh was so charming and loud that it had a rippling effect across the entire room. A dropped wrench, a bruised knee, a loud curse—culminating in the chief engineer barking everyone back to work.
“I’m sorry, Chief,” Cam said, cheeks flushing red under all of the sudden attention. “Here’s the analysis you requested.” He offered a digital datapad, which the chief took with a quiet grunt. He read over some of the text on the screen and nodded a few times, obviously satisfied with the work.
When Cam remained standing at his side, the chief shot him a glare. “Dismissed, Ollis.”
Cam nodded and smiled in a warm, familiar way. “Thank you, sir.”
The chief watched Cameron walk away, eyes magnetized to his backside. He wasn’t the only one; of the five men and seven women of the engineering bay, 33.3% watched Cam leave with nothing less than obvious sexual interest.
“Is something wrong?”
Hermes jolted upright in his chair. He’d been watching the security screens while seated in the Medbay, watching Cam and the crew during their early-morning routine. Spying on Cam, truthfully, though he didn’t intentionally set out to focus so solely on him.
Hermes turned to Dr. Wha and cleared his throat. He pointed to the dozen small rectangular screens before him. “No,” he said. “I was observing rounds.”
“What for?”
“Since our departure, I have yet to make a lasting connection with any of the crew. I was hoping, if I watched them interact, that I may uncover some intricacies of their companionship.”
“You’re wanting to make friends.”
Hermes hesitated before nodding once, sharply.
Dr. Wha smiled. “We’ve only been in space for a week. You’ll get there.”
“Many of the crewmen are fast friends already.”
“I guess I’m not good enough for you anymore, huh?” He shook his head no, to defend his actions, but noted her grin. She was teasing him. She often enjoyed doing that—her sarcasm extended to everything in her life, including Hermes. Her smile was wide, stretching her thin lips.
Hermes looked back to the display panel, filled with various crystal-clear images of the ship’s corridors and main facilities. “I noticed that Cameron Ollis is especially popular and I wanted to learn why.”
“Ollis? I guess that makes sense.”
“Does it.”
Wha laughed. “Yes. He’s a nice guy. A little ray of sunshine.” Her big grin softened into something almost affectionate. It wasn’t a look Wha wore very often. At that moment, Hermes concluded there was only one person aboard Soter that was unaffected by Cam’s obvious, universal beauty: Hermes himself. Wha continued, oblivious. “Would you like to meet him? There’s going to be that Data Analytics mixer this evening in the Caf. I’m sure he’ll be attending; he’s probably the most advanced mathematician aboard.” She tilted her hand back and forth, appearing thoughtful. “Second to you, I mean.”
Hermes considered it for a moment. “I am not in their department.”
Wha patted Hermes’ shoulder. “You should go. They’ll be very welcoming, I promise.”
Hermes nodded. She wasn’t wrong; he could do math at great speeds, which was a vital part of the Data Analytics process. What’s more: there was something very appealing in the idea of watching Cam interact with other people in person. Maybe his charm could translate better if Hermes witnessed it up close. “Very well.”
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The mixer made it all the more obvious that Cam was a highly coveted person. The Caf seemed centered on him. Anywhere he moved, all of the heads turned to follow. Moths to a flame, Hermes thought. It was an especially appropriate colloquialism: the way the other members of the crew followed Cam was almost mindless, and Cam himself greeted everyone with equal warmth.
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Hermes sipped the espresso dwarfed in his hand.
“Are you thinking of joining our team?” asked a young human woman at his side. Hermes blinked down at her and shook his head no. She tilted her head in question. “Why not? We’d love to have you.”
“I’m working with Dr. Wha as an adjunct medical personnel.”
“Well, there you go—you just said it. Adjunct. You could defect. Come to the dark side.” She winked.
Ah. She was being friendly. Hermes wasn’t quite sure how to reply in kind; his thoughts jumped around, panicked, while his face remained perfectly blank—should he smile? Make a pop culture reference in return?
What would Cam do?
But he took too long and the woman faked an awkward laugh. “I’m kidding.” She took a step away. “I’m gonna go grab myself another drink. Nice to finally meet you, Hermes!”
She waved as she left and she didn’t seem particularly hurt by Hermes’ lack of social graces, but he did sigh when she was out of sight. He was truly terrible at this. Forming friendships was a skill beyond his many abilities—why had he even come?
Cam’s voice carried over the other conversations that filled the Caf. “No one wants to hear me talk about my thesis.”
A roaring of, “Yes we do!” “Please!” and “I’d love to hear more!” came from the crowd around Cam. Hermes peeked over to see him laugh in response.
“It’s nothing you don’t already know,” Cam said.
Charmed laughter was the response. Hermes raised an eyebrow. It seemed that Cam could say almost anything and the people around him would laugh graciously and tell him he was doing great.
That’s why he came tonight, Hermes remembered. The behavior of the group around Cam was absolutely fascinating. He was handed drinks every time his cup got low—and he was seated improperly upon the tabletop of one cafeteria table. No one questioned why his feet were on a chair—scuffed soles of his white casual sneakers pressed into the dark blue fabric. Impolite, but unquestioned.
Hermes sipped his espresso, gone cold now, and watched. Few people seemed to notice him—and those that did gave him a wide enough space that he could observe, unencumbered.
Hours passed and the group dwindled and dwindled. Cam’s posture got progressively more relaxed—liquor and exhaustion combined, Hermes concluded, and once almost everyone had left, Cam lounged across the top of the cafeteria table, propped up only by his elbows. The only people remaining: Hermes, Cam, and another analyst–employed in the Security Department–named Soen Tamn, a Medese man with red skin and several rock-like horns at the top of his head.
“Well, I may call that a night, then,” Cam said, pushing himself up.
Soen Tamn jolted upright and said, “Wait, uh.” His eyes flashed over to Hermes and narrowed. “I was hoping we could speak, just, one-on-one, maybe.”
Hermes, too, wished to speak to Cam alone. That was why he had remained rooted in one spot all night, observing.
Cam blinked over to Hermes, gave him a little smile, and then waved.
Hermes wasn’t sure how to react; he hadn’t intended to stare. He lowered his head in a silent greeting, which made Cam’s smile grow that much wider, and something interesting happened to the pattern of Hermes’ beating heart.
Soen grunted and turned to face Hermes. “Fine, alright. We can chat, all three. You’re, like, a robot or something, right?”
Cam giggled and Hermes noticed the affectionate black color fill beneath Soen’s eyes. His interest was sexual, then. It was a common Medese physiological reaction for their rocky skin to darken during arousal. He wanted privacy so he could proposition Cam—most likely.
Hermes didn’t want to go. But he also didn’t want to witness Soen make advances on Cam—
So he spoke for the first time in several hours, a few feet away still, and said, “I am not ‘like a robot.’ I am an organic humanoid being like you, Soen Tamn. Like Cameron Ollis. And the rest of the crew.”
Soen rolled his eyes in exasperation at the same time Cam clapped his hands in excitement. “Actually, I was hoping to get to talk to you,” Cam said.
“You were?” Hermes said before he could stop himself.
“Well, obviously—” Why was that obvious? “I just, you know, got busy, and couldn’t make it over to say hi.”
“Yes,” Hermes said, eyes sliding over to Soen, whose mouth had gone all tight. “You were preoccupied most of the evening.”
Cam jumped off the table, a spring in his step as he walked over. Soen followed behind him, scowling. “It’s nice to meet you, Hermes.” He extended his hand. Hermes reached out—
Their fingertips brushed and Hermes could hear the sound of a song played upon a piano, echoing around him. Tinny and distant, but—he had heard it before.
He knew this song // ng.
Did//didn’t h// he?
The ship rocked sideways. Sudden, hard, and very unexpected. Cam, Soen, and Hermes flew off their feet. Luckily Soen reacted quickly enough to grab onto Cam’s form—he was close enough behind him—and softened the blow of them landing on the wall nearby.
Hermes was able to twist midair and land on his feet nearby.
The lights flickered and went dim, casting the Caf in a sea of dark gray, only the battery-powered backup lights functioning sporadically overhead.
The power was out.
“What the hell just happened?” Soen barked.
“It is likely a space storm,” said Hermes. “We were expected to encounter such a storm this evening.” They were not estimated to lose power over it, however. It shouldn’t’ve been so severe. Hermes’ brows knit closely. The artificial gravity was still intact after the temporary gap—so it was not a full system failure, which was fortunate.
“It’s so quiet,” Cam said, shifting out of Soen’s hold. He was right—the usual hum of the many instruments in the Caf had gone silent; all of the machines were shut off.
“It would probably be safest to return to our quarters and await further instruction,” Hermes said. Cam and Tamn had no arguments.
The Caf doors had some arguments, though. With the power off, the automatic door wouldn’t budge. There was a manual failsafe, but Cam struggled with the handle for a minute before sighing in defeat.
“It’s stuck.”
Soen rolled up his sleeves. “Let me.”
The handle groaned under his strength. But still didn’t budge.
When he stepped away, Hermes stepped up, but he didn’t grab the handle, and instead inspected the seam where the door met jam. “We will not be able to open the door.”
“Yeah, obviously,” said Soen.
“The safety locks are engaged,” Hermes continued to explain. “Soter apparently believes we should remain in place here until the end of the storm. I assume we did not hear an announcement declaring as such because of the lack of audio systems available.”
“How long are we going to be stuck here?” Soen asked, face twisting in frustration.
“The storm was estimated to last four hours at my last reading.”
Cam hugged his arms to himself. “We’re gonna be here until 2am?”
Soen loudly dropped into a chair, groaning. “Apparently.”
Hermes looked down at his hands.
“I mean, that gives us some time to get to know each other, then, right?” Cam said, voice hopeful.
Hermes looked up to see Cam smiling, and his grin was very striking this close. His eyes were half-moons, his teeth straight and white, his lips pink and soft. Hermes nodded before he could stop himself. “Yes,” he said, “We should get to know each other.”
From Hermes’ periphery, he saw Soen roll his eyes.