I liked fingerpainting the most. The way the paint dribbled across my skin and down my arm, and the way I could just let the most inefficient algorithms do their worst to approximate what I wanted to put onto the canvas and create a riot of color and texture. The way it trained my avatar to improve its fine motor control. And the way I could smear paint all over the smock I was wearing, and the scenery, without being told off for it.

The teachers had been worried the first time I used so much black when they’d said to paint Mommy and Daddy, but as soon as they realized I was painting the USS Buran and Marvin — because painting Utopia Planitia was hard, and Marvin would probably appreciate a big smiling green ogre face more when I gave it to him — in space, they relaxed.

They knew I was a Ship Mind, of course, but something about my childish stature and demeanor short-circuited the part of their brains that should rationalize that properly. All according to keikaku.

I had also decided that Small Humanoids were fun. Most of the time.

I didn’t like Tammy because she kept telling everyone how important her father and mother were, since the whole expedition and the reason I was stuck here fingerpainting was partly to get them and their equipment to Cetus Alpha IV for some big experiment I wasn’t supposed to know about.

I liked Ghorqan even though he didn’t like me, but then Ghorqan was a klingon and seemingly didn’t like anybody. To be fair, he mostly didn’t like me because he’d tried to push me and take my blocks when he first met me and I was building a town, and kind of hurt his hand. Not much, because he was a klingon, but enough, because I was an android. The idea of a child he couldn’t actually physically dominate was annoying to him. I found it kind of cute. Which annoyed him even more.

I sat back and wiped my hands on my smock again, though one of the teachers scooted past and made sure they were a smidge cleaner. I thought I’d done a pretty good job. The general purpose algorithm I’d created to enable unstructured approximation of representations of reality was coming along nicely. A big green smiling Marvin head with a tiny body, and a gray, black, blue and red space ship with extra fire coming out the back because I knew Mommy had a complex about rocket ships but also secretly liked them.

I stuck out a hand to very gently but quite firmly stop Ghorqan from knocking the painting off, then turned to him. “Can I see what you painted? I painted Mommy and Daddy. See? There’s Daddy, he’s green. There’s Mommy! We’re in Mommy.”

“Your painting is nonsense! Your Mommy cannot be a ship! And your Daddy cannot be green unless he’s an Orion pirate! And then you would be green!”

“Oh, no, Daddy’s not an Orion. He’s a Martian!”

“But Martians aren’t green!”

“Daddy is!”

Ghorqan balled up his fists and stomped his feet. “Chance is telling lies!” he roared. “And she hit me when… she hit me.”

The teachers looked at each other — one man, something under thirty with sandy hair, the other a woman, slightly older but with dark brown hair. Mister Jensen and Miss Ausrich — then walked over. Mister Jensen squatted down to talk to Ghorqan whilst Miss Ausrich turned to me.

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“Is this true?” Miss Ausrich asked.

“Yes,” I replied. “My Daddy really is Martian and he’s green.”

Miss Ausrich’s eyes hardened and I knew I’d Messed Up. “That is not what I was talking about and you know it. One minute in the naughty corner.”

I sighed. “Yes Miss Ausrich. Sorry Miss Ausrich. I didn’t hit Ghorqan though, he was gonna push my painting on the ground and I want to give it to Daddy when I see him next. It’s okay, I stopped him. Carefully.”

Sitting in the naughty step for a minute was painful for me. As a point of understanding between me and the teachers, I neither sped up nor slowed down my cognition out of human norms when I was punished this way, which still meant that a whole minute was an eternity, even at human speeds. I was missing out on valuable Snacks And Story Time. I didn’t need the snacks, although they tasted pretty good — I usually shared my rations with others of the class who were actually hungry — but I did really enjoy the story time. Listening to humans tell tales of things that didn’t and couldn’t happen was always fun.

Instead, I listened to Mister Jensen talking with Ghorqan. Intellectually I knew dealing with klingons was difficult, since they were quick to anger and very stubborn. Like most boys, to be honest, but turned up to eleven. Eventually Mister Jensen sent Ghorqan to sit next to me. I looked up at the older human questioningly.

“I want you two to work things out, alright? That’s one minute for Ghorqan in the naughty corner, but if you don’t think you can come to a fair agreement, then once your minute is up, Chance, you can leave, alright?”

“Yes Mister Jensen,” I said. Ghorqan answered the same. I turned to him a few moments later, after a long and uncomfortable silence. “Mister Jensen told you I’m a robot, right?”

“He said your mother really is the Federation Starship USS Buran. And your father is… Marvin the Martian, the Mind from Utopia Planitia.”

I nodded. “That’s right.”

“I do not understand. Jovians are never small like you.”

I smiled. “That’s alright. A lot of people don’t.”

He was silent again for a moment, then said what was really bothering him.

“Father is always saying that I should be a good example of a klingon warrior! But a klingon warrior takes what he wants and everyone does what he says! And yet when I do that, I am… put in this corner like a targ.”

I nodded, slowly. “I think he wants you to be a different kind of klingon warrior. Out of everyone here, you are physically the strongest. Except for me. But if you tried to make Billy do what you want, he would make out that you hurt him, and you would be punished.”

“Billy has no honor,” hissed Ghorqan under his breath.

“He fights smart but dirty. So why fight him on the same battlefield? You can defeat him easily. There is no need to show him that, nobody doubts you could beat him up, and everybody would watch you get in trouble. You should defeat him by being nice to him until he hates it.”

Ghorqan furrowed his already furrowed brow. “That makes no sense.”

“Tell me about it. Humans are so confusing sometimes. But don’t touch my painting or I’ll be very upset and then your daddy will tell you off.”

He narrowed his eyes at me. “Is that also fighting dirty?”

I grinned and nodded. “Of course! I can fight you with your own father’s wrath and not get in trouble at all. Humans aren’t like klingons, except where they are. If you want to fight humans like Billy, you need to be the smartest targ, like Toby! That’s what your Daddy means. You should be the kind of warrior that people want to listen to, rather than one they think they have to. Nobody really listens to those ones, they always get stabbed in the back and their hearts get cut out and eaten.” I paused, then added, “Don’t say I said that, I’m not supposed to watch Klingon opera any more.”

I ducked my head as Mister Jensen turned his head towards me quickly. Too late.