"Six months?" Jewel shouted. "I can't wait around here that long! Christ, everyone back home is going to think I'm dead! I'll lose my job. They'll probably sell my damn house!"

The Curator just stared at her, apparently unaffected by her distress.

"You have to find a way to get me home sooner than that!" she insisted. "I'll meet your damn council or whatever, but I need to go home while there's still something to go back to!"

"You do not understand how space travel works," the Curator said, as though it was a mildly interesting observation. "We will reach the Council in six months. The Council may decide to return you home at that point and no sooner."

"But that's wrong!" Jewel demanded. "Does your species not understand compassion? How would you feel if someone snatched you out of your home, held you against your will, and told you they might return you in six months? That's not acceptable!"

"Interesting," the Curator declared. "I will add your feelings on the matter to your file. Now it is time to go back to your habitat."

"I do not want to go back to the damn habitat!" Jewel shouted, losing her temper. She stood up, ready to fight. She didn't care if he was bigger than her. She'd kicked the asses of plenty of people bigger than her and she would again.

"I cannot allow you to wander the ship on your own," the Curator said, reaching into his sleeve for one of the sedative patches. "It would not be safe."

"You are not knocking me out again!" Jewel shouted, and when he stepped forward to reach for her with the patch, she ducked and darted forward, hitting him low in his center of gravity, wrapping her arms around him and falling back in a somewhat sloppy suplex. She'd done cleaner takedowns before, but with the size difference, all she cared about was dropping him. He hit the ground with a tremendous crash, and she rolled onto her feet as quickly as possible, sprinting through the door. This place was big enough that she was confident she could lose him.

She was only a few feet down the strangely bare white hall when she heard a snarl and the sound of heavy footsteps behind her. She glanced over her shoulder to see him bearing down on her with shocking speed. His teeth were bared and unexpectedly sharp, his normally cool, aloof expression suddenly furious. Bright blue blood was dripping from a gash on his forehead. She felt her heart skip a beat in fear and exhilaration as she put on speed, racing down the corridor. She was afraid to try any of the doors, worried they would lead to dead ends, which left her with only one direction to go. And he was definitely faster than her, gaining rapidly.

She shouted a string of curses and crashed through the closest door, heart soaring as she saw another door on the opposite side of the room. She didn't even take notice of what was in the room as she barreled through it, grabbing some ambiguous piece of furniture and hurling it behind her to slow down her pursuer. She heard him make an animal noise of frustration, and the furniture, whatever it had been, exploded into sticks against the door frame just as Jewel raced through it.

"This is stupid!" he roared at her.

"You're stupid!" she shouted back, sliding over a table which she heard him tear straight through. The towers of assembled tablets that had been stacked on it scattered everywhere like playing cards.

"You cannot get away from me! There is nowhere to go!"

"Fuck you!"

The frustrated snarl was louder this time. She laughed wildly, suicidally thrilled at how effectively she was pissing him off. The next door was strangely dark, and she didn't realize until she was running through it that the reason it was so black was because it was covered in something. A thin, black latex like substance filled the doorway as though it had been covered by a tarp. It resisted her at first, like running in water, then it gave with a snap, sticking to her skin and covering her face. She tried to shout, to claw it away, but it wouldn't come off. Instead, it was spreading, covering her entirely. She could feel it moving over her skin, cool and strange.

The part over her face suddenly lifted away, hardening and turning transparent like the smooth face of a motorcycle helmet. She realized she could breathe, and looking down, she saw that the black substance now covered her entirely, tight to the skin like a catsuit. While she was staring at it in confusion, she'd stopped running. She looked up, hearing another snap, and saw the Curator striding toward her through the black substance over the doorway, which was conforming to his shape with incredible speed, highlighting every muscle of his surprisingly familiar and aesthetically pleasing torso as he dropped his robes to the side. It formed a similar helmet to hers, the front turning clear to reveal his face. He looked pissed.

"Stop this, now!" he barked.

Jewel cursed and started running again, barreling through the closest door, which slid away at her touch. She realized why the weird suit creating door was necessary as soon as she stepped through.

She was suddenly standing on the surface of an alien planet. Translucent white sawgrass was waving against her thighs and an unfamiliar sun shone in the eggshell sky, silver as though she was looking at it from under the water. Amazed as she was, she knew she couldn't stop running, so she ran, sprinting across the pale world, leaping through the high ghostly grass.

She heard the Curator running after her, shouting at her. She ignored him, lungs burning as she strained to run faster. Suddenly, something burst from the grass beside her, making her stumble. It was the size of a horse but shaped more like a deer. Its four delicate legs extended fully as it leaped, its long scorpion-like tail whipping in the air behind it. At the peak of its arc, its white hide caught the sunlight and glittered, iridescent as a dragonfly’s wing. More erupted from the grass on the other side of her, alerted by the high fluted call of the first. She was soon running among an entire herd of them. They didn't seem aggressive, just startled by her presence.

She laughed, shocked and delighted by the majesty of them so close to her, and glanced back at the Curator. He wasn't far behind her, staring at her with wide-eyed shock. She just grinned at him and put her head down, running faster. She was almost not even thinking about getting away from him at this point. She just wanted to keep running.

Soon, the herd split, turning to run in another direction, and Jewel realized why as she got closer to what was obviously the wall of the enclosure. Her heart was racing, and she worried she'd be stuck there, but as she approached, a panel opened automatically, as though the ship wanted her to keep going. She didn't question it, running on through it and across the narrow corridor behind it, which she recognized as the gap between two habitat modules.

Her legs burning and her body alive with excitement, she didn't even stop to worry about what might be on the other side before she pushed through the next panel into a new habitat. It was a jungle, so humid the moisture beaded on her helmet. The vegetation was alien and red-tinged, dense and impossible to run through. But Jewel wasn't going to let that stop her.

The crowded trees—or tree-like plants, anyway—grew close together, their branches intertwined like lace. Jewel jumped up to the closest branch and pulled herself up, scrambling up into the canopy. Worked up as she was, her muscles warmed up and her blood pumping like it hadn't since she'd been discharged from the military, climbing was almost too easy. It felt right and wonderful.

"What did you evolve from?" she heard the Curator yelling below her. Hanging by one hand from an upper branch, she looked down at him and laughed.

"Apes!" she yelled down, swinging herself up onto the next branch. "You look more like a jellyfish. How well do jellyfish climb trees?"

"I guess we will find out!" he shouted back, and she grinned as he reached for a branch and started pulling himself up. She got to her feet on the branch she was standing on, caught the branch above it with her hand, and started running again, half climbing, half swinging as she navigated the interwoven branches of the massive trees, startling strange lizard-like birds with brilliantly colored feathers.

As she got closer to the center of the habitat, she saw heavy, long-furred creatures hanging from the limbs like strange orangutans with long, lean snakelike torsos. They decorated the lower branches of a massive central tree, bigger than a redwood, which Jewel slowly realized was, in fact, the only tree in this habitat, its laced limbs splitting into new trunks and rejoining to create an entire forest. She paused for a moment and looked back. The Curator was climbing after her, struggling to keep up but managing, though he looked like he was wearing out.

"You're not going to pass out and fall, are you?" she shouted back. "I don't know how to work your fancy medical supplies, so if you crack your head open you'll probably die."

"I can promise you with absolute certainty," he said between ragged breaths, "that I am far more physically durable than you, which makes your recklessness all the more baffling. I could fall from this height and walk away with bruises. You would probably die of shock before you hit the ground."

"Then I guess I'd better go higher!" Jewel said with a laugh and started climbing again, working her way up the massive central tree. She felt fantastic, more alive than she had in years. When was the last time she'd run this fast, worked this hard, felt her body strain against her? She'd kept working out after her discharge, but it had felt empty and meaningless. This was real. The bark under her hands, her breath burning in her lungs, even Big Blue with all of his teeth and sedative patches following behind her—it was all exactly what she'd needed.

She paused occasionally, watching the Curator climb after her, making sure he was keeping up. She wanted him to keep chasing her. Losing him had stopped being the goal at some point. The chase was more fun than just getting away when she knew there was nowhere to go anyway. Eventually, she broke through the upper canopy and into the sunlight. There was a stiff breeze, and she could feel it through the strange suit, refreshing against her skin. She breathed in, relishing the feeling of accomplishment.

"Hey," she shouted down at the Curator. "Do you have a name?"

"A what?" he shouted back distantly, having fallen behind.

"A name!" she shouted. "Like, an individual label that distinguishes you from the rest of your species. Do the Ra'hom have names?"

"In a manner of speaking," he said, pausing against the trunk to catch his breath. "It is more of a . . . list of accomplishments. No one on the Council has a designation that takes less than an hour to fully declare."

"Well then, what do I call you?" Jewel asked impatiently.

"The shortest form of my designation is K'ezik'aza Koue," he said, except part of Jewel's brain told her what he'd said was actually “Victor of the battle at Tower Hill, Sword of the Usurper, Champion of the Endless Duel, Defeated by the Silence of the Black Desert, Forever Shamed. “

"That was weird," she muttered.

"Telepathic doubling," he explained. "The translator is smart enough to pick up that my designation is meant to be given in its native language, but it still tries to convey contextual meaning."

"Um, so what do I actually call you?" Jewel asked. "I assume you don't want to go by Forever Shamed."

"We do not really use proper nouns except in formal situations—"

"My name is Jewel," Jewel interrupted him.

"Your name is faceted precious stone?"

"Yup. Jewel. And I'm going to call you Kay."

"Why?" he huffed, beginning to climb again.

"So I can say this," Jewel said, grinning as she straightened up to knock aside one of the ceiling panels. "Eat my dust, Kay!"

"No! Stay there, damn it!"

But she was already climbing, laughing, into the space above the habitat module. She crawled quickly, hearing Kay drag himself up after her. She knew he'd catch up to her fast now that they weren't climbing, so she wasted no time in hurrying on to the next module and kicking out the first panel she came to. She dropped into it without looking and regretted it an instant later as she saw the water rushing up toward her.

It was cold as ice and dark as night, and she sank quickly. She could still breathe, the suit protecting her, but it was clear the suit hadn't been made with swimming in mind. She was too heavy, the boot-like feet useless for kicking. She could feel herself sinking as she struggled. There was some kind of strange illumination below her, glowing eerily in the dark like a field of multicolored stars, which unsettled her in a way she couldn't explain.

Then it moved, sliding smoothly past in the way only unfathomably huge sea life could, and her unsettled feeling rocketed up into real terror instantaneously. She made a panicked wail, kicking harder to try and swim against the drag of her suit. Suddenly, something collided with her side, wrapping around her. She was certain for a moment that it was the jaws of something unspeakable until she realized it was dragging her upward. Kay had her in one arm, his legs moving smoothly as a dolphin's tail as he rocketed toward the surface of the water.

He moved as gracefully in the water as though he'd been born there. Carrying her didn't seem to hamper him in the least. But the light covered thing was after them, its long tapered snout full of translucent teeth like slivers of broken glass jammed haphazardly into its gums. It was bigger than Jewel could easily comprehend. It put the orcas she'd seen at sea life shows to shame. In shape, it resembled nothing so much as the mosasaurs in her childhood dinosaur books. She shouted wordlessly, pointing at it, and Kay let her go, turning to face the thing.

He dodged the snaps of the creature's vast jaws easily, darting like an otter without a hint of fear. Jewel almost couldn't understand how he moved so quickly and smoothly in the water. It was the most inhuman thing she'd seen from him so far. His body was built for this in the way hers never could be.

He dodged around to the side of the creature's head and struck three sharp blows to the soft gills on the sides of its neck. She saw it flail and roll away, banking and turning away from its assailant. Kay wasted no time pursuing it, swimming toward her like a shot, colliding with her and swimming away as quickly as possible. She added her own kicks to his, but they were pathetically ineffective in comparison to the way he moved, slicing through the water with unparalleled ease.

What seemed like only moments later, he was dragging her up onto the sand. She stumbled to her feet, legs wobbly from the long swim, and then collapsed as soon as she reached dry land. He flopped down beside her, breathing heavily.

"Whatever an ape is," he said breathlessly, "it clearly never spent any time in the ocean."

"Well, we can't all be descended from jellyfish," Jewel said, exhausted.

"You realize I do not even know what that word means," he pointed out. "The translator has no equivalent. The telepathic doubling just keeps saying 'evil sentient bag'."

Jewel laughed and suddenly couldn't stop, rolling over onto her side as her ribs ached with the intensity of her mirth. As her own laughter came under control, she realized he was laughing as well, the sound strange, a rolling, purring rumble.

"So," he said once they'd both calmed down again. "Are you done running now? Or would you like to climb into the pens of a few more dangerous giant animals first?"

Jewel considered it for a moment, then she rolled onto her stomach, pulling her legs under her to take off, feet sliding in the soft beach sand. She'd barely taken a step before his hand closed around her ankle, dragging her back down onto the ground. He rolled on top of her, pinning her down. He was heavy, his body cool against hers. Her legs were caught between his, and as he pressed against her, the shape of him felt all too familiar. Jewel's breath caught with unexpected excitement.

"I said," he growled, the glass of his helmet clinking against her own, his teeth bared behind it, "are you done?"