“I am perfectly capable of navigating the ship while the human crew slumbers,” Eridanus’s voice came from the ceiling overhead, from some speaker invisibly integrated into it. It was his third time saying something similar. “There is no need for you to expend so much energy researching, Dr. Tala.”

“I like research,” Tala said, as she pored over the notes and charts floating in a holographic display above the desk in front of her.

She sat in the small private office adjacent to sickbay, trying to ignore the fact that the sparse decor—a potted plant, something that reminded her of a stress ball, and a cube displaying digital family pictures—had belonged to someone who was now dead. Apparently, there hadn’t been time for anyone to clean out the last doctor’s effects and send them along to his family. Or maybe that was the duty of the replacement doctor. Not a very cheery way to start a new job.

“Thank you for figuring out how to translate everything into English,” she added.

Perhaps a compliment would distract the ship’s AI from continuing to interrupt her. It—he—seemed vain.

“A simple task, Doctor,” Eridanus said. He did sound pleased. “Your language is far more similar to Dethocolean than the languages of many of the human home worlds. And compared to Zi’i or Alabaster, it’s extremely simple to learn.”

“We’re a simple people,” she murmured.

“I’ve often found humans most complex and highly irrational.”

Tala couldn’t argue with that. She thought of Sagitta, hardly able to believe he hadn’t been willing to throw a ‘please’ to her. She shouldn’t have stalked off in a huff, but she’d found the whole incident confusing. He’d been almost friendly with her as he invited her to sit in his chair and explained the nebula to her. Finally, someone had explained something to her. She’d been in the dark the entire time she’d been aboard the ship.

And then when she had stood up, he’d touched her arm. There hadn’t been anything untoward or suggestive about the touch, but for some reason, she had noticed it. She’d even had an urge to step closer. How ridiculous. He was a trying man, at best.

“The notes of doctors who previously visited the nebula and tried to figure out the problem are sparse,” Tala murmured as she read. “Did none of them think to test the hormone levels and neurotransmitters of the affected personnel? Is there any other information available, Eridanus?”

“Not in the Star Guardian database, which contains all the information in the space fleet files. There’s a node buoy in this system, and I can access the public records. Allow me to download everything with references to the nebula and the mental state it causes.”

“Thank you.” Tala leaned back in the chair. “What’s a node buoy?” She trusted the AI could run searches while answering questions at the same time, and that she wasn’t slowing him down.

“A satellite that houses repositories of data. Node buoys have been placed in orbit around centrally located planets in all of the major systems where humans have settled. Because of the distance between systems, it would be impossible to have an up-to-date data network that spans the entire Confederation without some creative measures. Each of these satellites stores copies of all the public data and also much of the private data available on the network, but because information can’t be sent through the wormholes without getting a ride on a ship, they can only be updated when a ship carrying new information comes into the system and transmits it to them. Seventy-three years ago, the Confederation passed a law that all military ships would carry servers that gathered information from populated planets and stations and transmitted it to buoys while traveling into systems. This means that in populated systems that are visited or traveled through frequently, network information is rarely more than a few hours out of date. In more remote systems, the buoys may only be updated monthly.”

“So if I lived in one system and had a website that I updated daily, most people in your Confederation would be able to see the updates the same day while those in more remote systems would have to wait a month or more for my wisdom?”

“That is correct. Do you have a website?”

“No.”

“I do. I am the only Star Guardian AI that has realized humans would be interested in following the exploits of our ship and crew.” Eridanus sounded smug again. “I have over ninety thousand observers monitoring my updates.”

Tala blinked, finding the idea of a computer keeping a blog odd. “Are you updating it now?”

She imagined Sage being horrified to learn that his ship was sharing his plans with the rest of the galaxy.

“No. I’m only permitted to update the site once a mission has been declassified and the facts are available to the public. Some missions are never declassified. I suspect this may be the case with this one.” Eridanus’s tone changed to one of sadness. Did he truly feel emotions? Or had he been programmed with this personality by someone with a sense of humor?

“I have gathered the data you requested, Doctor,” Eridanus said. “There are many fictional accounts of adventures romanticizing the nebula. I am filtering those out. There are few scientific studies that have been added to the public record. There is a travel advisory suggesting civilian ships avoid the system completely and stating that tow vessels will not enter it to rescue an inoperable ship.”

“So, I need to conduct my own research on hormones and neurotransmitters?”

“It would seem so. It’s possible military doctors did so in the past, but that their logs aren’t available at our level of security clearance.”

“Aren’t Star Guardians pretty important in the Confederation? Wouldn’t Captain Sagitta have a high security clearance?”

“He does have an Alpha-75 clearance,” Eridanus said. “It is likely that if he had requested access to the files a few weeks ago, he would have been given it, but I suspect his privileges are suspended currently.”

A knock sounded on the door. No, on the doorjamb. Sage was standing on the threshold of the small office. The ship’s doors slid open very quietly.

“Doing research on me?” he asked, an eyebrow rising.

“Your ship’s AI was letting me know why we may not have complete access to all the files related to that nebula and the illness you mentioned,” Tala said, refusing to feel embarrassed for having been caught asking about his clearances. “And also that he has a popular Facebook page.”

“A what?”

“Facebook is a social networking platform on Gaia,” Eridanus informed the captain. “It is not dissimilar to our citizen networks.”

Tala looked curiously toward the hidden speaker his voice came from.

“You are not the first of your people to mention it,” Eridanus said, sounding a tad smug again at his display of knowledge.

“I see,” Sage said. “Enact privacy mode.”

Eridanus made a parting beep—did the beep sound huffy?—and did not comment further.

Tala wondered if the command would keep the AI from eavesdropping in this office, or if it only meant Eridanus would not interrupt their conversation.

“What can I do for you, Captain?” Tala asked, remembering that she had a reason to be irked with him. “I wasn’t expecting to see you until you raced past sickbay, shirtless and wielding your favorite knives.”

She expected the comment to startle him—she’d read that a similar event had happened in the first military ship’s visit to the nebula—but he must have gone over the same files, because his expression only grew grim.

“That is what I came to see you about,” Sage said.

“Shirtlessness?”

“I’ve been to the Cronos Nebula before, as I said, and I thought you should know… I was not impervious to the affliction.” His eyebrows drew down, and he frowned, as if it pained him mightily to make this admission.

“It sounds like not many were.”

“Not many men, no. Some of the women were unaffected, or only mildly affected.”

“That sounds like a clue to me.”

“Yes, to me as well, and I welcome you to research it, but my primary concern is passing through as quickly as possible and nothing more.”

“Understandable.” Tala would gather what data she could during their journey. She could always analyze it after they’d safely passed through.

“Good. Because I have this weakness…” There was that look of displeasure again. It must vex him to admit to a weakness of any kind. “It would be irresponsible of me not to take measures to ensure the crew’s safety, should I become incapable of rational command. I’ve alerted Lieutenant Commander Korta to be on guard—his people develop symptoms but not ones that affect their mental stability. I’m also telling you, so—well, I’d like to formally give you the power to relieve me of my command if you deem it necessary.”

Startled, Tala rose from her chair to face him. “Can you do that? I mean, I’m not—I’m just a visitor here.”

“You are the most qualified medical person aboard the ship right now.” He offered a faint smile, meeting her eyes briefly, before looking to the desk behind her. The smile faltered. “I hadn’t realized Svetloka’s belongings were still here. I’d ordered—well, I guess we all got distracted by the slaver mission.” His gaze lingered on the pictures cycling through the display device, and his voice grew softer. “I did record a message for his wife. He was a friend as well as a crewman.”

Tala didn’t know what to say, or if she was supposed to say anything to the haunted expression that flickered through Sage’s eyes. “It’s hard to lose people you know well.”

“Yes.” The haunted expression disappeared behind his more typical mask. “I’ll box up his belongings so you have more room to do your research.”

“Thank you, Captain.”

He stepped forward, and she realized he meant to do it right there. Himself. She had expected him to send some underling to handle the task.

She stepped aside so he would have access to the desk.

“You can call me Sagitta,” he offered, grabbing a small crate with a few bottles of medicine in it, emptying it, then opening a drawer. “Or Sage. You’re not in my chain of command. Unless you’d like to be.” He managed the slight smile again, meeting her eyes.

“Uhm, what?”

Had that been a job offer? And did he have the authority to make such an offer? From what she’d heard, the Star Guardians were elite forces, and one didn’t simply apply to join them. Though maybe having a civilian doctor on board wouldn’t be out of the norm—it might be hard to find someone with extensive medical training who could also jump through all their physical hoops and slay aliens with one hand tied behind one’s back.

“You seem to be learning about the ship and the available medical equipment and drugs quickly,” Sage said. “Orion and Treyjon already asked if their new ladies, Miss Angela and Miss Juanita, could be invited to stay aboard as civilian experts.” His tone turned dry. “Since they have such unique talents and could be assets to our ship.”

“You don’t sound like you believe that.”

Tala was surprised one or both men had approached the captain—Sage—with the idea. The last she’d heard, Treyjon and Orion had been saying they would be willing to return to Earth if that was what they had to do to stay with Angela and Juanita. Maybe neither man truly wanted that.

“It’s not Star Guardian policy to let the crew bring their girlfriends or wives aboard the ship for any reason,” Sage said, “but if those two would rather stay in our part of the galaxy than return home, I’m not opposed to giving them a ride back to Dethocoles. I will find it extremely ironic if all the women I’m risking my career over decide they’d rather live in the Confederation.”

“I don’t think that will be the case. I know that even Juanita and Angela want to be able to see their families again. I’m not sure either would be willing to leave Earth forever.”

“Ah. And would you?”

“Be willing to leave it forever? I didn’t want to come out here at all.”

“Ah,” he said again, more softly, his eyes focusing on his task of removing personal items from the drawers.

“I would think you could get a far more qualified doctor than I for your ship,” Tala said.

“Perhaps. It’s clear now that I should have done so immediately after we lost Dr. Svetloka, but we got so busy that I didn’t have time to go through the files of the possible replacements.” He paused, his hand on a knickknack that looked like the kind of thing a kid made for a parent in art class. “Looking back, I may have been making excuses, but I wasn’t quite ready for a replacement. Which is foolish, of course. We go into battle all the time. The medical robots are capable in many ways, but we need an experienced doctor on board.”

Sage had said the doctor had been a friend, implying a close friend. Maybe the man had been a confidant for him, someone he didn’t have to be the perfect leader for.

“I suppose it’s funny,” Tala said, “because I’m not like Juanita and definitely didn’t want this adventure, but if it didn’t mean saying goodbye to my home forever, I’d definitely consider your offer. I’ve noticed—it’s just pure medical knowhow and surgical skill here, isn’t it? People get hurt, and you patch them up. Kind of like being an ER doc, though even that’s not without drama back home.”

“Drama?” He paused, turning to look at her.

Tala almost closed down, shaking her head and refusing to explain more, as she’d done with Indigo and Katie. But he’d been stuck in those meetings with his superiors and his government leaders for hours, and he’d come out frustrated. He’d been driven to rebel. Maybe he would understand what she’d been through.

“In my world, at least in my country, money is power, and there are a lot of corporations with a lot of money, and that gives them sway over our government, our policymakers. Right now, there are a lot of policies in place to protect the interests of those corporations, among them, pharmaceutical companies. They make insane amounts of money from the drugs they create, and there’s a lot of pressure among doctors to prescribe their latest drugs, even if the tests run to prove their efficacy were sponsored by the makers of the drugs themselves. Every day, I was doing heart surgery on sick and inflamed people who were on multiple prescriptions that were, at best, masking symptoms, but were more often endangering them with side effects. The drug companies like to say they’re helping people, but I’ve had some of the more honest reps admit to me that they want people to be sick, to get prescriptions for patented drugs that they’ll be on for the rest of their lives. That’s where the money is. The sad thing is that almost all of these diseases people get treated for are strongly linked to metabolic derangement. Lifestyle and dietary changes can treat that more effectively than drugs can, but there’s no money in telling someone to relax, sleep more, and stop eating so much factory-made crap.”

Tala realized she was speaking quickly and loudly—ranting, as her last boss had called it—and made herself stop before she dove too far down the rabbit hole. At least Sage was watching her and listening. Her colleagues had been so tired of hearing her rants that they’d either rolled their eyes or fled when she approached.

“I, of course, had no trouble telling the people I operated on about those things in post-op, but they’d go back to their regular doctors, get a pile of fresh prescriptions, and do nothing to change their lifestyles. I was getting more and more frustrated at not truly being able to help the people who came to me, and my opinions didn’t make me popular with my bosses and colleagues. I could have dealt with that, but one day, we had an eighteen-year-old fit, athletic kid in who needed a heart ablation, and I got in a fight with another doctor who wanted me to prescribe him a statin afterwards, because he had mildly elevated cholesterol, so clearly he was going to have other heart problems anytime now.” She shook her head. “It got out of hand, and I ended up quitting. I went up to Flagstaff to take some time off, with a vague idea toward going back to school to practice functional medicine and help people who were interested in getting to root causes rather than popping pills to mask symptoms. There’s not much money in that, but—” She shrugged. “By that point, I figured I’d made enough to fulfill my mom’s wishes for me. I became a doctor because it was what she wanted. We were poor when I was growing up, and my older brother is a screw-up who’s usually in jail. Dad died early, and she wanted someone to make it out of our shitty neighborhood, to have a good life. I intentionally picked a specialty that I knew would be lucrative. I suppose that doesn’t make me any better than those pharmaceutical companies, but with surgery, I knew I was saving lives. Eventually, I was able to buy Mom a little house a few blocks from the beach, and she smiles, and calls me her greatest success.” Tala swallowed around the lump that had formed in her throat. “I haven’t told her yet that my leave of absence was intended to be permanent, but I’m hoping she’ll understand.”

Tala stared bleakly down at the desk, realizing her cat wasn’t the only reason she needed to go back home. She still needed to explain things to her mom. It was amazingly easy to keep secrets from someone who was two thousand miles away, even when they talked every day.

She looked up at Sage, thinking to apologize for delaying him. She hadn’t meant to share all that and was surprised she had, but once the rant started, she hadn’t been able to stop it. Maybe that was why she didn’t usually start talking about herself.

Of course, everyone else who knew her thought she was nuts for walking away from such a lucrative job. Somehow, after living in the same place for almost ten years, she hadn’t found time to make many friends who weren’t also colleagues and weren’t also a part of the same system.

“What did you want to be?” Sage asked softly.

“A concert violinist,” Tala said promptly.

He lifted his eyebrows.

“It’s a musical instrument. I suppose you don’t have them, since they’re only a few hundred years old, but I started playing in school as a girl. For years, I used a violin the teacher lent me, until I could scrimp enough money together to buy a used one. I played all the time when I wasn’t studying.”

“You loved it.”

Tala hesitated. “I came to love it. In the beginning, I played because it drowned out the noises in our apartment building. When I was playing, I couldn’t hear my parents arguing, or my brother and his loser friends making fun of me, or the neighbors shouting at each other. It was always an escape. First from noise, and later from everything. When I was playing, it took me somewhere else. Somewhere quiet and relaxing. I used to write music in school, too, though there wasn’t much time for that after I went into med school and then started working.”

“It’s unfortunate that your kidnappers didn’t also kidnap a violin so you could play here.”

Tala wasn’t sure if that was a joke, but she smiled at the notion. “So I could have an escape from your ship? From its demanding captain?”

“Especially its captain.” His eyes crinkled at the corners. “I’ve heard he’s a pain to work for.”

“Yes, and even though he knows that, he had the gall to offer me a job.”

“He has no shortage of gall.” Sage’s logostec beeped, and he looked down. “We’re almost to the gate. I need to get to the bridge.”

He picked up the box of belongings he had filled, adding the stress ball and picture-displaying device to the top.

“How will I know if you need to be relieved of duty?” Tala asked, wondering how anyone went about doing such a thing.

“I’ll bring Lieutenant Coric up to the bridge and let her know to call you if I don’t seem to be myself.” Sage nodded toward the holographic display of research. “Thank you for working on the problem, and for the other help you’ve provided since coming aboard. Also, I apologize for arguing with you on the bridge. You were right. I shouldn’t be ordering you around.”

Surprised by the admission, Tala shifted to lean her hand against the desk for support. Except, she missed the desk and almost fell over. Fortunately, she caught herself on the bulkhead before pitching face-first into a trashcan.

“Unless you decide to stay here and work for me,” Sage added, drawing back his hand.

She realized he’d reached for her, but stopped short of grabbing her when she’d righted herself without help. She supposed it was good to know that he would have kept her face out of the trashcan if needed.

“Are there any fringe benefits?” she asked.

“I’m afraid it’s unlikely you’ll be buying houses for family members on Star Guardian pay. But Eridanus will share your exploits with his eighty thousand followers. Perhaps you can parlay that fame into something lucrative.”

“It’s ninety thousand, he tells me.”

“It’s grown since last quarter then. It’s possible he’s the most famous AI in the Confederation.” Sage inclined his head and stepped toward the doorway leading back into sickbay.

“Captain?” she asked.

“Sage,” he corrected, turning to meet her eyes again.

“Sage. What did you want to do when you grew up?”

“Defend humanity from the Zi’i and become a decorated soldier like my father.”

“So, you’ve gotten exactly what you wanted out of life?” Tala ought to be happy for him, but it was hard not to feel a twinge of envy for someone who had done all that he wanted and found the place he desired in the universe. She wasn’t sure she had realized until that moment that so many of her frustrations stemmed from having done exactly what her mother wanted her to do with her life.

“We have a saying that goes, you can get everything you ever wanted and not have what you need.” Sage smiled cryptically and walked out.