She was the daughter of a friend. They owed her that.
“Do we…”
Drun cut him off. “We don’t warn her. We can’t, Pollin, not even for Herk’s sake.”
6
Tim wasn’t used to having expectations. According to his other ship mates, it took training to learn to have expectations, and then more training on how to tailor them to reality.
That seemed like an almost circular problem that could better be avoided by not having expectations, trained or otherwise. He thought he had the whole concept handled.
It was a shock to find out he was wrong.
He’d hoped—half expected—the transit to Arroxan Prime to include opportunities to get back onto a better footing with Riina. That she’d have time to get comfortable with his human form. And that he’d get more comfortable with it.
So far, it wasn’t working.
He couldn’t blame it on too many people around. The ship was barely manned, though technically it didn’t need any humans since the ship’s AI Veirn could handle most anything that came along.
In practice, what this meant was that the humans—and Trac—had too much time on their hands. This resulted in multiple awkward encounters, interrupted opportunities, and too much time to think.
His human brain thought way too much. And most of the thinking wasn’t productive in any way that he could identify.
They’d gone over the possible mission parameters so many times, even Lt. Dish could recite them from memory.
It wasn’t, he realized, kind to conclude that Lt. Dish wasn’t as smart as the rest of them. He knew this logically. He had no idea why he’d made the assumption that she was less smart. Perhaps it was because she brought popcorn to their strategy meetings?
He was aware that by human standards, or rather by Expedition standards, she was remarkably attractive. He’d noted that male heads swiveled in her direction when they’d make their way toward the ship.
Before they’d left, he’d downloaded some data on Earth attraction metrics and applied them to Lt. Dish. She’d scored very high.
Next, he’d assessed his own physical response to being in her presence. He had noted some elevated readings, but none that were as high as when he was around Riina. From that he concluded that he found her attractive, but in a detached way.
Had that detachment led him to conclude she was less intelligent than he was?
It was possible. He wasn’t sure why she’d been included in the mission at all.
She was a lieutenant. This put her fairly low on the rank structure within the Expedition.
Rank didn’t matter that much on the ship, since none of them were in that rank structure, so perhaps the general had considered any rank sufficient. But to what end? She couldn’t order any of them around.
Conclusion: she must have some other purpose.
Before becoming human, he would have asked Riina for her assessment of Lt. Dish.
Now his issues felt compounded by the distance, and by what he’d observed as her reaction to the lieutenant. He could be wrong, but he sensed a faint, deeply buried hostility from Riina.
What was that about?
Other than providing popcorn, Lt. Dish didn’t talk much, didn’t appear to observe much, and contributed zero to their discussions.
She looked good. And she looked.
That seemed to be the sum of Lt. Dish.
And yes, as she moved around, even Tim, who prided himself on not noticing human emotions, sensed waves of something swirling around her.
She was, he decided, a disruptor of some kind. Was that her function?
