“Of course you are,” I say soothingly. “But you’re causing a panic on the ship, so it is time to go back to our room. I don’t want to hear any arguments.”
“He’s not who you think he is!” She panics and starts throwing accusations around wildly. “Don’t you think it’s weird he’s in his underwear?”
The crew look at me, and for the first time, notice that yes, I am technically only wearing what most would call underwear. In the eyes of the others, I am wearing business attire. Each of themsees slightly different details, but overall they can be certain that I am looking refined and appropriate. I don’t even look like a Psyon to most of them.
Unfortunately, the illusion breaks when it is pointed out. I am going to have to train her not to do that. In certain circumstances, that could be wildly dangerous.
“Let me take my pet back to my quarters and get into more suitable attire,” I say. “I did not have enough time to dress properly when I realized she was missing.”
They accept this, because of course they do. My influence is already back upon them.
I pick my pet up, throw her over my shoulder, and carry her back to the cabin. I might have to stay with her here until we depart if she’s going to try to escape. I would have thought she’d be pleased to be part of this expedition with me, but my powers seem to be slightly slippery where she is concerned. Humans really are a particular kind of animal.
I put her down in the room, shut the door, and turn to face a barrage of questions.
“What the fuck can you do? Is it some kind of psychic power? They didn’t know you were in your underwear until I said it,” she says. “I saw that on their faces. And there’s more, too. You can fuck with minds, can’t you? I want to know what, and how, or it’s not fair!”
She is not the only one with questions.
“Why were you trying to leave the ship?”
“Because I want my stuff from my ship.”
“The flooded ship that will have almost certainly destroyed everything inside it that was organic or electronic, which is most things? The ship that is, right now, well over three lightyears away?”
“Yes,” she says.
“That ship is a death trap. It has almost certainly been destroyed by the station fire department. I’m sorry, but what you had has been lost.”
Her face crumples, though she tries very hard to straighten it out and seem brave.
“What did you want from it?”
“Books.”
They’ll be space mulch by now.
“We may be able to find other copies.”
“I doubt it,” she says. “They were special.”
“I am sorry,” I say. “So much of life is having and then losing special things. But we have to move forward, pet. There is no going back, not to what was, or to who we were.”
She rejects my attempt at comfort with a scowl. “Is that garbled nonsense supposed to mean something?”
She is a salty little thing, with a sharp tongue. I would like to soften that a little, because it is verging on disrespectful. Actually, no. It’s not verging. It’s taking a giant leap directly into a large vat of disrespect.
“It means accept your fate.”
She treats me to a very agitated expression. “No,” she says. “I won’t.”
“I could spank you until you cried.”
“I could stab you.”
Fair. Threats beget threats. Better to show her what is going to come her way if she does not settle. I take a breath and recalibrate. It is ridiculous for one such as I to become embroiled in a power struggle with a simple little human like her.
“You’re not going anywhere,” I tell her. “I won’t allow it. The amount of danger you are in at all times as an unattended human cannot be overstated, and I think you know it. There’s a decent chance that you could have been taken in that net to the kitchen.”
