Go See Body

After leaving the ambassador, you trot to your quarters. The door to your rooms is more like a shell than a piece of wood or metal. Unpleasant memories of fighting through Jelly ships flash through your mind. The shell slides open at your touch, and you enter.

The rooms assigned to you are huge by spaceship standards. Bathroom. Bedroom. A combo sitting area/kitchen. It’s nicer than the flat you call home back on Mars. . . . Small violet flowers grow along the frame over the bed. They smell like spiced liqueur.

You sling your gear onto an odd, organic looking chair, retrieve your chip-lab, down a blue AcuWake capsule (Rohyamar was right; it was needed after cryo), and then follow the directions on your overlays toward wherever Umesh’s body lies waiting.

Apprehension creeps up your back as you make your way through the station. Along with the Caretakers, you spot several Jellies in the main concourse. They’re smaller ones, with lobster-like bodies—bodies better suited for the stations artificial gravity. No tentacles.

You keep your distance and again wish for your pistol. It’s not that you hate Jellies, but after the shit they pulled during the war, you can’t help but view each and every one of the aliens as a potential killer. It’s going to take a lot for any sort of trust to build up between humans and Jellies, and if they really did off Umesh . . .

An alert pops up in your overlay: a text from the ambassador.

Here’s what the station mind said. If you can make sense of it, you’re smarter than we are. – Rohyamar