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"Don't tell me," Beka said as Harper swung onto the Maru's bridge. "You don't have a single throne from your cut left, do you."
"Your lack of faith in my financial responsibility is disturbing, boss." Beka glared. "And yet somehow entirely accurate!"
Beka settled into the pilot's seat. "Don't tell me—that Andrian dancing girl?" Her comm beeped. "Rev, that you?"
"Yes, Captain Valentine. Back aboard and ready for departure."
"See, at least I have one crew member who shows me respect." Beka grumbled, strapping in.
Harper perched on the railing behind her, winding his arms through it to stabilize as the docking clamps released. "He's just luring you in with a false sense of security, and then one night, when we're all asleep—bam!"
"Harper," Beka said, her tone sharp.
"Okay, okay! You trust him and I trust you," he said as he'd said many times since Rev Bem came on board, with a tone that implied that that wasn't quite the truth.
"And don't change the subject."
"Ah, Treela—"
Beka cocked her head. "Wasn't her name Treena?"
"Treela, Treena, our connection went deeper than names. Deeper than words."
"She had whiskers."
Harper grinned. "Yes, she did."
"And fur. Blue fur."
"The softest, most beautiful blue fur—the way it shined in starlight—"
"And, I'm guessing by the hole in your pocket, a taste for the finer things in life?"
Harper jumped down from his perch and scratched his neck. "What are thrones in the face of the deep, spiritual connection between Treela—"
"Treena."
"—Treena and I? When, in this vast universe will we ever cross paths again?"
"Probably the next time we dock at Tokyo Drift. With a pocketful of thrones."
"You," Harper said, running his nails through the spikes of his hair. "have no faith in love."
"Nope." Beka grabbed the handles of the pilot's chair. She flicked the comm. "Brace for slipstream." Harper grabbed the railing behind him. "Love is for suckers."
*
Harper was wiggling in his bunk even more than usual. Beka kicked the underside, sharply. "Quit it or I'll sic Rev Bem on you."
"Aha!" Harper said, his head appearing over the edge of his bunk. "So you admit he's a vicious killer secretly out to use us to hatch his filthy Magog eggs!"
"No," Beka said, smiling innocently. "But he does give a mean lecture about respecting all life forms and LETTING THEM SLEEP."
"Uncle," Harper said, running his fingers over his scalp again. He' been doing that all day. "I just can't get comfortable. I feel all...tingly."
"Oh, ugh, Harper. If this has anything to do with Treena, just stop talking right now."
"Uh, boss?"
"Harper, god, I've got to relieve Rev in three hours."
"Uh...is your hair supposed to do that?"
Beka sat straight up in her bunk, bringing her eye to eye with Harper. "Do what."
"Nothing?" Harper rolled back into his bunk. "Forgot I said anything?"
"Do what?" Beka rolled out of her bunk, bare feet on the cold deck plates. If she wasn't sleeping, wasn't nobody sleeping. She flicked on the lights and headed over to the mirror. "What, exactly, is my hair supposed to be doing?" She stared at her hair, red the same way it had been when she went to bed that night and the night before and the night before that. She'd been thinking about going blond ever since Bobby, but she wasn't quite sure she was ready to be the kind of girl who changed her hair when her boyfriend dumped her.
She was just about to go back to bed—and assign Harper to garbage duty for the rest of the month—when she saw it. A hint of green, starting at one spot and moving outward like a ripple in a pond, then it was gone. She'd never seen the nanites do that before. And now that she was focusing on it, her scalp, maybe, felt a little tingly too?
"Goddammit, Harper," she said with a sinking feeling in her stomach. She yanked out a hair from the center of the ripple and walked over to the computer.
"What did I do?" Harper whined.
Beka put the hair in the analyzer and leaned over the scope with a feeling of dread. "Dammit!"
She heard a thunk as Harper's curiosity got the best of him. When she turned to look, sure enough, he was scratching his scalp again. "Dammit! You and that Andrian dancer!"
"What?" Harper pushed her aside to look in the scope.
"That tingling feeling? It's not love she gave you. It's lice."
*
Beka banged into the galley, the little hope of sleep gone. "Captain, is something wrong?" Rev Bem emerged from the bridge, looking distressed.
"I'll say." She slammed open the cabinets, looking through their medical supplies. She already knew she didn't have anything, but she needed to check anyway. "Harper's girlfriend had lice, the gift that keeps giving." She twitched as she swore she felt something bite her. Her imagination was so worked up at this point that every air current felt like little insect legs. She shuddered.
"Harper! Goddammit."
"But isn't lice easy to treat?" Rev Bem said looking perplexed.
"Sure. If you've got some Gravodyne gel, but look at that! I'm fresh out! Cause I didn't expect my crew members to go out and pick up Andrian lice!"
"It is cheap to acquire, though, isn't it?" Rev Bem continued.
"Which we will, next time we put into a drift in, oh, two weeks. In the meantime, if I have to suffer, I am not suffering alone. Harper!" She yelled again.
Harper appeared, looking sheepish. "That temptress! Luring me innocently with her—whiskers!"
Beka slammed the cabinet shut.
"What can I say, boss—I've got a thing for fur."
"You..." Beka started, not quite sure what she could inflict on Harper to avenge the next two weeks of misery.
"Wait! Wait!" Harper whipped something out from behind him. "Growing up in a refugee camp did teach me a few things, and what to do with lice is unfortunately one of them."
"What is that?" Beka said, squinting at the thing in his hand.
"It appears to be...a comb," Rev said.
"Brilliant deduction. It is a comb." Harper waved it with a flourish.
"You're going to what, comb my hair? And it will magically get rid of the lice?"
"Uh...not so much magic, no. This is when you come sit over here and I express my gratitude to your good overall hygiene."
Eyeing him warily, Beka pulled over a chair and straddled it. Harper hopped up onto the counter behind her. "Now..." Harper said, adjusting her head forward. "If Rev will just grab me a bucket..."
Beka jerked forward. "If you shave my head, you're getting a one way ticket out the airlock."
"No worries, boss. My cousin Siobhan had waist-length hair. If I didn't know how to remove lice without Gravodyne gel or a razor, well, let's just say a certain bully would have had to find another supplier for his Nietszchean surface-to-air missiles."
"Harper..." Beka growled.
"Just trust in the Harper and the certified Harper lice removal program, passed down through centuries of Harper men and practiced by yours truly on more than one occasion."
Beka gave one last glare, then scooched back again, putting her scalp at Harper's mercy. Rev placed a bucket next to Harper on the counter, and settled in to see this strange Earth ritual. "Excellent-ay," Harper said and started combing the hair at the base of Beka's skull.
"What is this certified Harper lice removal program?"
"Easy!" Harper said. "I find all the lice, and remove them!"
"You mean...individually?" Beka said, incredulously.
"Yup! Now relax your neck. We may be here a while."
There was silence for a moment, then a sharp tug. "Got one!" Harper crowed.
"Ow," said Beka. "If you're going to pull each of my hairs out individually, you might as well get a razor."
"Not the hairs, just the nits." Harper paused his combing. "And there's one more thing. The Harper process can only be applied to someone else, and unfortunately, unless you get rid of all the lice, they just keep coming back, so—"
Beka tried to jerk away again, but Harper had a firm grip on her head this time. "You mean I have to do this through the crusty frosting that you call hair?"
"Yup," Harper said. "And also—hey! I work hard to get just this exact effect."
"Fine!" Beka said. "Fine! Just get it over with."
*
A few hours later, Harper had certified her lice free, and she had thoroughly disheveled his coif doing the same. It had been oddly relaxing, in a way, like a scalp massage, if only she could forget for a moment exactly what Harper was picking out.
They emptied the contents of the bucket into the garbage chute, and Beka hit the airlock release with a deep sense of satisfaction. She turned to Harper. "New rule: no fur."
"But!" he protested. "Fine."
"And you're cleaning all the bedding."
"You are so unfair!"
She headed onto the bridge to relieve Rev, who had grown bored of watching them comb each other's hair some time ago. "I take it the situation has resolved itself?" Rev said, standing up from the pilot seat.
"Yup. No more creepy crawlies. I swear, that kid attracts vermin. I don't know why I keep him on board."
If he had been anything but a Magog, Beka would have sworn he smiled. "Yes, you do."
"Yes, I do."
Rev turned to go, scratching his claws across his stomach. Beka's eyes widened.
"Rev?"
"Yes, captain?"
"Do you, by any chance, feel tingly?"
Rev cocked his head. "Now that you mention it, I have been feeling...tingly...for several hours."
"Harper!" Beka shouted.
He popped his head onto the bridge, his arms full of pillow cases. "Yes, boss?"
"Rev says he's feeling tingly." She didn't even try to suppress a grin. "You still have that comb, don't you?"
The pillow cases hit the deck.
*
Three hours later, Beka walked through the galley. Rev was sitting perfectly motionless with one arm lifted above his head, probably meditating. Harper was working his way through the fur on the underside of his arm.
"Now remember to check all the fur," Beka said. "If you let even one slip by, you'll just have to start all over again."
Harper looked murderous. But—Beka realized as she walked away—not afraid. Beka couldn't remember him ever getting close enough to touch Rev Bem before. Well, she supposed, it must be hard to maintain a state of mortal terror while picking nits. The way they were going, they'd probably be at it for the rest of the day.
She shook her head, thinking about the kid. She should have guessed that, around Seamus Zelazny Harper, even crew bonding would be unique.