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“They’re sleeping together!”
The breakroom erupted in frustrated groans. A few people pulled out their wallets, ready to hand her the cash. Lokken stood in the doorway, waved awkwardly to one of the uninvolved crew as they passed next to her.
There were two betting pools going on: one, about who would discover them together, and the second, about whether they were having sex and since how long. There would also be a prize for whoever actually caught them and brought sufficient proof. It was maybe childish, and maybe it bothered her that the man she’d tried to get to at least look at her like she was something different than a random chair in a room had instead decided their director was whom he desired. But it was fun, and in the face of the world ending, they were all desperate for that.
“Wait, moment!” everyone’s eyes were on Olesya. Even Lokken couldn’t help but look at her. “How do you know this?”
“I saw him in her room this morning—in pajamas, and he looked like he just woke up.”
Hatch snickered. She glared at him.
“Hey, unfair,” he spoke, never looking up from a calculator that he had on the table in front of him. What was he even doing in the breakroom if he was going to work? “You guys said that her coming to our sleep quarters and getting his blanket wasn’t good proof. This is about the same caliber!”
Lokken came inside properly.
“No, it isn’t! It’s not just oh, maybe she’s pining for him or whatever. It’s them actually together in the room!”
And thus began even more yelling. Lokken crossed her arms as she watched it unfold.
She bet against them sleeping together. Something silly to settle her heart. But she did bet that if they were having sex, she’d be the one to figure it out.
“Doesn’t this bother you?” Yáo piped up. Lokken jumped, putting a hand to her heart. He’d walked closer to her without her noticing.
“Bother?” she echoed.
Yáo shrugged.
“Aren’t you…”
“Do you not wish to engage Dr. Grace in sexual congress?” Martin DuBois finished for him.
Lokken wasn’t blushing. She wasn’t
“Even if I am, then at least this way, I get money. He’s about as oblivious as if I was flirting with a rock.”
Olesya’s arms wrapped around her from the side. Lokken tried to pry them away.
“Aww, poor Lokkin…” Olesya sung, close to her ear but too loud for that distance. “Don’t worry, I find you boyfriend. They keep sending me marriage proposals.”
Lokken managed to push her off.
“I don’t think that’s your personal charm and more so the fact that you’re dying.”
Olesya shrugged and took a swig of her coffee that Lokken could sense smelled suspiciously alcoholic.
“Maybe,” then her arm was on Lokken again, Olesya’s chin hooked over her shoulder. “I’m not a rock, though. Promise, am very good lover…”
She kissed Lokken’s cheek. Lokken pushed her away with more force, this time.
Olesya pouted. The whole room erupted in laughter.
Eva’s room had a small window on the side, and a peephole in the door, but one that could only be used from the inside without the image becoming too warped to discern. There wasn’t any way to see into it, not unless someone was swimming around the ship, in which case Olesya figured it didn’t matter what they saw.
She wasn’t going to try looking inside anytime soon, no. She was on her way to some lecture she’d been forced to about psychological management in the case of solitary confinement. It sounded distinctly like it would be better described with the words “TUTORIAL: how to not go insane if all your crewmates die”. She hadn’t even realised that her way would take her past Stratt’s room.
Yes, money and vodka and chocolate that she could win based off the Grace-Stratt bet were all well and fun, but she wasn’t going to go out of her way to look into their private lives. It didn’t sound that amusing; it also made her feel weird about herself. Flirting with everything that moved was all well and good, even if she was only interested in women. Trying to see what others were doing behind closed doors smelled too distinctly of Russia’s policies about queer people and left a bad taste in her mouth.
Accidentally stumbling upon Eva’s slightly ajar door, though? Very fun. Olesya would recommend.
It was late, but not late enough for her to expect Stratt to be inside. Most days, she remained in her office until 1, sometimes 2 am. It was before midnight, this time.
The light was on. It spilled into the dim hallway in a small sliver. Olesya raised an eyebrow.
She could hear Eva’s hushed voice.
She was looking through the gap before she could stop herself.
Not much of the room was visible, and Olesya remembered hearing from someone that the door creaked, so she didn’t dare push it open even a little more. Still, the angle gave her a good view of Eva’s desk and part of her bed.
The office chair was empty, papers still strewn around on the desk.
Eva was on the bed, laptop propped up on her knees. Olesya could make out the sound of fingers typing on the keyboard, could see the focused lines of Eva’s face, sharpened by the artificial light of her computer screen. And on Eva’s shoulder, sleeping, laid Ryland Grace.
Olesya took out her phone, smirking. Oh, maybe this wasn’t proof of sex, but it was something weird. They were cuddling; there had to have been sex; if not, Olesya would eat her shoe. Perhaps not literally. They didn’t seem like they had a “cuddling” sort of relationship, was the point.
Eva was whispering something, but it was so quiet Olesya couldn’t make out the words. No matter. She had her picture, and that was already something.
Eva looked up, almost caught Olesya’s eyes in the gap in the door.
She hadn’t run this fast since she broke into the Kremlin.
“I’ll do you one better,” Bob said, pushing chips to the middle of the table. They were playing poker, except only Ilyukhina, Dimitri and Bob himself knew how to play, so everyone else was mostly pretending they weren’t looking up the rules on their phones. “She gave him one of her coffees, the other day.”
Ilyukhina shook her head.
“I saw him bring her sandwich a week ago. Didn’t even knock on door, just came in.”
Yáo sighed.
“With how much time you spend stalking them, you would think the world wasn’t ending.”
Ilyukhina swung an arm over to him and pinched his cheek.
“Come on, Li! You know you enjoy this!”
“Yeah, you’re not better than us,” Lokken nudged him. She kept showing Bob her cards, but it wasn’t like he was going to complain about that.
“And how’s your romancing of Dr. Grace going?” Shapiro asked. Lokken put her cards on the table, right side up, cheeks burning.
“I’m not—nothing is going on.”
“Yeah, because he’s still oblivious as a rock.”
Lokken looked to the side, moved her cards so that they were covered. Bob repeated their sequence in his head to memorise it.
“Isn’t this awkward for you? I mean, don’t you… hate him, professionally?” Lamai asked. Bob had forgotten she was even in the room, so inconsequential he found the woman.
“Hate sex is a thing, Dr. Lamai,” DuBois responded.
“Yes! Hate sex! To hate sex!”
Bob obediently raised his glass to toast with Ilyukhina. They waited, until Lokken groaned and put her own beverage in the air, clinking the glass together with everybody else.
Ilyukhina pondered her cards and the chips on the table, then seemed to remember something and returned her attention to the room at large.
“Did I show you picture of Eva and Gracie cuddling?”
There was silence for a few seconds.
Bob let himself glance at Lokken. She was beet red.
“You have what?”
Ilyukhina pat Dimitri on the shoulder.
“It’s very good picture, Dimitri. I meant to show you in room earlier but forgot.”
“So…” Annie was determined to find out what was going on between them. Her bet was on some sort of kink play. Dr. Grace was too soft and had recently become more relaxed—perhaps they had only just now started fucking.
She must have startled him. He almost dropped the micropipette.
“Ms Stratt sure seems busy today…”
His shoulders relaxed. He nodded, not paying attention to her, and began readjusting the volume settings. His eyes kept jumping to a protocol sheet that lay on the table, his mouth silently muttering the words printed.
“She looks stressed.”
Dr. Grace put a tip on the pipette, then finally turned to face Annie.
“Oh, yeah, she has this insane meeting with like 50 different businessmen who all want her to pay them full price for tech. It’s crazy. I mean, she’s already began the process of just requisitioning it, but she said she would ‘still try to reason with them’.”
He picked up a microcentrifuge tube, labelled with an unreadable scrawl, and put the pipette tip inside.
How did he know about that?
“Is the sequencer busy?” he asked her, apparently already done with the conversation.
“Uh, yes.”
He groaned.
“Until when? I wanted to run checks on my Ast4 knockouts, I think we’ve finally found a unique protein that has to do with cell membrane assembly and extracellular vesicle creation, which we can mutate without it being lethal. Unless it didn’t take. I mean, I already set a PCR earlier, but I want the sequencer.”
“When did Ms. Stratt tell you about her meeting?”
He seemed to only then remember he was holding the full pipette and found a different tube to deposit liquid into. She trailed after him as he walked to place both test tubes in some ice.
“Eh, I don’t remember,” he waved his hand. She had to move away when he almost hit her with the pipette he was still holding. “You know where I put my glasses?”
Annie pointed to his head. He looked about ready to slap himself in the forehead.
“Thanks,” he cleared his throat. “The sequencer?”
She walked away from him. She didn’t know how this conversation was real.
“Maybe he’s a virgin and he’s embarrassed,” Olesya cooed, leaning on Dimitri as they crowded together on the couch. “You know, maybe they do the… dry humping is name, yes? Maybe he’s scared she won’t like his penis.”
“You are too invested in this, Lesiúnia.”
“You try and stop me?”
He laughed.
“Never!”
Redell was looking between them, sat on the ground in front of the couch. DuBois was beside him, Shapiro in his lap. They needed to convince Stratt to get a second couch there.
“Are all Russians this close?” Redell asked.
Olesya barked a laugh before Dimitri could.
“Russians? Never! I’m just charming, and Dima thinks I’m stray cat,” she nuzzled into his arm.
DuBois quirked a brow.
“And… you two do not have sex?”
“People can be friends, Martin,” Dimitri said. DuBois nodded, unconvinced.
“Sex and friendship don’t need to be separate.”
Olesya blew a raspberry at him.
“I’m lesbian! Dima’s good hugger, good support. Brought me vodka when Alina broke my heart.”
“Alina didn’t break your heart, she asked you to move in with her and you ran away.”
Olesya elbowed him.
“Details, details.”
“I think you all owe me!”
Everyone turned to stare at Steve Hatch. He was practically bouncing with excitement.
“She kissed him!”
Lamai was distantly aware of Dr. Lokken dropping something.
“When? How?”
“Two days ago! They were in her office, I wanted to see if she got through the plans for improvements I sent her, and I looked in. She had her hand in his hair and then she kissed him on the forehead.”
Ms Ilyukhina booed him.
“Forehead kiss is nothing! If cuddling not enough, then forehead kiss also not.”
“You don’t get to talk, you have too much of a weird thing with Komorov to be trusted with judging,” Dr Redell rebutted. “Didn’t he kiss your forehead last week?”
Ms Ilyukhina threw a pillow at him.
“Did you see that?” DuBois turned to Yáo. They were both standing outside a conference room, the only bigger one on the ship. Stratt was in it almost constantly, these days.
“First Officer of Project Hail Mary running into a conference room, grabbing at Ms. Stratt and her calming him from a panic attack? Yes, DuBois, I did. I have eyes.”
They stood there, musing, for a few seconds longer.
“So, I don’t think they’re engaging in sex.”
Yáo turned his head to him too quickly.
“You don’t say?” he taunted. “It’s almost like they’re friends.”
DuBois shrugged.
“Are you going to tell the others that you think that?”
Yáo smiled, then tried to force it off his face.
“No. It’s too amusing watching them try to find something that isn’t there.”