3 – A senor is like a minute, and similar to a minute, a senor can feel like a year

Intlola lifted xir head. Forty-five senors. It had only been forty-five senors. Xe was already bored out of xir mind. Xe had expected to nap through most of the trip, but compacted pallets of laundry turned out not to be so comfortable. Huh. You live, you learn.

Xe pulled xir bag up from the floor beside xir and dug around inside with xir hand. Feeling xir notebook between xir fingers, xe pulled it out and reached back in for a writing instrument. A few items overflowed out from the bag, but one small round object in particular caught Intlola’s eye.

Xe rushed onto xir feet, hurrying after the rolling marble as it careened away with what seemed like increasing speed but was actually just Intlola’s increasing panic. Xe risked a quick glance up to see that a wall was not far off, and a thousand scenarios ran through xir mind, each with the perfect solution, except the one that actually occurred.

The marble rolled and Intlola bounded after it. Xe closed the distance, carefully plotting each step. As the marble closed in on the wall, xe anticipated which way it would roll, but instead of rolling left or right, it got stuck in the jam of a doorway.

Xe couldn’t stop xirself as xe pushed forward towards it. Eyes laser-focused on the marble, xe bent down and aimed xir hands at the floor. The marble looked back menacingly and likely would have enjoyed continuing the chase, but it wasn’t sentient. Well, not quite.

Abruptly, the door slid open, and Intlola’s face rammed into the chest of a person with very hard buttons on his coat. But that didn’t stop xir.

Xe made visual contact with the marble again just as it eased itself from the open doorway and began to roll along the wall. Though xe tried to head after it, a hand grabbed xir collar and turned xir to face the hard-buttoned man, who had a face of jagged features and hands that, honestly, were rough as sandpaper.

“Wow,” Intlola said. “Your hands are like sandpaper.”

“Who are you? Show me your ident card,” the man demanded politely.

“I may not have a lot,” Intlola continued, “but I’m always happy to share some of my moisturizer with a rough-handed bloke.”

He didn’t look amused.

“I like my hands rough,” he said. He held one of them up into Intlola’s face, the one that wasn’t politely clutching xir shirt collar so tightly it was digging into xir neck. “I’m a Rifapod. Breathe through my skin,” he explained.

‘Breathe’ was a strong word to use in this case, as the Rifa didn’t breathe through their skin exactly. Exactly, their skin was a membrane of varying permeability that used tightly regulated concentration gradients to facilitate the flow of oxygen into their bodies. However, this wasn’t usually a very good conversation starter, as evidenced by the common intergalactic norm to avoid Rifapod parties. A Rifapod such as this proud Whities employee who took up a career in hospitality was among the handful of races whose training included social etiquette and conversational skills. In other words, he was doing the best he could.

“Oh, my mistake,” Intlola said with a sheepish grin. “Perhaps instead I could interest you in a game of hide and not-seek?”

“Fraid not,” the Rifapod said and roughly, but politely, escorted xir out into the hallway.

First Officer Xicmeak tapped his finger on the arm of his seat. It had been an uneventful trip as of yet, not that he expected any differently from a mostly empty passenger cruiser headed to a planet where the main import was Centralian underwear (that’s not true. All kinds of laundry came in from the Centralians. But the thought of hauling underwear was helping to fuel his spiral of rage). He had been a crew member on the Stargazer for over 15 Galactic Standard Years, and ever since they came under the leadership of Whities, things just hadn’t sat right with him.

He couldn’t put his finger on the issue, not even by repeatedly tapping them on his armrest, which, unbeknownst to him, was annoying the hell out of the crew member working at the navigation station just to his left.

“Security to Ivory Xicmeak,” a voice said in his ear, using his Whities title.

He gritted his teeth and clutched the armrest. With his other hand, he tapped his earpiece.

“Go,” he said.

“A crew member has found a stowaway, and I thought you should know.”

A stowaway? On a laundry ship?

He stood.

“I’m headed to security,” he announced. “Contact me if anything comes up.”

With an acknowledging nod from the crew members, he exited the bridge and made his way through corridors, down an elevator with the worst music to be stuck in an enclosed space with (thanks Whities), down more corridors, around the shops, cutting through the kitchen, up even more corridors, and finally up to the door of security.

The crew member saluted when he entered, and Xicmeak waved his hand as a reminder that they were not quite military. They were part of the starfleet of the Federation of Underserved Colonies and Kingdoms (whose acronym in its native language was pronounced FAKE and the translation of the word FUCK pronounced FAKE in English was “very not fake”). Under extreme economic stress, FUCK had contracted out its entire fleet of ships to Whities. He was still under contract, one that he regularly considered not renewing come its expiration next season. So even though they were technically part of a military fleet, the situation felt weird and that meant that saluting felt kind of weird as well.

“This them?” Xicmeak asked.

“Xir,” corrected the crew member.

“Ah.” It was quiet for a full senor before he finally asked, “This is xir?”

“Yes, sir. This is the stowaway. Xe doesn’t have an ident card and doesn’t match anyone registered in the system. I also did a search through the FUCK criminal system, but no matches came up there either.”

“Very thorough, Leokart,” Xicmeak said, walking over to the cell. “What’s your name there?”

“Wouldn’t tell me,” Leokart said sheepishly.

Xicmeak rolled his eyes before turning to look at the security crew member.

“Tell you what, Leokart. Why don’t you head to the security office, and I’ll see what I can get out of xir?”

“Yes, sir,” Leokart said, over-straightening his back and giving a full and fully unnecessary salute. He then spun on his heels and marched out of the room.

Xicmeak shook his head and heaved a big sigh before returning his attention to the stowaway.

“Sorry about all this,” he said. “The crew hasn’t had much to do lately, seeing as how very few really want to travel between Centralian space and the Hrzkelion moon of Varkovic 5. We tend to have more laundry than passengers these days.”

Intlola stayed quiet, though xe looked deep in thought and this made Xicmeak quite curious.

“Did you hear me?” he asked. “I’m going to let you go when we get to our destination, and this isn’t an interrogation, so there’s really no need to…”

“Seven!” Intlola burst in interruption. Xe snapped xir fingers.

“What?” Xicmeak asked.

“It’s where I went wrong!” Intlola explained. “I was supposed to go to platform sev…”

Xe paused as xe turned xir attention to the first officer, but couldn’t finish what xe was thinking because xir jaw was figuratively on the floor. Within moments, Xicmeak’s jaw joined it there, still figuratively just in case you weren’t sure.

“You!” Intlola explained. “How dare you show your face in front of me!”