by Mary E. Lowd
An excerpt from Prodigy of the Wanderlust. If you’d prefer, you can start with Chapter 1, return to the previous chapter, or skip ahead.
Since Werik was on bridge duty and Korvax had conveniently busied himself making breakfast, the barracks room that the two of them shared with Vossie was currently empty, making it an acceptable location for the Papillon engineer to perform his ordered examination of Vossie and his new alien implant. It’s not like a ship this small actually had a med bay.
Ensign Mike followed along, almost as if hypnotized. The toadstool was deeply invested in the rabbit’s health and in the question of what was going on with this alien device and its strange metallic-blue flavor.
Lt. Cmdr. Vossie sat on his own cot in the barracks room, and Lt. Lee stood beside him. Ensign Mike stood nervously in the entrance to the room.
The Papillon started by scanning the implant with a uni-meter. Then he upgraded to several more specialized engineering tools.
“When Lt. Cmdr. Vossie was unconscious before,” Ensign Mike volunteered, “the device seemed to be flooding his body with something I couldn’t recognize — a chemical maybe? Or some kind of electro-magnetic pulse?” The mushroom wanted to say, “It tasted blue and metallic,” but they didn’t think that would actually be helpful to anyone without mycelial threads capable of tasting.
“Electro-magnetic pulse is a good guess,” Lt. Lee woofed, still completely focused on the readings he was getting on the screen of his scanner. “But I think it’s actually a subspace pulse.”
Mike didn’t know what to make of that. Could they taste subspace pulses? Why would a subspace pulse taste blue? Or metallic? What really was subspace and why would a neural implant make it pulse?
“You don’t need to be here for this,” Lt. Cmdr. Vossie said. “You can go back to your own quarters.”
At the rabbit’s words, the Papillon dog looked up from his scanner and blinked. “Their own quarters?” Lt. Lee woofed, confused. “Doesn’t Mike have a cot in here?”
“No,” Vossie said. “This barracks is just Werik, Korvax, and me. Though, Korvax has a big enough personality to fill three barracks rooms entirely on his own.”
“But my barracks,” Lt. Lee insisted, “is just me, Melbourne, Diaz, and Lys… when she isn’t staying on Sojourner’s back with Solace anymore, which is most of the time these days. Mike’s not with us.”
The Morphican and Papillon both turned to look at the toadstool with questioning eyes.
“If you don’t sleep in either of the barracks,” Vossie asked, “where do you sleep?”
“Do you sleep?” The Papillon looked genuinely uncertain as to whether the toadstool actually slept, as if not sleeping would preclude the need for a sentient being to have a small amount of space to rest in, to call their own.
For more than a year, Ensign Mike had managed to hide the shame of the fact that Captain Carroway hadn’t seen them as being worthy of being assigned to a barracks. And somehow, in the middle of something so much more important, the captain’s darling pet officer and their own best friend had arrived at the shameful truth by accident? This was so unfair.
Mike wanted to walk out of that barracks room and simply hope the two of them forgot about this. But also, the toadstool really wanted to be here for the rest of this examination — wanted to know everything Lt. Lee learned.
But why?
It wasn’t Mike’s implant.
This wasn’t Mike’s problem.
This was Vossie’s problem, and apparently, maybe, it wasn’t a problem at all.
The rabbit looked more clear-eyed and even-keeled than he’d looked all year. There was usually a wild edginess in his eyes, ever since they’d been thrown to the Tetra Galaxy — a sense that it would only take one more thing going wrong for the Morphican to snap somehow.
But now he seemed perfectly peaceful.
And maybe the only reason that Mike couldn’t accept that simple truth was that they were jealous. The toadstool still believed, somewhere deep inside, that they were actually Vossie’s implant. But they weren’t anymore.
Vossie wasn’t their ward.
Vossie wasn’t theirs in any way at all.
So Mike turned around and left.
The toadstool left the Papillon and the rabbit’s questions unanswered and walked down the hall to the multi-purpose room. They glanced into engineering and saw that Lt. Diaz was working on an open computer panel. The Xolo-Lupinian was deeply focused, and the toadstool judged that they could creep past her without being noticed.
So, Mike went to the panel behind the zephyr drive coil that opened into the crawlspace that they liked to think of as their own, private barracks. The toadstool crawled inside, closed the panel behind themself, and sank into a state of quasi-consciousness — not quite sleep, but not quite awake. Their mind swirled with fragments of memory — what had just happened with Vossie and Lee; Vossie collapsing; losing over and over at the gambling den on Spindle Reef; and Captain Carroway blaming them. Over and over, those little clips of memory spun through the mushroom’s mind.
Maybe Mike was the one who needed a neural implant to steady their emotions.
Maybe Mike was the one who needed to meet with a therapist.
Except, Mike was a neural implant.
And Mike was the closest thing the Wanderlust had to a therapist.
There was no help coming for Mike.
No one even knew how much — how very, very much — Mike needed help.
And even that was Mike’s own fault, wasn’t it? Because they didn’t tell anyone. The toadstool actively hid the fact that they didn’t even have a barracks assignment.
How could Mike blame anyone else for this situation, when it was Mike’s own stubbornness and pride that had brought them here?
How could anyone help Mike, if Mike wouldn’t let them?
But…
Would anyone help Mike, if Mike tried to let them?
The toadstool dozed, whirling through the same circular thoughts, retracing their mental steps like a dance they were rehearsing, only vaguely aware of the sound of paw-steps and voices echoing inscrutably from the engine room until a very specific sound jarred them totally awake.
The sound of the access panel to their crawlspace opening.
A voice followed — sweet and young, it was Lys’s voice: “Mike? Are you in there?”
The toadstool was so startled by someone actually looking for them that they didn’t answer.
“Can I come in?” Lys asked, her voice echoing off the metal walls of the crawlspace.
Of everyone on the ship, Lys might have been the last one that Mike would have expected to come looking for them here. Somehow, that also made her the most welcome.
“Okay,” Mike said, their voice like a single raindrop falling in a puddle. Echoes spread through the crawlway like ripples.
Lys crawled her way in on her rows of stubby hands, inching along like an inch worm. When she got within sight of Mike, the caterpillar curled up, squiggling her body like an upside down question mark. “Nice place,” she said, mouth parts curling into a disarming expression.
“I like it,” Mike said, neutrally.
“It’s unconventional,” the caterpillar offered.
“So am I,” the toadstool quipped.
“Relatable.”
The toadstool and caterpillar crouched in the crawlway in companionably awkward silence.
Eventually, the silence — which Mike usually loved in their crawlway — got to be too much for the toadstool. Silence is different when it’s shared. Sometimes companionable, but sometimes, unbearably uncomfortable.
Even so, Mike wasn’t ready to confront the issue at hand. They still didn’t want to talk about the fact that Captain Carroway hadn’t ever assigned them quarters, which was clearly why Lys was here. Mike didn’t know how Lys had been picked as the emissary to send into their sanctuary after them… But they did know why she was here.
And Mike knew how this ended — it ended with them losing their sanctuary, their privacy, and their pride. It ended with awkwardness and being assigned to a crowded, shared barracks room. Mike wasn’t ready to face that, even though they couldn’t stand the silence anymore. So, Mike went on the offensive and said, “You know, when we were on Spindle Reef, I was worried you’d get addicted to gambling.”
Lys’s mouth parts wriggled in silent laughter. “Me?” the caterpillar asked in amusement. “You were the one playing the game.”
“And Melbourne and Vossie were placing all the bets,” Mike said. “I was only playing…” In retrospect, Mike didn’t feel like they even understood why they’d let themself be manipulated and pushed around like that. “You’re right, I shouldn’t have been playing.”
Lys shrugged — a gesture she’d picked up from all the mammals aboard; on her caterpillar body, the gesture began with her top pair of hands and traveled downward in a ripple. “If you hadn’t played, one of them surely would have. I’ve never seen Vossie so determined about anything else, and Melbourne…”
“Melbourne was causing trouble,” Mike said.
“Melbourne was having fun,” Lys corrected.
“You’re just saying that because it’s what he thought he was doing,” Mike said, mushily.
“No.” Lys’s mouth parts tightened into a collection of tiny fists. “No, I can think for myself, and I could… see how happy Melbourne was. He was having a great time.” The caterpillar hesitated over the word ‘see’ for a strangely long time. It didn’t seem like it was the first word she’d thought of to say in that place.
Mike thought about their day on Spindle Reef, remembering it as clearly as they could. It was true. Ensign Melbourne had been genuinely having fun. And he hadn’t really caused any trouble. Not really. That was what Vossie had thought the white cat was doing.
Maybe it was Mike who couldn’t think for themself and was just parroting someone else.
“Can I tell you something? Something private?” Lys asked, sounding for all the world like she’d simply come here to confide some sort of secret to Mike, not like she’d been sent here by the captain to draw Mike out and make them face a normal room assignment.
Maybe Mike wasn’t ashamed that the captain hadn’t deemed them worthy of a room assignment… Maybe Mike liked it this way, and they’d been hiding their lack of a room to keep their hidden, private space in the crawlway secret.
Well, Lys was here, rupturing the secrecy of Mike’s secret; she might as well share a secret of her own. “Sure,” Mike said, their voice like a pile of soggy leaves falling on a sodden forest floor.
“I think I’m telepathic,” Lys said.
Mike’s row of slit-eyes on the underside of their mushroom cap head blinked, all of them at once. “Telepathic? That’s a big secret.”
“Yes,” Lys agreed. “I’ve been slowly realizing that non-telepathic people will think of it that way. But for me, it’s just… how I am? I didn’t even know there needed to be a word for it — the way feelings slosh between people and thoughts are just kind of painted in other people’s minds like informational signs when you think about them. Until I joined the Wanderlust’s crew, it’s how everyone was, so we didn’t need to think or talk about it. Except for Korvax, of course. But he was always the exception.”
Mike couldn’t resist saying drily, “He is, indeed, exceptional.” The mushroom meant the line at least half-sincerely, since they genuinely enjoyed the hedgehog’s cooking and flamboyant personality. However, both the mushroom and caterpillar knew enough about how the rest of the crew felt about Korvax for the dryness of the line to land quite successfully as a mocking imitation.
The caterpillar giggled, a sound like a tiny choir of fairies ringing bells.
When her laughter died down and the silence returned, it felt more genuinely companionable this time. Less awkward. Less dangerous.
“That must have been nice,” Mike said, ruefully. “Growing up around other people like yourself.” The toadstool didn’t have to say, “There’s no one else like me.” Lys knew what they were.
“Yes,” Lys agreed. “It must be very hard to figure yourself out when you’re having to do it all from scratch with no one to really help you.”
Mushrooms don’t cry, but if they did, Mike might have in that moment. No one had said anything like that to them before. No one else had named the pain they’d been feeling so accurately — even themself. A pain they had to carry with them all the time, but now, for just a moment, it felt like Lys had given Mike permission to put that weight down.
Without that weight on their shoulders, Mike finally felt like they could talk about what was really happening.
“The captain sent you in here to talk to me,” Mike said, mushily, “because she finally realized that I don’t have an assigned barracks and have been sleeping here in the crawlway.”
“Actually, I volunteered,” Lys said. “She was going to come in here herself…”
The mushroom shuddered at the idea of the big, fluffy Norwegian Forest cat crammed into this tight crawlway, a gesture that worked its way all the way out to the very tips of their bushy mycelial beard. Mike was glad that Captain Carroway hadn’t been the one to come after them. Lys was much gentler. “Thank you,” Mike said, their voice once again sounding like a single raindrop falling in a puddle, but this time, the puddle reflected sunlight instead of cloud cover.
The caterpillar and mushroom shared a companionable silence once again. Mike wanted to stay in that silence, stay in their crawlspace… but they knew that wasn’t going to be allowed. So, the toadstool took control of their own future and said, “She isn’t going to allow me to keep sleeping in the crawlway, is she?”
“No,” Lys agreed. “There was a lot of ranting about safety and violation of protocols.”
Technically, Mike wasn’t breaking any protocols. Mike cared a lot about protocols and knew them all forward and backward, much better than anyone else in the crew knew them. However, that technicality did rest on some cleverly careful readings of some of the actual terms in the protocols, and whether Mike sleeping in the crawlway technically broke protocol or not… it definitely broke the spirit of those protocols.
“She’s going to assign me to one of the barracks then,” Mike concluded, unhappily.
“Yes,” Lys agreed. “Probably Barracks Room A.”
So the one with Vossie, Werik, and Korvax. That made sense. Ever since Risqua had defected and been left behind with the Zakonraptors, there were only three people in Barracks Room A. Whereas Barracks Room B still housed Melbourne, Lee, Diaz, and Lys. Though, Lys spent a lot of time on Sojourner’s back these days… Even so, it made sense to assign a fourth officer to Room A, instead of a fifth officer to Room B.
Mike would be sharing a room with Vossie.
That was good, right? Being closer to Vossie?
And Mike did like Korvax. Though, there’s a difference between liking someone and wanting to be around them all the time. This was going to be a big adjustment.
“Is she going to do anything else to me?” Mike asked. “Any sort of punishment or formal reprimand?”
“I don’t think so,” Lys said. “I think… I think she knows that she ought to apologize to you, but she doesn’t want to do that. She doesn’t want to admit how much she messed up. And so she’s hoping that if she just fixes the oversight, then everyone will just move on.”
It hadn’t occurred to Mike to want an apology from the captain for overlooking them. But now that the toadstool heard they wouldn’t be getting such an apology… the idea of one did sound appealing. Although, realistically, an apology from Captain Carroway would probably be awkward, stilted, and more uncomfortable than just moving forward without one.
Mike would have liked for the Norwegian Forest cat to be a person who actually valued them enough to think they deserved an apology. But since she wasn’t… it was probably better this way.
“So, what do you say–” The caterpillar began straightening herself out, preparing to crawl back out of the crawlspace. “I’ll go out there and tell Captain Carroway about my telepathy, and you’ll come out and admit that you’ve been sleeping in this crawlway.”
“That’s very kind of you,” Mike said.
“Not a problem,” Lys responded. “It’s something I have to do anyway, right?”
The mushroom and the caterpillar smiled at each other, each in their own weird, non-mammalian way, sharing a moment of warmth. It was time to go out and face the music for both of them. But there was one thing Mike wanted to know first.
“How did Lt. Lee’s analysis of Lt. Cmdr. Vossie’s new neural implant turn out?” Mike asked. “Is he cleared to keep using it?”
“Oh, yes,” Lys said, clearly surprised by the non-sequitur. “Lt. Lee said it seemed to be working perfectly.”
“That’s good,” Mike said.
The mushroom wasn’t jealous. No, the mushroom wasn’t jealous at all.
Continue on to Chapter 12…