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Some kind of sportsball game was being shown on a screen nearby. Apparently, if one had eye implants, they could view it as if they were actually there.
Apollonia had no such implants, and couldn’t get them, so she just watched the screen.
She didn’t even know the game. She didn’t much care, either.
Nursing her drink, she tried to savor the burning alcohol as much as she could. It was only her second drink, and she’d been cut off.
The ice was melting and slowly watering it down, which annoyed her. What bar only let people have two drinks?
“Hey,” a man said, walking up with a smile on his face. He was holding another drink.
She glanced at him, then looked away. “Hi,” she said, with an extreme lack of enthusiasm.
From the corner of her eye, she saw him hesitate. He’d been glancing at her all night, trying to catch her eye, and she’d been ignoring him. It seemed to have encouraged him to try a more direct approach instead.
But he was feeling it now. Her presence. People tended to react differently to her; sometimes angry, sometimes afraid. Occasionally curious. But the latter tended to lose interest quickly as sheer proximity made their discomfort build.
“Want a drink?” he asked.
He set it down on the table – and himself in the other chair. “I saw yours was nearly empty.”
She didn’t know what he’d brought her, but she was not fool enough to accept a drink from a stranger.
“Sure,” she said, taking it. Leaning across the table, she dumped it onto his lap, ice and all.
The man cried out in shock and jumped up. “Why did you do that?!”
“Accident,” she said, smiling genuinely now. “Want to order me another?”
Confusion and various thoughts went across his face, and he turned to walk away, shaking his head.
Most people didn’t seem to have noticed – or at least were pretending not to, save for one woman nearby.
She was one of the big-wig officers on the ship, Apollonia had seen her before. Glancing to her pad, she tapped a button and brought up a list of people nearby. For most people, their systems would automatically identify others who were broadcasting – and it seemed like it was pretty normal for everyone to be doing so – so you always knew who you were speaking to.
She had to check her pad for that information, though. Commander Jaya Yaepanaya, it told her. Chief of Operations.
It meant little to her, other than being a clearly fancy title.
“May I join you?” Jaya called from her table.
Apollonia considered. She wasn’t likely to try and flirt with her, at least. Well, she assumed. So far, everyone with a rank on this ship seemed like they were on the up-and-up, and they were in public to boot.
Maybe Brooks or Logus had sent her. Trying a woman to talk to her.
But a part of her was wishing for some kind of company. It was half the reason she was even in this place rather than in her room. She just didn’t want some sorts of company.
“All right,” she finally said.
Jaya came over and sat, smiling lightly.
There was an odd agelessness about people on this ship, Apollonia noticed. Jaya seemed relatively young – certainly well into adulthood, though – from a distance. But up close there were creases around her eyes that made her seem a little older.
Most people she’d known had started going gray by their late 30s, yet there wasn’t a streak of gray in Jaya’s hair.
She might dye it, her cynical voice said.
“What brings you to Fortaleza?” Jaya asked. “I thought you preferred to stay in your cabin.”
Apollonia scowled. “Monitoring me?”
“Your anti-social behaviour stands out,” Jaya replied, sipping her drink. “I would be a poor Chief of Operations if I did not notice it.”
“So, what, you run the daily stuff on the ship while Brooks decides where we’ll go and makes speeches?”
Jaya’s eyebrow arched slightly. “Operations on a ship refers to combat and security-related activities, Ms. Nor. I monitor threats.”
Apollonia leaned back in her seat, crossing her arms. “So I’m a threat?” She wasn’t liking her company again, but she wasn’t about to go pouring a drink onto the lap of someone with authority. Not unless Jaya annoyed her a whole lot more.
“Actually, you are part of this ship’s defenses,” Jaya replied. “Even if you are not yet an officer, your presence protects us all.”
“Being just an asset isn’t all that much better.”
“I never said that’s all you were. But I rest better knowing that you are here. I would like even more if you were happy in doing so. I took it as a good sign that you are out here tonight – that you are at least attempting to mingle and know others.”
A hint of a smile appeared on Jaya’s lips. “Though it was perhaps not social, I was amused by your methods of . . . rejection.”
“Well, you don’t take a drink from a stranger,” Apollonia replied stiffly. “Kind of obvious there.”
“Do you believe it was spiked? Trust me, Ms. Nor, if he had put anything into a drink to offer another, he would have been arrested before he even picked it up. No, such a thing is all-but unheard of on this ship – or in the Sapient Union in general.”
Apollonia wasn’t sure she believed that, but she nodded just to move the conversation off the topic.
Other Terrestrial 