“Rush the door in a depressurized landing bay? Skippy, none of us will fit into a Thuranin spacesuit. They’re too small.”

There was a millisecond pause, that, I now knew, was an eternity in AI time. “Well, shit.” Skippy finally said.

“Well, shit? Seriously? This isn’t a joke? You didn’t think about us humans needing space suits, in space? Let me define space suit for you; two words, the first is ‘space’-”

“I’m not a meatsack! I don’t think like you biological trashbags.”

“This biological trashbag is going to take a big dump on your lid, and throw you out an airlock.”

“That would be a better threat, if I didn’t control all of the airlock mechanisms, monkeyboy.”

“Airlocks have manual overrides. Ooh, look, monkey has opposable thumbs.” I waggled my thumbs at his lid.

“Shut up.”

“Well?”

“I’m thinking!” Skippy shouted defensively.

“I can smell the smoke.”

“What?”

“The next time you think of telling me how god-like smart you are, just remember ‘space suits’.”

“Oh, shut up. Never said I was perfect.”

“Go back to square one, and rethink your plan,” I said as I headed into the tiny bathroom. “I want to discuss it with Giraud this afternoon so he can start fixing your screw-ups. That’s in about ten hours, which is a bazillion years in Skippy time, so you’ll have plenty of opportunity to come up with idea that don’t include humans breathing hard vacuum.”

Private Randall approached me in the gym that morning, while I was sweating away with Sergeant Adams’ improved equipment, and he reported that Major Simms was satisfied the crew had completed their familiarization drills; that everyone now knew where the airlocks were, how to operate trams and lifts, where their duty stations were, and a whole list of emergency procedures that Chang and Simms insisted on, and Skippy thought were a complete waste of time.

“Joe, this crew trying to learn how to operate this ship is a waste of time. You’re like a dog. A dog may know that inside the pantry is a yummy box of treats, but it can stare at that doorknob all day, and it’s never going to understand how it works.”

“So, we’re dogs now?” I winked at Randall. “When did we get a promotion? I thought we were all bacteria to you.”

“You have performed better than expected overall, your species is reasonably adaptable. Maybe I can consider you more like a paramecium.”

“Wait, a pair a what?” Randall asked.

“Pair-a-mee-cee-um,” I pronounced it slowly. “It’s a single-cell organism, you probably looked at one through a microscope in high school. They look kind of like a paisley.”

That drew a blank stare from Randall. “A paisley?”

“That’s uh,” I struggled to think how to explain paisley, “those funky swirly patterns on old people’s couches, or curtains. Kind of like half a yin-yang symbol?”

“Huh, I didn’t know there was a name for those.” Randall nodded.