"Yeah, like that's going to happen now. Hey, wait a minute." It had been eleven hours since we'd jumped away from the Thuranin battlegroup. "It took your enormous brain all this time to decode the Thuranin data and analyze it? You said you were so fast that us monkeys couldn't even conceive of it."

"I did have to decrypt over a zettabyte of data," Skippy said defensively, as if I had any idea what a zettabyte was, "from a surprisingly sophisticated encryption scheme, then organize it, decide what to analyze first. Then analyze a lot of conflicting data to make sense of it."

"Oh, sorry, Skippy," I didn't mean to insult him, "I'm sure it was a lot of work even for you."

"Oh, no, it took me only seven minutes. Seemed like forever, though."

"Seven min- you knew all this a couple minutes after we jumped away?"

"Yup."

"Then why the hell did you wake me up in the middle of the freakin' night?"

"I was bored, Joe. And lonely."

And that's all he said. His silence made me stifle the angry remark I had ready. Skippy and I had been in almost continuous contact since he'd sprung me from the closet where the Ruhar has been keeping me, before that, he'd had no contact with anyone for a very long time, perhaps millions of years. He'd been able to listen in on other people's conversations after the Kristang first arrived on Paradise, to alleviate some of his boredom, that may have intensified his loneliness; hearing other people interact, and being excluded. Thinking about that reminded me that I was the first person, the first being, that Skippy had talked to since, whatever had happened to him that caused his isolation. With me sleeping, he'd been like a junkie needing a fix. "Sorry about that, Skippy, you do understand that us monkeys need to sleep, right? There are other people aboard, can you talk to them?" Most of the crew was sleeping, Chang and two pilot trainees were on the bridge, and one person was in the sickbay, although anyone pulling a shift in the sickbay could catch a nap while the wounded were sleeping, or sedated or unconscious or whatever Doctor Skippy the mad scientist thought was best for them.

"They're not comfortable talking with me. Most of them are scared of me."

"I'll talk to them about that, Skippy. In the morning, Ok? I'm scheduled to be on the bridge again in, like, a little over three hours. Can you do a crossword puzzle or something until then?"

"I guess so. You want me to play a lullaby for you?"

A pillow over my head didn't block him out enough. "Good night, Skippy."