A bed. An ordinary, human-sized bed. There was a single thin covering of shockingly bright red. Approaching tentatively, he sat down on the edge. It gave slightly beneath his weight, supportive yet comforting.

How had it known to conform to a human need? If Vantolos had done likewise, had drawn a tentacle tip across the pod’s interior, would the device have transformed into a completely different kind of structure? A suitable resting place for a multi-limbed Olone? Or would it have morphed into something else entirely?

Shaking his head in wonderment he rose from the platform and began repeating the finger-stroking gesture with the rest of the pods in the chamber, stimulating them one at time as he worked his way across the room. One pod turned promptly into a hemispherical table or desk, another into a legless but high-backed chair. More surprising still, another pod transformed into a shower. The temperature of the water that emerged from the perforated upper portion was exactly as he would have set it. There was a pod-container full of edibles; some familiar, some quite alien, all of it appealing to his palate. A finger swipe against the bare wall created a circular port through which nothing could be seen but blackness shot through with thin streaks of silver.

When one pod transmuted into a seat that could be nothing other than a toilet, Dev no longer held any doubts concerning the supremacy of the alien technology. How the pods had known to conform to the needs of a species never before encountered he could not imagine. The results were far more than supremely advanced and not quite magic.

When later the five of them gathered in the Zimmers’ cabin to discuss what they had learned, the remarkable readiness of the pods in their cabins to transform into human conveniences was the first subject brought up by an admiring but bemused Katou-Zimmer.

“How can such inanimate devices know all the details not only of our body types, but our biological requirements? And the shower: who could imagine such luxury on a starship? One cannot help but wonder, does a being like Vantolos also cleanse his body with jets of warm water?” She shook her head in wonder.

“And if he does not employ such personal bathing methods,” added her husband, “do the pods in his living quarters provide whatever alternative cleansing system is required? Simply by sensing that he is an Olone? I have often mused on what truly advanced technology could achieve, but this is the first time I have been compelled to contemplate technology that is species perceptive.”

“The pods—or the room itself—comprehends ordinary English speech, too.” They all looked at Dev. He was honestly bemused at their expressions. “You mean none of you have tried controlling your habitat by just talking? Without using the finger stroke?”

Pavesi stared at him. “How do you know it responds appropriately to speech? You’ve tried this?”