“Use the ship?” Nat gave me her best what the hell look. “A lot of assumptions there, Jack.”

“Yeah, I know. We’ll have to ask a lot more questions, but right now it looks like we are in de facto possession of a friggin’ interstellar spacecraft. Are you seriously suggesting we shouldn’t take it for a ride, at least once? You of all people, Ms. Star Trek / Star Wars / Expanse fan?”

“You make a good point,” Nat replied. “I just hadn’t thought that far ahead, I guess. So what are you thinking, Jack? Just rocket off to Tatooine for a look-see?”

“Okay, I admit I haven’t put a lot of effort into specific plans yet. But it’s definitely something to think about.”

“Closer to home, how about asking what the gadgets do?” Patrick said. “Or ask about future tech. Or both. Can we get designs for some cool inventions and sell them?”

“Interesting thought.” I tapped my chin in contemplation. “Now, let’s play devil’s advocate. We’re possibly up the creek for voluntary manslaughter—”

“Whaddaya mean we, stranger?” Patrick quipped.

I ignored him. “With an alien species of uncertain temperament and superior technology. If we use the ship, we may also be implicated in some interstellar version of car theft. Might we be better off to just dump the body, hand over the gadgetry, and run?”

Natalie shrugged. “I’m not sure it would work, Jack. Disabled privacy protocols, remember? Even assuming the ship isn’t keeping video logs of everything.”

“Plus, there are so many questions I’d like to ask,” Patrick said. “How many civilizations are there in the galaxy? And why can’t we detect them?”

I chipped in: “How is faster-than-light travel accomplished, and how fast can it go? And have they worked out a Grand Unified Theory?”

“Why did Alaric steal the ship?”

Once again, Nat had cut through to the essential issue. We both stopped dead and stared at her. “What?” I said, stupidly.

“Why’d he steal the ship? It seems like a pretty fundamental question. He went to a lot of trouble to steal a ship and come here, to a rural town on a backward planet that barely has interplanetary spaceflight. Why?”

“I’ll add it to the list,” I said. “At the top.”

Nat smiled at me. “That’s going to be some list. Science, engineering, economics, math, astronomy, cosmology … they’ll be ahead of us everywhere. I’m starting to lock up just thinking about it.”

“Yeah, we’ll have to be organized with our questions, or we’ll just end up shouting over each other and going off on crazy tangents.”

“Like: are they a post-scarcity society? What do they use for currency? Do they still have jobs? Do they still have poverty?”

“You’re right,” Patrick said. “I’d shout over you.” He grinned as Nat showed him her middle finger.