“Nope, plenty of similar samples but nothing with that exact molecular structure. Closest thing I’m seeing here is Mycena manipularis, from Borneo, and something in the MSC database that I don’t have the security clearance to view.”

“Damn it,” she muttered, turning and pausing, finding the Servitor huddled in the corner to the far right of where she had entered the ship. It was practically vintage. More modern models were skinned with simple, humanlike white latex to hide the metal skeleton. She preferred these older versions, with their charmingly mismatched eye sizes and three-fingered “hands.” The ones made to look more humanoid were creepy, dead-eyed and unsettling. JAX’s body was pure function, with a beak-like head and one “eye” for scanning and detecting crewmates’ identities, as well as an “eye” for holographic projections and lighting in dark rooms. He was just over six feet, a sealed, tubelike chassis containing the hardware to keep him running.

“Found our Servitor friend,” she told Walters. Rosalyn took the AI by its thin, metal shoulders and pulled herself closer, studying the front of the chassis until she located a small universal port on the left lower half. She fished a spare VIT power cell from her case and opened the small hatch next to the port on the AI. A smooth panel waited there for surface-to-surface wireless charging.

“I’m going to juice it back up with a spare battery. We need his data.”

“Seems like you were right about the Servitor,” Walters replied. His breathing had calmed. “If the crew were alive, you would have run into them by now. We haven’t exactly been stealthy.”

Rosalyn nodded to herself, lining up the battery with the charge surface before sitting down heavily on the stool near the AI. “The least hysterical interpretation of events is usually the right one.”

“Yeah, yeah. You know, the cantina does a late-night tiki thing once a month—”

She squeezed her eyes shut. “Please stop.”

“Oh, come on, ice princess, thaw out a little. Where are you from, anyway? Pakistan? Pakistani girls love me.”

The Servitor thrummed softly, one eye flickering as the power began transferring and it booted into safe mode. “I’m Indian. Half. The furious half.”

“I knew it. You’re warming up to me.” Walters coughed and then sighed. “Sorry. I . . . I babble and flirt when I’m nervous.”

“Spare us both and try some deep breathing instead. There. We’ve got power,” she told him, moving on swiftly. She would need to decontaminate for a decade for more reasons than one, she thought with a grimace. “You can come back online now, JAX, and hopefully, if my pilot is done making a fool of himself, we can sort out this mess.” And I can get back to my job, and then back to the station, and make sure HR knows I’m never partnering with Walters again.