Unable to pursue the food-cancellation method of eating, my body bag quickly began to fit more comfortably, so that was a silver lining.

Of all the prisoners, it was Patton who had unquestionably adjusted best. He kept a simple routine: meditation and chanting (which no one, thankfully, could hear), then pemmican breakfast followed by his version of “calisthenics” and finally, a little doze. He tried to engage the others in games – which of course, didn’t work. Unphased by these failed attempts, he was currently on a unilateral charades kick, acting out who knows what without accounting for the fact that hypothetical guesses from participants (there were none) would have to be delivered back to him in charades he would then have to guess – using charades. Eventually, I rescued him from the solo endeavor and we settled on a manual version of Simon, using hand placement on the glass of our chambers to stand in for the colored quadrants. Two for each hand, one up one down. Red, blue, yellow, green. And there we commenced slapping out combos and patterns that the other had to repeat. It wasn’t so bad, actually.

We had just concluded a marathon session of Prison Simon when the ship decelerated. I glanced over at Neck Holes and noticed that the electronic display on the glass of their chamber was now legible to me. Huh. The language nanites in the food had been legit. The glowing text read as follows:

IDENTIFICATION DESIGNATION: SC 004-1547

PLACE OF ORIGIN: SCELLA, PANGEMIC SYSTEM COORD: a29130y23042

PLACE OF ACQUISITION: VASK, PANGEMIC SYSTEM COORD: a09483y59238

DATE OF ACQUISITION: 13,812,027,000.33.34

SPECIES: SCELLANIC APEX

SEX SPECTRUM, IF ANY: PARTHENOGENIC FEMALE

GENDER SPECTRUM, IF ANY: FEMININE

NAME, IF ANY: NAECIA HYROPE

She was rubbing her face and seemed fixated on the ceiling above her, perhaps waiting on some communication from Aptat through the hatch. Gone was what I had taken for her breezy disposition during our arrival. She fidgeted nervously. But it wasn’t just her. The others were up and moving around too. On the other side of me, Smooth Face – the one Aptat had referred to as Ke’xatt, and who, according to the electronic display, was a quinary Amorphous Trendallian from the planet Tr4 – was standing in their cell, less animated but seeming just as intent on whatever was happening. I could almost smell the glucocorticoids, or whatever hormone Amorphous Trendallians exuded when in a state of alarm. My own pulse quickened in kind.⁵⁰ It would have been good to know why we were all panicking.

The pod rotated slowly around its axis before locking into place, then ascended.

The smell of fear is a thing, and it was bleeding out in a sour musk from my apocrine glands.⁵¹ We arrived on the main deck. There was Aptat, wearing the fancy bug armor again, along with three large, and vicious looking, uh... I wasn’t sure.

They looked like my idea of legit bounty hunters, or space pirates, all smarmy and leathery and strappy and long hair-y. It might not have been hair at all, but the effect was the same. They were thickly-muscled and wore equipment that looked like scuba rebreathers over the bottom of their faces. Their tiny yellow eyes shone out from deep pits in grey faces coated in horny toad skin. A trunk – might as well have been a treasure chest – sat at their feet. I prayed these weren’t my new owners.