“Things have moved fast. I haven’t had a lot of opportunity to make my logs. Besides, I’m telling you now.” Stacia prepared to leave but rested her hand against the wall. “I want increased patrols.”

“And a level-five security sweep.” Kenya anticipated her next order. “We’ll comb every inch of the Cypher by hand if need be. We’ll find him. And Paki.”

“All right, then. Carry on. You’re on a clock. Let me know if you turn up anything I can move on.”

A group of students huddled in a corner, some freestyling rhymes with one another, dictated by the one in the center of their ring shouting news items of the day for them to opine about. A dance troupe went through their stretching exercises along the foam-cored regolith floor of the play area.

When she spotted the captain, a young lady stood up, awkward and lanky, with the light of recognition in her eyes. She sashayed over, though Stacia couldn’t place her face. A brown-skinned girl with her hair drawn up. Pink and purple lights ran through it, girding her braids into place. She couldn’t tell if they were strictly decorative, though she seemed too young to have a cybernetic cap.

“I see you, Captain,” the young lady said.

“I see you…” Stacia paused, attempting to recall her name.

“Marguerite.” She seemed stung. She fiddled with her Huichol collar, beaded necklace. “Pinero.”

The name rang as familiar, but Stacia recalled a young girl Bek played with often, not the young woman before her. “Marguerite? Girl, when did you get so grown? I thought I had a new crew member or stowaway on board.”

“Thank you. What brings you down here?”

“Can’t a captain go on a walkabout on her own ship?”

“Yes, ma’am.” Marguerite crossed her legs, a dancer in the rest position, as she studied the floor.

“I’m teasing. It’s been awhile since I’ve had a chance to explore the labs. Paki told me of your new assignment. Can you show me what you’re working on?”

“Yes,” she said crisply, almost as if she was ready to salute. Ushering her over to a series of freestanding workstations, it wasn’t hard to pick hers out. DNA strands lit up in pink and purple hues, represented in a variety of artistic styles, composition, fragmented images, cubist, dissonant color tones, the strands twisted into distorted, stylized figures. “I was experimenting with DNA sequencing as art.”

“This is pretty impressive.”

“My ultimate goal is actually to figure out new ways to synthesize water using whatever atmosphere composition is available. Hmm, composition…” Her eyes glazed over, lost in whatever song sprang to mind. “I’m not Bek. He’s gifted when it comes to coding. It’s like he’s creating art with machine language.”

Stacia didn’t want to interrupt her train of thought, but was pressed. “Marguerite?”