“I always assumed that it was destroyed or . . .” Marina trails off, shaking her head in wonderment. She traces her fingers across the opposite wall, inputting another command. The entire wall turns into a big high-definition screen displaying a picture of a happy-looking beagle chasing down a tennis ball.

“In English, dog,” says a recorded voice with a noticeable Loric accent. “Dog. The dog runs. En español, perro. El perro corre . . .”

Earth language training. How many times did we have to sit through this video as we flew towards our new planet? I’d forgotten about it, or blocked it out, but all the boredom of my childhood came rushing back. A whole claustrophobic year spent in here, watching that dog run through a bright green field.

“Oof, turn it off,” I say to Marina.

“You don’t want to see what the dog does next?” she asks with a little smile. She swipes her hand across the wall and the program stops.

I walk over to one of the cots and crouch down next to it. The sheets smell musty and a little like the greasy inner workings of the ship. They’ve probably been stowed down there for the last decade. I push aside the blankets and the thin matress, inspecting the frame.

“Ha, look at this,” I say.

Marina leans in over my shoulder. There, carved into the metal frame by a bored little girl, is the number six.

“Vandal,” Marina laughs.

The low hum of the ship’s engine slowly decreases to silence and the touch-screen walls flicker and turn off. Someone has just powered down the ship.

“Just like you left it, right?”

Marina and I both turn in the direction of the voice and wind up facing a woman as she slowly emerges from the ship’s cockpit. My first reaction is that she’s breathtakingly beautiful. Her skin is a dark shade of brown, her cheekbones high and pronounced, hair dark and buzzed short. Even though she’s dressed in a baggy mechanic’s jumpsuit complete with fresh grease stains, the woman looks like she belongs on the cover of a fashion magazine. I quickly come to realize that what’s so stunning about her isn’t purely looks. It’s an indistinct quality most people on Earth wouldn’t be able to put their finger on but which I notice immediately.

This woman is Loric.

She looks almost nervous to see me and Marina. That’s probably why she took such a long time to power down the ship. Even now, the woman lingers in the cabin doorway, as uncertain of us as we are of her. There’s a jumpiness about her, like at any moment she might retreat into the cockpit and lock the door. I can tell she’s trying to psych herself up to keep talking to us.