“The expedition went fine,” he said. He was a little rat-faced, Park sometimes thought, with his hair gelled so tightly to his scalp it looked like he was wearing a black, shiny helmet. His beady eyes darted nervously. “Nothing noteworthy to speak of.”

Park was suspicious, but after a while she let him go. She did not feel equipped to press a patient with questions without Keller there.

Afterward, Jimex sidestepped into the room again. The ship wasn’t big enough to keep him constantly cleaning, so Park had set his secondary protocols to assisting her—since she lacked an assistant of her own, while Chanur had Ellenex and all the other specialists had their own robotic helpers. Park looked up eagerly when he came in and said, “Did you find her?”

Jimex shook his head. “I was unable to locate Dr. Keller,” he answered. He seemed a little morose, as if he were sad to disappoint her.

Park watched as he approached the holographic fish tank set into the far wall. The tank was Keller’s aesthetic choice, though Park had always found it distracting. She watched as a shy bumblebee goby bobbed its acknowledgement to her, then ducked behind a bloom of delicate coral. Jimex, also watching intently, remarked: “Fish are very unclean.”

“That one’s not real.”

“I know. It was a general statement.”

Park tried to suppress a smile. “I wouldn’t know if the real ones are unclean or not,” she told him. “They were all gone in my area by the time I was born. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a real one alive.”

“They excrete in the same water they live in,” Jimex said. He tilted his chin up a little, in disgust, Park thought—or disdain. He at least thought himself better than a fish. “They require numerous filters to live in a contained environment, or die of their own toxicity.”

“Humans are the same,” Park joked—then realized the danger in making such a statement to him. But before she could retract it, the door to the office slung open, and Keller walked in.

Park stood up from her desk just as Jimex wisely sidled out of the room again. “Where have you been?” she demanded.

Keller didn’t answer the question. “I don’t know how you talk to that thing,” she said instead, looking back over her shoulder at Jimex—who was still within earshot. That meant something was on her mind. Keller didn’t get antsy around the robots unless she was already worried about something else. “It’s awful. When it looks into your eyes—”

“He tried to find you this morning,” Park said pointedly. Then she shook her head, unable to stop herself from being drawn into the topic. “And you were fine around the HERCULES.”