Park looked at the empty seat across from her and shrugged, waving slightly with her forkful of drooping salad. She tried very hard not to think about his kiss, the startling scent and warmth of him. Fulbreech took the seat, presumably to avoid having to wait in line with Natalya. He looked haggard, much grayer than the day before; his lips were space-chapped and his eyes still squinted from the Eotian sunlight. But he seemed happy to see Park.

The two of them sat in awkward silence for a moment before Park pushed him her unopened drink. She watched Fulbreech reverently accept the orange juice like she’d given him a birthday present. Why could she never act as happy to see him? Why did she always revert back to a state of—silent resistance, aloofness, despite his overtures?

“Natalya rope you into an anti-android rant?” she asked, just to make conversation.

Fulbreech grimaced; in a flash Park deduced that that was not the root of the issue between them. “She’s angry,” he said, lightly enough. “And afraid. Human surveying doesn’t seem to have much of a future.” He punctured the biodegradable membrane that held his juice in a palm-sized bulb. Park scrutinized him; he was only telling half the truth. But his conversations with Natalya were not her business.

“The new HARE explorers are being rolled out next year,” she said instead. “I remember seeing it on the Frontier newstream.”

“Which pretty much renders Natalya’s job obsolete,” Fulbreech continued, nodding. “And she’s convinced that every job will be threatened by robots soon—mine included.”

“And do you believe her?”

Fulbreech shook his head. “She’s just one of those people.”

Park nodded. She was familiar with those people; she’d lived through the anti-android riots in New Diego, after all. “I wonder how she feels about Reimi being—indisposed. Without her, a lot of the robots’ functions might lock up someday.”

“Oh, I’m sure she’s happy about it,” Fulbreech said, glancing at the food dispensary line to make sure Natalya was still in it. He lowered his voice conspiratorially. “She thinks that the robots are all here to spy on us for ISF.”

Park couldn’t help but laugh a little at the absurdity of it. “How would they even do that? Does she think they sit down and type incident reports to send back home?”

Fulbreech laughed, too. “Something like that. She thinks they’re all plugged in to ISF relays back on Corvus. My question is, how would they even know what to report? Today, Officer Boone took fifteen minutes too long in the bathroom. This is an emergency of the highest priority.”

The two of them chuckled together over the idea. Park was glad to see that somebody else recognized the silliness of conspiracy theories like Natalya’s; it meant not everybody on the ship believed the robots could be used to spy on people, as Sagara had insinuated about Jimex. For one thing—as Fulbreech said—they were too primitive to distinguish the worthiness of their observations: they’d be useless as spies.