“I’m starting to see the problem,” Helga said as she placed my drink in front of me.

Upon entering ‘Stripes’, the last thing I had expected to see was Helga tending bar. Though, in honesty, I hadn’t been sure what to expect at all, because I had never even seen a bar before. We didn’t have them in the GHU. When it turned out to be a crowded, noisy place full of people I didn’t know, I wasn’t exactly enthused, but I decided to see it through for Vulka. He seemed as though he was looking forward to it. I had just finished explaining to Helga my unique difficulties during my shift.

“Like I told Vulka, I’m just going to have to get used to it,” I said, studying the drink in its glass. It was a reddish color, with a smooth, foamy top. “If I don’t I think I’ll go crazy. How do you say it again?” I asked.

“Lehnn,” Helga said, leaning with one hand on the counter in front of me. “I thought you should start on something simple.”

“Soon perhaps you will be able to drink ▓▒▓░!” Vulka said, raising his drink in salute. He had something inside a metal dodecahedron with a tube coming out of it. Occasionally he would bring the tube to an intake port on his helmet, presumably drinking whatever was inside.

I stared at him, then looked to Helga for help. She smiled. “Don’t drink from that if you like having a tongue. The lehnn is fine though, just a fermented grain beverage. I know this is stuff you don’t get in Ulthea, because it’s technically a drug. You’ll feel a bit lighter headed, slightly lowered inhibitions. I consider it conversational lubricant.”

Looking around, I saw other patrons drinking the same as what was in front of me. Well, I kept running into first tries in the Frontier, no need to stop here. I took a sip, and was… disappointed? Or maybe just unsure. It almost tasted like unsweetened tea, but slightly more bitter, and with more of an oat flavor. Not bad, just fine. The foam was nice.

“Was it that bad?” Helga asked with a wry smile. 

My face must have shown how underwhelmed I was. Straightening up, I gave her an apologetic grin. “It’s not bad! Maybe I just expected something… sweeter?”

“Lehnn can be an acquired taste, most alcohol is,” Helga said as she cleaned a glass. She looked up at me and paused, looking confused. “What’s that face for?”

Blessed help me, I nearly had another sip. Slowly, I set the glass back down, now looking thoroughly perturbed. “This has a cleaning chemical in it?”

“Wh– oh!” Helga laughed. “Right, it’s been a while. In small doses, alcohol is fine. It’s a natural chemical that comes from fermentation. I’m surprised those hygiene companies couldn’t find anything better.”

Vulka’s staticky laugh followed. “Better for cleaning your mind!”

I frowned at the liquid in front of me, now unable to think of anything but spray bottles and stains. The foam even looked more like soap suds. My finger found a drop of water on the counter and traced circles with it as I tried to will myself to drink more. Sighing, I looked back up at Helga. “Sorry, what do you have without alcohol? I can’t do it.”

Helga shrugged. “If you say so.”

She rattled off a list of drinks that sounded much more familiar. I ordered a sweet citrus soda, and Helga replaced the lehnn in no time. The three of us chatted for a while, mostly about the day’s events, grousing and commiserating. Occasionally Helga would break away to serve another customer, refill a drink, collect a bill. She looked just as natural behind the bar as she did behind her office desk. It was almost like she knew everyone, smiling and cracking jokes, calling–

“Station Control to Casey, is she there?” 

A noodly arm waved in front of my face. I started and shook myself, looking into Vulka’s visor. “Uh, sorry, what?”

“You were making eyes at boss,” Vulka said. “Eye, I mean.”

“I was just watching!” I protested, not entirely believing my own words, and surprised at how little I minded Vulka’s ‘eye’ comment. “It’s strange to see her doing all this. Higher ups in Ulthea almost never left their offices except to criticize how slow we were working.”

“Should I start doing that?” Helga’s hand rested on the bar in front of us as she leaned in to talk, with that familiar joking grin on her face. I didn’t even notice her coming. “I just like being in the middle of it all. Gives me the chance to learn what’s going on in the Frontier before the news feeds do.”

“Well, yeah, but you could do that without doing food service, right?” I asked.

Helga straightened up and folded her arms. “It helps to disarm people. Puts me on their level. But, to be honest, I always wanted to own a public-house. Running Brock Station is my job, this is a hobby. ”

I still didn’t fully relate to it, but the sentiment was familiar. There were plenty of people that worked at least two jobs to get ahead in Ulthea, but my own experiment with that when I was sixteen had gone very poorly. Within two weeks, I had been fired from both jobs and shipped to a new station. It took me two years to earn the respect of my coworkers there. 

“To each their own, I guess,” I said, then sucked the dregs of my soda from between ice cubes. 

That had been a nice treat after such a long day. The three of us chatted for a little longer, but I was becoming increasingly fidgety. The noise of the room was starting to get to me, and I was itching to visit Benni again, now that I had the means to start repairs. Not only that, I could tell I was drawing the attention of the other patrons just by being here. I began idly stirring the ice in my empty cup, played with condensation puddles on the bar, ran my fingers over the ridges of my horns, all in a desperate attempt to stay in focus of the conversation. It wasn’t working. 

Helga could tell, I think. I noticed her watching my hands, and my contributions to what she and Vulka were talking about were often just a small chuckle or a few trite words in desperate attempt to show willing. She didn’t seem annoyed, just curious. 

“Casey, if you want to leave, you can,” she said during a break in the conversation.

I blinked in surprise. “What?” was all I could muster.

“You seem distracted,” Helga said with a shrug. “If you’re staying just to be polite, it’s appreciated, but this isn’t some work function you need to force yourself to be at.”

Was that not what this was? I looked between her and Vulka, who nodded. “Drinks are over,” he said. “We just met, I do not expect you to stick around forever.”

“Oh,” I said. “Thanks, I think I misunderstood.”

Vulka gave me a friendly slap on the back. “What is next for our infamous new spacer?”

I gave a halfhearted chuckle and got off the stool. “I want to mess with a few things on the Benevolence. The lighting systems should be easy enough to repair, and I might be able to start on a couple other things as well.”

“Will those tools work on an Ulthean ship?” Helga asked. “They aren’t held to galactic standards.”

“Well, most of them look familiar, oddly enough,” I said, adjusting my toolbelt. “At the very least, all the circuitry is the same.”

Vulka rubbed at the top of his helmet. “Yes, you were very quick to pick up on station maintenance. Perhaps coincidence? What is it called. Simultaneous invention? There are  civilizations where a similar thing has happened. Even on the same planet.”

Helga stared at the ceiling, rubbing at her chin. “Could be.”

I shrugged. “As long as I don’t need to buy specialized tools, I’m happy. Thanks for the drink, Vulka, Helga. I’d be happy to join you again!”

Helga nodded. “I’ll save you a seat.”

We waved goodbye, and I made my way out. I was dimly aware of many eyes on me, but did my best just to ignore it and keep walking. If I were to look around, I might accidentally catch someone’s eye. Luckily, I managed to get through the door without incident, and headed straight to the safety of dock 313. 

As I worked on finding the issue with the lighting system on the Benevolence, I puzzled over why Ulthean circuitry seemed so similar to the galactic standard. Did they secretly adopt it so they could make use of Frontier resources they stole? Maybe it really was just simultaneous invention, like Vulka said. Whatever it was, I considered it a stroke of luck that I sorely needed. 

Continuing my lucky streak, getting the lighting working again was a simple fix. An hour or two later, I closed up the lighting control panel. “Okay, Benni, go ahead and try turning the lights on.”

“Yes, Captain.”

There was a flicker, and then there was light. Mostly. Some of the lighting had burnt out, but it was much easier to see now. Maybe with this, I could enter the cockpit without freaking out? It was worth a try. That black box potentially held the secret to my survival, and the mystery was eating at me. I made my way to the front of the ship again, the floor now much cleaner thanks to the efforts of the vacuum a couple of days ago. Entering the hallway before the cockpit, I noticed something that I hadn’t the last time I had come here. Random spots of brown dotted the otherwise beige walls, with the occasional larger splatter. They looked like dried blood. I frowned and stepped up to the lopsided cockpit door.

The inside was lit, but very dim. At the least, walking up to it didn’t spark the same fear it had in the pure darkness of before. I took a deep breath, then let it out. I was only here for the black box, and then I would be out. No time at all. 

I took a hesitant step over the threshold. So far so good. Even after the AutoFlux-Sweepr’s™ best efforts, it still looked like a disaster. The trajectory of the shot that had nearly killed me was plainly visible thanks to the vacu-foam, one massive clump of it at the top right of the main cockpit screen, and another in the floor. More drops of dried blood were scattered around the right side of the chair I had been sitting in. The chair itself was wrecked. I touched my side. A bandage still covered it, but I had seen the scar left by the shrapnel. It was winding, deep red, and irregular, about a foot long. I shook my head. Not now. I needed to focus.

The black box was where each one always is, in a little utilities closet on the back wall of the cockpit. I dismounted it and tucked it under my arm, then headed for the cockpit door. Before stepping out for what I hoped was the last time, I looked back at the chair. This small room had almost been my tomb, and somehow I ended up here. Couldn’t be heaven, it was far too stressful for that, but something about it felt better than where I had been. So, not hell, either. Just alive.

I frowned again and left the cockpit, stored the black box in the AI core room (as much as I wanted to get the information now, I was too tired to do anything else today), and promised Benni I would start on the surveillance systems soon. Later, laying in bed, I couldn’t stop thinking about the pilot’s chair. The blood. My scar itched. Despite everything, I would repair that ship. I wouldn’t let my discomfort rob Benni of its true freedom while I had my own.