She looked a little taken aback. "You really don't know?"

There was something beyond surprise in her expression, too. Djaer couldn't quite make it out, but her eyes were shining.

Ignorance is a risky thing to try to turn into power, but he didn't want to give her the satisfaction. "I daresay it doesn't matter," he said, turning slightly with a dismissive gesture.

She just laughed. There was real mirth in it, but it seemed predominantly to be a laugh of mockery and triumph. "You people really are dickheads," she said. "And you're clearly not someone who asks a lot of questions."

Wormix: Oof, he lost that one.

Wormen: He doesn't ask a lot of questions, does he?

Worm: "So why start now?"

Djaer spun round. In fact, it was the young woman who had said that last part.

Wormen: He's frightened of her.

Wormix: But he's not going to tell her that.

He sighed, and scratched the back of his neck. "If nothing else, I should know what to call you." He meant for it to come out dismissively, but he'd already lost that battle and the timbre of his voice knew it.

She smiled, satisfied. "You can call me Naomi."

There was just the subtlest hint of hesitation, and it would have been very easy to ignore, but he didn't anyway. "Is that what other people call you?" he asked.

"No," she said, still smiling. "But it is my name."

***

Going to sleep was, for a Meitagenan like Djaer, a profound and auspicious act. Blessed by their ancestral engineers with an exceptionally long life, a great many things were treated as profound and auspicious acts, if only because the one thing they had more of than they felt they needed was time. So although the meaning of the rituals they undertook as they journeyed to some distant morning had long since been lost to history, and the purpose long since superseded, there was really no reason not to take them seriously.

With the ceremonial mint placed on the pillow, and the top quarter of the covers turned and folded neatly and precisely, his ritual tableau was prepared.

A Meitagenan bed is vast, iron-wrought and spiky appointment, with blood-red sheets. In the presence of a little mist and lamplight, it could be mistaken for a model of a city run by steampunk vampires who practised competitive defenestration.

At the centre of the headboard was a large brass gong, calibrated to the precise resonant frequency which could stir a dozing Meitagenan from a long slumber, just in case. Djaer struck the gong now.

"Light is a glacier," he said.

He ate the ceremonial mint, and struck the gong again.

"Time is a false idol," he said.

He took one corner of the immaculately folded sheet, and with the delicacy and precision of an origami master, folded a perfect right triangle from his near corner to the precise centre of the pillowy mattress. He struck the gong again.

"Consciousness," he said, annunciating carefully, "is ephemeral."

"Fuck me," said Naomi, startling him from behind. "What a load of bollocks."

Sighing, closing his towelling vestments and tying the belt in a perfect bow, Djaer turned round.

"If I weren't so tired," he growled, "I would kill you where you stand. Do you have any idea how inappropriate it is to interrupt a Meitagenan somnatic mass?"

Naomi wandered over to one of the steaming porcelain thuribles, bent over it, and sniffed. "Is that olbas oil?" she said, laughing.

"You had better have an excellent reason for being here," he grumbled.

"You switched off your tannoy," Naomi explained.

"Purging oneself of electronic communication for thirty minutes is an essential sanitary ritual," he explained, rolling his eyes. "You shut down all screens and speakers, perform the liturgy, but then scroll through pictures of cats and food for fifteen minutes just after closing your eyes for the first time. It's a custom dating back to time immemorial with roots both mysterious and profound. Has the galaxy become so ignorant of the old ways?"

"I can't speak for the whole galaxy, but this part of it has become extremely amused by the old ways."

Djaer shot her a murderous look.

"Anyway," she continued. "You can't go to bed yet, you've forgotten to purge the hydrogen ramscoops."

Instinctively, he took a swing for her, but paused a mighty blow just inches from her head. "I have not," he said, defensively.

"Fine, but don't blame me when the ship blows up because the hydrogen ramscoops were all… unpurged."

"Aren't you supposed to be my second in command? This seems like an excellent way for you to prove your utility."

"I don't have the first idea how to purge a hydrogen ramscoop. What do you even purge them of?"

Djaer rolled his eyes. Not only had W.A.S.T.E. Unincorporated apparently seen fit to saddle him with an insolent assistant for this journey without notice or explanation, she also appeared to be ignorant of the most basic details of ship operation and maintenance.

"Anyway, I'm locked out of the controls," Naomi added, inspecting the tube of ceremonial mints Djaer had left on the table. "Directive from headquarters."

"What? Why?"

"I mean, I'll hack it eventually, but they seemed to think it would be a safety risk." She popped one of the ceremonial mints into her mouth, and winced. "Urgh, these things are disgusting. Only the Meitagenans could think peppermint pairs well with viscera."

Djaer pulled himself to his full height, stepping toward her. "So what exactly is your purpose on this voyage?" he bellowed.

"Mostly to annoy you, I think," she said, screwing her face up with another mint. "They are oddly moreish though."

Shaking his head and not wishing to exchange another word, Djaer left the bedroom and strode at speed to the main bridge. Barking instructions at the computer, he purged the ramscoops, and circumvented the headquarters lockout on Naomi's access to the controls. He gave her everything short of navigation and propulsion, because he was damned sure he didn't want to be disturbed from his sleep again.

When he returned to his bedroom, Naomi had apparently left. Not wanting to tempt another interruption, he sent her a short text message over the internal comms – attaching a copy of the ship's operating manual – and reset his ritual tableau.

***

Watching Djaer's lifesigns reach hibernation on the internal sensors, Naomi grinned. She had a message to record.

Pressing her fingers together into an interlocked plane, she touched them gently to her forehead in her people's traditional salute.

"Dearest Laila," she began. "Everything is going according to plan…"