And it looked like she wasn't alone in that since even the twins, who seemed to hold the place in contempt, were here waiting rather than sleeping or doing other things. Which at least hinted it was a break from her routine worth staying up for.
Although if she had to go for the next three hours in this awkward silence, she might reconsider.
To her immense relief, Dax came to her rescue as usual. In this case, by pulling up a flat two-dimensional image on his display and motioning for her to take a look. “What do you see?”
Lana leaned closer, putting her head beside his so she could see it clearly, and couldn't help but notice he smelled nice: clean, but with just a hint of his natural scent. Flustered by that awareness, she hastily said the first thing that came to her mind. “I see a picture of a moon's surface.”
She may be a Blank Slate, but she was on a spaceship and had access to the ship's databanks. Basic astronomical phenomena were one of the first things she'd researched.
The young man nodded. “With?”
She gave him an odd look. “Um, craters?”
“Ah.” He sounded strangely satisfied. “I see bubbles.” He squinted slightly. “Now I see craters. And . . . bubbles again.”
Now Lana was definitely looking at him funny. “What?”
Dax pointed at the largest crater, where it was in shadow from an unseen sun. “Imagine the sun is shining on it from the opposite direction. Then instead of being a crater with part of the rim in shadow, it's a bubble with the far side in shadow.”
This all seemed pretty stupid to Lana, but then again, she was still mostly a blank slate. And it beat sitting around while Aiden fumed and the Ishivi twins smirked.
She squinted as well, focusing and unfocusing her eyes, like this was a magic eye puzzle like the one Belix had shown her earlier. Nothing was happening, probably because this was some practical joke the weapons officer was playing on her. Even though that wasn't really like him.
But no matter what she tried she only saw craters. And then . . .
They became bubbles, just for a second. Lana blinked, tried to focus the way she had before, and they became bubbles permanently. She tried to make them craters again, and to her surprise had to focus for a second before she could.
“I see them,” she said excitedly. “That's amazing!”
Dax nodded. “Perspective, Lana. In particular, the ability to see things from different perspectives, in spite of what others might be telling us. That's especially important for people like us.”
Lana frowned at him. “What do you mean, like us?”
Dax hesitated, giving her a sidelong look, and lowered his voice so she could barely hear him, and no one else on the bridge could. “Those who haven't had as long to experience the universe as everyone around us.”
He abruptly turned back to his console. “Excuse me . . . I don't want the Captain to reprimand me for inattentiveness.”
That seemed like a ridiculous worry, considering Aiden and Barix had just been goofing off playing a game on their displays. But she was fairly confident that the captain would yell at Dax for doing the same thing, hypocritical as that was.
What was their deal? If the young man refused to tell her, maybe she should ask Aiden.
Or Ali. And while she was at it, maybe she could ask the companion what the void Dax had meant about being like her? Everyone else on the ship aside from the captain seemed to be weird in some way, but the young man just seemed like a normal, predictable human who tried extra hard to be boring.
Wasn't he?
“So here's a question for you, Barix,” Aiden said abruptly, startling Lana out of her musing. From the way the Ishivi immediately tensed with something close to belligerence, she had a feeling the question was going to be anything but idle. No doubt an insult he'd spent the last few minutes thinking up.
It turned out she was right. “If you're supposedly a cut above the rest of us when it comes to your genetics, how come you're barely five and a half feet tall?” the captain asked the slight man. “Isn't it human nature to naturally defer to taller people and give them a higher status, a trait you'd want to have in your quest for perfection?”
Barix glared back with cold hauteur. “We're trying to breed past the restrictive inadequacies of our human nature, all those primitive instincts and urges our ancestors living in caves carrying around clubs found so useful. In case you haven't noticed, human technology has evolved in leaps and bounds past our biology, and excessive height carries a lot of inefficiencies and disadvantages.”
Aiden snorted. “Sounds like something you'd tell yourself to help you feel better about an obvious genetic deficiency.”
The Ishivi abruptly turned back to his station with cool contempt. “You always act as if you passionately detest hypocrisy, Captain. I'd wonder why the sudden interest in me, but on the subject of human nature your behavior is obvious posturing for the Blank Slate, to belittle me and make yourself look better to her. Improving your chances of getting in her pants, hmm?”
Lana jumped in surprise, eyes darting to the captain. She saw his face coloring and he very pointedly didn't look at her.
“Have either of you ever even heard of professionalism?” Belix interrupted, voice heavy with disgust.
Aiden didn't answer, letting the subject drop and focusing on the instruments in front of him. It looked a lot like Barix had scored a point, but that was absurd. Aiden couldn't be interested in Lana, could he? He had Ali, who was far more beautiful than she could ever be.
Or was he just the sort who wanted to sleep with every woman he met? If so, she hadn't seen any sign of it so far.
Another heavy
