Hamish told her he would return before Brask’s next attempt at a human breakfast.
Vela finally smiled, just enough for Sepha to notice.
When the others had gone, she asked Sepha whether the human always talked that much.
The doctor said he was capable of talking even when unconscious.
Vela asked whether that was another feature of human biology.
Sepha said she was still studying the question.
Outside, a Helix courier quietly removed an identification badge from his uniform and entered a maintenance elevator.
He had received a message containing a photograph of Vela, the words RECOVER DATA, and a time limit of four hours.
He did not know who had sent the order.
He knew only that his family depended on the wages deposited into their account every ten days.
The man pressed the button for the medical level and wondered how much trouble could come from collecting one small case.
The courier’s name was Den Sorr, although nobody on the station asked it during the first hour after he entered the medical level.
He wore the right uniform and walked with the weary confidence of a man who had repaired too many broken refrigeration valves to be questioned about another one.
The first nurse who saw him assumed he had been sent to service a faulty dispenser.
The second nurse asked to see his maintenance order.
Den produced a digital permit bearing a valid station authorization and watched the nurse scan it.
The permit identified him as a contractor assigned to inspect the emergency storage lockers.
His instructions, transmitted through a private channel, directed him instead to Vela’s room.
When he reached the corridor, he heard the girl speaking to one of Sepha’s nurses about her home world.
Vela was describing a hillside where blue grass grew tall enough to hide a person walking through it.
The nurse asked what the grass smelled like after the rain.
Vela said it smelled like warm stone and the sharp fruit her mother used in winter tea.
Den stood outside the door and remembered the smell of his own childhood home, a narrow apartment above a laundry where the air was always humid and faintly sweet.
For a moment, he was not thinking about his wages or the strangers who sent him orders.
He was thinking about the day his daughter had asked why he spent more time repairing machines than speaking to her.
Then a security alarm sounded two corridors away.
