“Don’t tempt me,” I say.Invite you to my half of the ship.The idea catches my breath.
“It is not actually gruel I eat,” Kodiak says. “But I thought I would play into your elitist assumptions.” He points to the ceiling window, where we can see his empty treadmill across empty space. “I think you see plenty of what happens on my side.”
I pull my own pea slurry out of the heater. “Are you going to keep aiming right into the discomfort zone? Is that your goal tonight?”
Kodiak chuckles, clearly pleased with himself. “It’s just a treat to see a pretty boy squirm.” He rolls up a sleeve and flexes. “You like that?”
“Enough,” I say. My voice comes out unexpectedly sharp.
Kodiak flexes the other arm. “What, you want to see some more, poly?”
I’m not even sure what he means by “poly,” but I don’t like his tone at all. I ignore him. Having to avoid Kodiak’s eyes now brings a feeling close to embarrassment. I hate that he’s made me feel this way. All the same, I realize this is mostly abouthisdiscomfort. He probably doesn’t allow himself to enjoy being attractive. A waste of a perfectly good source of self-esteem.
Kodiak watches my face. “So. Are you gay or bisexual or what?”
I can’t help but laugh. It’s like we’re in some historical fiction. “Thoseterms,” I tell Kodiak. “Just stop. You’reembarrassing yourself, Mr. Dimokratía.”
“Oh my God, so sensitive,” he grumbles, letting his sleeves fall. “You are all the stereotypes of Fédération in one.”
I have no doubt anymore that he’s goading me. But I refuse to be goaded. “Please do call me sensitive, since it’s theinsensitive who deserve criticism,” I say primly as I prepare myself a tea. I close the cabinet without offering Kodiak one. “It’s my sensitivity that’s tasked with keeping us alive, that puts me in point position once we do make contact with Minerva.”
“Ifwe make contact with Minerva,” Kodiak says as he hunkers into his food.
Now I can’t hold back. “I guess sensitivity isn’t required for manual labor,” I say, watching him so I don’t miss any bit of his reaction.
Not even a pause in his eating. A monologue runs in my mind: I’m one of the most famous people in the world. My classmates fell over one another to get a taste of me. Maybe he isn’t impressed by my status. Maybe I don’t need it with him. Maybe he won’t be disappointed if I turn out to be ordinary after all, despite everything he’s heard.
“There is only virtue in bodily toil,” he finally says, swallowing. “...and you’re watching me again.”
“Look, you’re pretty much the only game in town, if you’re the sort who’s even remotely into human contact,” I say. “So yes, I’m looking at you. Looking at one another iswhat humans do. You’re allowed to look at me, too.”
“Thank you, that is most kind,” he says into his food, with a terrible imitation of the poshest sort of Fédération accent. The way I and Minerva and the OS talk.
As he gets meaner, I get touchier: this feedback loop will eventually lead to open conflict, so I decide to break it. “What happened to your arm?”
“My arm?” Kodiak asks, tugging his sleeve farther down so it covers his triceps. “What do you mean?”
“While you were mocking me by flexing. I saw a scar.”
“No,” Kodiak says, “you saw no scar.”
“Who do you think you’re kidding right now?” I ask.
He shakes his head, placing his dinner back on the table.
Heart racing, I raise Kodiak’s sleeve to expose the soft inside of his upper arm, tracing my finger along the valley between his muscles. I track the scar until it reaches his elbow.
Kodiak gently removes my finger, cups it into my palm, and places my hand on the center of the table. “That. It is a scar, you are right. It is so small that I barely notice it.”
I shake my head. That scar isnotsmall. “Maybe you’re the computer program. You are the most closed-off human being I’ve ever met.”
“Born and bred that way,” he says proudly. “I would like a tea too, please.”
At least Kodiak said “please.” I reach into the cabinet.The good-host urge is hardwired into us Cusk children. A bunch of us in each generation wind up diplomats.
Kodiak strains, and I imagine that he wants to make more conversation but is grasping for words and sentences. “I have had this mark for so long that it’s easy for me to forget. No one has ever asked me about it, but no one asks anyone about anything in training.”
“It’s all men, in your training?”
