“No. I need to retire for this cycle.”
“Right. Sure. I get that. I need to sleep too. Gotta go work on those bio rhythms in the morning.”
“Are you adjusting to the cycles here? Sleep cycles in space can be difficult to become accustomed to.”
“I’m getting used to it. If anything, I seem to sleep better here than in my apartment.”
“Why is that?”
She waved her hand. “No particular reason.”
Something about her facial expression. He was certain she had a very good reason for not sleeping well on the planet.
She gestured toward the door, and he took a few steps toward it. He stopped next to it and hesitated. He didn’t want to go.
“Your work, how is it developing?” He enjoyed being in her presence, so instead of leaving, he kept talking. “Will you be finished soon?” How long were they going to be remaining on the station?
And regardless of how annoying her pet was, he didn’t want to see her go just yet.
“I’d say it’s developing well. We did test scanning today, and that was really interesting, adding us to the database to see if there’s any particular matches.”
“Is that why you’re here? To match with someone?”
She shook her head. “No. Just to test things out and make sure that whatever hu—I mean Earthlings—that want to be a part of the program don’t have any weird issues since we’re not actually in the system files.”
Wait. That’s not what he was told before. “They scanned many of us as well, to add us to a database for testing. But we were told it was their entire database.”
“We were told the database that is here is local. Re-lee doubted any matches would be found; it was merely a way to test the data.” She stared at him for a moment. “Did you not want to be a part of it?”
He shook his head. “I’m here for the job. Not the service.”
“I understand,” she said. “What do you do here?”
“Construction.”
She smiled. “Of course. Someone has to build this place.”
“Exactly.”
They stood there for a few moments before he put his hand on the door. “I should leave.”
“Right. Yeah. Well, I’ll see you around.” The door slid open.
“Yes.” He stepped through the open door. “And let your creature wander around more. Here in the station, it’s a confined space. He will be fine.”
“Maybe I will.”
He smiled at her.
She smiled back, and the door closed.
He felt strange.
He did not like seeing that door shut.
Correction.
He did not like that door separating them.
