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She was probably gauging my cleanliness. We'd hired her under the guise of needing someone to serve us. In truth we meant to steal her away from this place. If she insisted on doing a task, we decided to ask her to guide some of the cleaning bots. But it seemed she thought her duty was to see to my room.

I’d have to come up with some non-strenuous tasks for her. Perhaps I could ask her to catalog something.

Turning to face me, she leaned against the bunk and patted it with one hand. “This is a nice bed.”

Why would she say that? It was a standard issue bunk with an inexpensive mattress and bedding. Except she was probably used to a bed made out of even worse materials, poor little human.

I needed to create the perfect place for her to rest! Perhaps I could coax her into a nap instead of trying to work.

“Wait here, I’ll be back promptly,” I said and rushed from the room. I found my crewmates gathered in the hallway talking. They all turned to face me.

“What’s wrong?” Narmuna asked with a worried rattle.

“I need to make Opal a nest!” I explained, moving past them. I jogged down several corridors until I got to one of our storage rooms. I gathered all the spare bedding we had, which wasn't nearly enough, and ran back to my room.

I turned the last corner only to find my friends had created a pile of pillows and blankets in front of my cabin door. The items were all much brighter and nicer than the standard bedding we bought for ourselves or kept in storage.

“I picked up these pillows at Noriska Station,” Mieshorum said, pointing to the blue square pillows at the bottom of the pile.

“The blankets are made from Jinjoo wool,” Lexarit explained, gesturing to the folded soft yellow blankets. “It is considered one of the softest natural fibers in the universe.”

“I bought that pad for my bunk,” Narmuna said. “It’s too soft for me, but the human will probably like it.”

I doubted Narmuna had even tried the pad; it looked to still be in its purchase packaging.

Unlike me, they’d all been sure we’d find a human pet and had bought things to give them before we even had one. I wish I’d been as confident as they had been. For me, buying items in advance had felt like I was inviting the universe to disappoint me.

“Your generosity is my greatest gift,” I murmured to my dear friends. We’d all met in the military and had been determined to stay together even after our service was finished. To do that, we'd begun a shipping company. Lexarit wanted freedom from his family's tight control, Narmuna wanted to build our business into an empire, and Mieshorum talked about employing some of our compatriots from the military someday.

I didn’t care about the empire part and was glad Lexarit no longer had to abide by his controlling parents. My dream of the future was simple, I never wanted to be parted from my friends again.

I dreaded the day we would add another ship to our business.

“I'm humbled by my crewmates, partners, and friends,” I said, slapping my fist to my chest in respect.

“The human picked you,” Narmuna said. “It’s important we honor her choice because she probably hasn’t had much agency in her life. Always remember, we are here to help.”

I rumbled my agreement. “That's something I'll never forget.”

“It might prove to be easier to get another human now that we already have one,” Lexarit pointed out. “There are still wild humans out in the universe. We might even have docked at stations where there was a human or two but didn't even know. They might come out of hiding if they see how happy and well cared for Opal is.”

Everyone made rumbles of agreement at Lexarit’s words.

“We need to make sure to take her onto any station and planet we visit,” I said, already looking forward to showing my human all kinds of interesting and unique things.

Mieshorum sounded a negative rattle. “She shouldn't leave the ship at every station. They're not all safe.”

That statement set off another round of agreement rattles. Most of the places we went were perfectly well maintained and organized, but there were a couple that none of us liked but still did business with due to the higher fees they paid.

When one of those contracts came up for renewal, I might request we drop them for Opal’s safety. Even if she didn’t leave the ship, there was still danger at those types of places.

“Enough discussion,” Lexarit said, tugging the other two men away. “You should go make a nice nest for Opal. I’m going to check the food stores to see what we have in stock that Opal can eat.”

“That’s a good idea,” Mieshorum said. “I’m going to check in with the station. We should be able to leave soon. It’ll be good to get out of here and know no one can take Opal away from us.”

Narmuna was already half turning when he spoke. “I’ll research the station where we’re making our next delivery. I’ll report if it's a safe place to take Opal off the ship.”

I rumbled my agreement as my friends all rushed off. Now I was faced with trying to get all this bedding into my cabin.