The connection was instant. ‘Patrol dispatch,’ a voice said. ‘Is this an emergency?’

Tessa was pretty sure she knew the speaker. ‘Lili?’ she said. ‘It’s Tessa, down in Bay Eight.’

‘Ah, jeez.’ Definitely Lili. ‘Again?’

Tessa wasn’t sure whether to laugh or sigh, so she did both. ‘Again.’

‘Anybody hurt?’

‘No, but looks like they hit my coworker’s bots.’ It was a mean but easy exploit, if you could get your hands on a med scanner. Trigger the imubots’ suppression protocol, like a doctor would before a minor surgery, and say goodnight. ‘I think he’s just asleep, but—’

‘Yeah, I gotcha. You’ve got two patrollers and a medic headed your way. Ten minutes, tops.’

‘Thanks, Lili.’

‘You got it. If you come by Jojo’s tonight, I’ll get you a drink.’

Tessa laughed dryly. ‘I just might take you up on that.’ The vox switched off. Tessa sat on the desk. She set her lunch down and studied Sahil, her hands folded between her legs. His sinuses roared. She thought about wiping up the drool, but no. She did enough of that kind of thing at home.

She glanced up at the clockprint on the wall. Ten minutes, tops, dispatch had said. So, rounding up to ten, that meant it was in her best interest to wait five minutes before calling Eloy, who would take twelve to get from home to work. Technically, she was supposed to call the supervisor the second something like this happened, but Tessa found the idea of delaying the inevitable headache until she had patrollers there much more palatable. Eloy was easier to deal with if another person of authority was there to balance him out.

One minute passed. Tessa opened her lunch box and removed the cake she’d packed for the afternoon. It was only eighth hour. It was warranted.

Four minutes passed. The cake had been pretty good. A little stale, but then, it was two days old. She brushed the remaining crumbs off her knee. Sahil snored.

Five minutes passed. She took a breath. ‘225-662,’ she said to the vox.

A second went by. Two. Three. ‘Yeah,’ Eloy’s marginally awake voice said. Great. Just great. This was the start of his day.

‘Eloy, it’s Tessa,’ she said. ‘We’ve had a break-in.’

‘Ah, fuck,’ he snapped. She could practically hear him rubbing his hands over his face. ‘Fucking again?’

Sahil shifted in his sleep, his lips folding unflatteringly against the desk. ‘Fucking again,’ Tessa said.

Isabel

When dealing with other sapients, issues of compatibility were difficult to anticipate. Isabel’s go-to example of this was the first meeting between Exodans and Aeluons. The Exodans, overjoyed by what felt like a rescue, exhilarated by the confirmation that their species was not alone, predictably assembled in their festive best, and decorated the shuttledock in streamers, banners, bunting. There were recordings of the scene in the Archives – an overwhelming array of every colour the dyeworks could cook up, hung and layered like confetti frozen in time. To Exodan eyes, the display was ebullient, effusive, a celebration like no other (not to mention an extravagant use of cloth). To the chromatically communicative Aeluons, it was the equivalent of opening a nondescript door and finding a thousand screaming people on the other side. The Aeluons, well familiar with the more colourful habits of other species, dealt with it as gracefully as they could, but as soon as some Klip/Ensk translation wrinkles had been ironed out, a gentle request was made to please, please put the flags away.

Such misalignments were unpredictable, and blameless. Nothing that could’ve been foreseen. Nothing that could’ve been prevented. Isabel told herself that as she stood helplessly at the transport pod platform as . . . something nearby kept shutting down Ghuh’loloan’s cart. She’d been fine on the elevator, fine as they crossed the platform. As soon as she approached the transport pod, though, the cart stopped in its tracks, as if someone had thrown a switch. Isabel had tugged her backward, and the cart had come back to life. But as soon as Ghuh’loloan drove herself across some invisible line, the wheels froze and the engine audibly slumped. None of her colleague’s increasingly agitated flicking of switches had any effect.

‘Weird,’ the transport attendant said in schoolroom Klip. He scratched his head. ‘It’s got to be . . . I don’t know.’ He switched over to Ensk and gave Isabel an apologetic shrug. ‘Some kinda signal interference from the pod. I’m sorry, M, I don’t know where to start.’

Isabel glanced around as she mentally scrambled for a solution. A small crowd had gathered, because of course they had. They kept their distance – out of respect and wariness in equal measure, no doubt – but their interest was unapologetic, and anything but subtle. How often did you get to go home and tell the dinner table about the alien you saw stuck on the transport deck? Isabel was aware that they were watching herself as well, the obvious responsible party, the one who would come up with something clever.

She did not.

‘I do not hold you at fault,’ Ghuh’loloan said to the attendant. ‘Nor you, dear host. These things happen!’ Her tone was bright, but her tentacles still flicked switches in fading hope. She pulled in her tendrils, and her eyestalks shut for a moment. ‘M Transport Attendant,’ she said, perking back up. She had yet to get a proper hold on honorifics, and the overdone result was often charming. ‘Do you think you are capable of carrying my cart? It weighs approximately sixteen kems.’