The next day, there’s no message from Orion Starlines. The captain commandeers the interstellar utiphone and tries sending out a message himself. Bartin nearly faints, but the captain promises him Orion Starlines would reimburse the cost. Unfortunately, the call does not go through. Myrha’s utiphone does not have interstellar capabilities (because, woah, talk about expensive), so she can’t test out any communication for herself. Zel will be disappointed she can’t send her any pictures, but it’s not like there’s anything out here to take pictures of anyway.

She lets the captain fuss over the utiphone and decides if she’s going to be here for a while, she might as well enjoy the beach. From her beach chair, she watches the porn-reading man from the shuttle scurry into the wilderness, bags packed like he’s going to camp out there. His utiphone flickers with a screen, though Myrha’s too far away to be able to tell what might be on it.

She leaves the ‘communing with nature' to him and decides she’s really glad she saved the alcohol from last night for today. It’s weak and kind of tastes like grass; she wonders if it came from a shipment from Earth or if it was made locally. Then she decides it doesn’t matter because it’s still gross, but at least it makes her head spin. It helps make her vacation bearable.

The light from the too close, too hot sun is suddenly blocked and she looks up, blinking, at the large umbrella over her. It’s like most umbrellas: large, curved and hovering too close to her head. It also plays soft music. This one is programmed to play club music from Soodrad, which basically consists of very slow whistling (there are three dominant species on Soodrad; all of them have eight mouths that can’t do much other than whistle).

She’s honestly never heard anything more annoying.

Myrha’s contacts quickly change to accommodate the sudden shade, and the android takes the beach chair next to her.

“Um, thanks,” Myrha says.

“You skin needs protection from the sun.”

“Right. Yeah. Where’d you find the umbrella?”

“In your travel kit.”

Oh. She had one in her kit? Mom must have slipped it in there. She loves whistle music.

“You went through my things?”

“I simply thought you had forgotten it.”

Uh-huh. Sure.

“Yeah, well, if anything’s missing, I’ll blame you.”

“Why would something be missing?”

“You might have stolen it.”

“Why would I steal any of your things?”

Myrha has no idea and so she merely offers a drink to the android. Then remembers she can’t drink.

“It’s hard to make social overtures with you,” Myrha laments.

“I have derived that you make many of your social overtures using alcohol, sex, and meaningless accusations.”

“Yeah, generally. Too bad none of those overtures go very far with an android.”

After a brief pause, Lynne suggests, “We could discuss poetry.”

That’s not something Myrha usually does (normally because the company she keeps isn’t really the intellectual sort), but she’s a little bit in love with Turobeck and poetry, so she decides to go for it.

“So. Turobeck. What’s your favorite poem?” she asks.

“‘Star-Fever’.”

“What? No way. That’s my favorite!”

And it’s just weird that she and a very advanced machine would have the same favorite poem.

“Why is it your favorite?” Lynne asks politely, as if she’s following some sort of social-interaction-manual.

“I love his passion, his longing. His desire for something new…that’s something I can relate too.”

Lynne nods, but doesn’t offer any insights of her own.

Instead, she asks, “Did you know that this is one of the planets Turobeck could have crash-landed on?”

“Are you shitting me? That’s pretty crazy.”

“Indeed. Lieval was one of the planets near the coordinates of his last transmission.”

Her drink forgotten, her brain blooms with the possibilities, burns with this new knowledge. Turobeck disappeared eighty years ago and the rumors of his death are neigh upon uncountable. His ship could have had a technical malfunction, and he died in some meaningless patch of space; he tried to explore a new solar system, but something went wrong and he crashed instead; he turned into Dellylee and decided to hide away from civilization forever. The list goes on.

“Wow. That’s. Wow.”

Lynne nods as if agreeing with her assessment, “Yes. It is just a hypothesis of course, and there are other planets in this solar system, so Lieval is not the only candidate.”

“What the hell was Turobeck doing in this solar system anyway? There wasn’t anything here.”

“He was an explorer; you could say it was his job.”

“Maybe, or maybe there’s something really cool about this planet that only he knew about. Or could he have been here to do research? Was that creepy facility here yet?”

“No. Almost twenty years after his disappearance, a private Earth-based company set up research facilities here. Within in one year, it was closed down and the planet was condemned for fifty years.”

“Until a few years ago, right?”

“Yes. Revitalization efforts were scare, however, as the planet’s history with contamination made it unattractive to settlers and investors, even if the planet is safe now.”

“Unattractive to everyone who isn’t Bartin, of course.”

“Of course.”

“So, it’s just this one little hotel.”

“And refueling station. It is a good stopover for freight shuttles. I assume that is how Bartin and Werna get their shipments of food and equipment.”

“Great. But about Turobeck: hasn’t anyone found evidence of his crash?”

“Apparently not. The research company that was here made no claims about finding anything.”

“Well, it’s a good story anyway.”

Lynne nods again and they watch the waves in silence, daydreaming of Turobeck’s adventures (or at least, Myrha is; can androids daydream?), until Myrha’s stomach grumbles.