Tristan Spinner goes missing.

It’s day four and the captain still goes outside to stare at the sky, as if expecting a shuttle to land any second. Myrha spends her days on the beach and decides not to freak out. She’s still on vacation, after all.

However, near the end of day four, another guest voices discontent.

“I’ve not seen Spinner recently,” he confides during the odd time when most of them are together.

Myrha, as a rule, avoids the other guests. She still privately thinks they’re crazy civilization-phobes and doesn’t want much to do with them. Her only companion is Lynne, who remains mostly silent but will sometimes ply her with questions about poetry.

However, it seems like they’re all usually drawn to the vends at the same time to get dinner. That evening, when Myrha’s standing in line and there are a handful of other guests chatting at the tables, the concern about Spinner is raised.

“He’s not been at any of the usual campsites,” the guest continues.

He’s a stocky man with a rich brown beard and mustache, the one who timidly rang the bell on the first day. Everything about him is boorish: his large hands and feet, his wide jaw and his bulging biceps. Everything, but his reedy voice. Myrha turns to hide her smile, snickering into the palm of her hand.

“Maybe he’s off exploring new, uncharted areas,” a woman says.

Her husband stares at his utiphone and doesn’t touch his meal or offer an opinion. They’re an older couple, and although they’re vacationing together, Myrha hasn’t seen them look at each other even once.

“Yes, but he hasn’t checked in at any of the usual campsites,” Reedy Voice says again, stubbornly.

The other guests shrug and mutter, but don’t seem alarmed.

“And,” Reedy Voice continues dramatically, “I’ve seen…lights.”

That garners a few stares. Myrha just taps her foot and hopes Reedy Voice will finish ordering his meal before continuing with his story. She’s really hungry.

“I’ve been at campsite six, the farthest campsite out, since we arrived. For the past two nights I’ve seen lights in the jungle. I’ve tried to get to them, but never can. They must be far away. I try calling out to see if anyone is there, but no one answers.”

“You’re having us on,” another man sneers.

He’s a man who always dresses in black and looks a little bit like the bounty hunters Myrha sometimes sees on the news strip of her utiphone.

“Are you sure you’re not just delusional?” Bounty Hunter continues, “Perhaps you ingested some bark? The jungle trees are known for their hallucinogenic properties.”

And really, that would explain the smell that lingers in the wooden hotel.

“I assure you,” Reedy Voice says in a clipped tone, “that I would have noticed if I had eaten bark.”

Bounty Hunter snorts and Myrha taps Reedy Voice on the shoulder.

“Can you pick a fucking type of bread or not?” she asks hotly.

Reedy Voice immediately flushes and randomly taps a bread option for his very boring sandwich (it consists entirely of lettuce). He scuttles off to the side.

“Thank you,” she grumbles and creates her order.

After her meal is done, she makes her escape for the door (and passes by Reedy Voice, hearing him moan “oh no, I got sunflower bread. I hate sunflower bread!” Sunflower bread isn’t all that popular on Earth, but it has a huge market on Boes).

Lynne is at the entryway, watching the proceedings with a casual eye, and they walk to the beach together. Myrha likes to spend as little time as possible in her room because it’s cramped and smelly (and unfortunately, doesn’t seem to give her any awesome hallucinations), so they have fallen into a routine of eating on the beach. Well, Myrha eats. Lynne watches.

“Do you believe the lights Fossam saw were a natural phenomenon that occurs on Lieval or a product of human interference?” Lynne asks.

Myrha slowly sips her soup as she unravels that sentence. Myrha doesn’t know if it’s just something that androids do, but she thinks Lynne takes great pleasure in making her sentences as complicated as possible.

“You mean, like fireflies versus radioactive glowing trees because of the research facility that was here?”

“Lieval does not have anything resembling fireflies,” she says promptly.

Right. So that rules that out.

“How do you even know that?”

“Do you not research the destinations you visit?”

Um. ‘Beaches, babes and barbecue’ was all she had really needed to know. She doesn’t say that, because it seems important to not appear stupid in front of a very intelligent machine.

“Well, I don’t look up if they have fireflies. Besides, a lot of this island is unexplored. Maybe Reedy Voice, uh, Fossam, found a new species.”

“I was thinking it might have something to do with Spinner.”

“Well why didn’t you just say so,” Myrha sighs, exasperated.

“I wanted to know what you thought.”

“I honestly don’t really care if Spinner has gotten lost or if Fossam found dancing lights. All I care about is the damn shuttle.”

“You are very are single-minded.”

“Sure.”

Lynne stands up and cocks her head to the side in a considering manner. Myrha wonders if that sort of behavior had been programmed into her, or if she had picked it up somewhere as she studied and copied human behavior.

“I think we should investigate.”

“Investigate what? Why?”

Lynne nods in affirmation as if Myrha had strung together a coherent question. Myrha can do nothing but turn in her beach chair as the android strides to the jungle.

“Wait!” Myrha shouts in a half-panicked gulp, “What if you get lost? Or run into trouble?”

“Myrha,” and it’s the first time the android has ever said her name, all drawn out and amused and that’s kind of hot, “those are the risks of exploration.”

Fuck.

She’s met Turobeck in hot android lady form.

And she realizes she never asked Lynne why she liked Turobeck, why he was her favorite poet, why ‘Star-Fever’ was her favorite poem. But here is she is, about to fling herself head-long into an unexpected adventure, and the reasons she could like Turobeck seem startling clear.

“Is exploring even part of your programming?” she blurts out.

“If you are afraid, you may stay behind,” Lynne says very patiently.

But there’s a wicked smirk on her face and suddenly Myrha’s jumping up from her seat and poking a finger at Lynne.

“Let’s go,” she says.