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"All right." I conceded.

"All right?" He checked, probably not ready to believe me.

"Yeah, lead the way."

Keeping a healthy distance, I followed him into the ship's interior.

The corridor was a marvel of alien technology, all smooth curves and dimmed but adequate lighting. I might have admiredit if I had not been so tired, dirty, and petrified. As it was, I barely took my eyes off the alien.

"What's your name? I'm Hannah."

He stiffened but didn't turn. "Tharaax."

Great. That was a mouthful. "Can I call you Thar?"

He repeated, "I'm Tharaax. T-h-a-r-a-a-x. Tharaax."

"Yeah, that's just a few too manyAs for me, buster. How about Thrax instead?"

He grunted an answer, leaving me to interpret it as ayesorno.

Good, Thrax it was.

When we were still a few feet away, one of the doors in the sides of the hallway opened soundlessly to a small, inviting room.

"Your quarters for the duration."

I stepped inside while my mind raced a hundred miles an hour. I barely took in the interior or the large window that gave a view of the spaceport. All that mattered to me was to find some kind of weapon I could use should this alien get any wrong ideas. A heavy rock on a table looked like it might do the trick. I didn't want to be too obvious and make a sprint for it just then, but I cataloged it.

"The cleansing unit is over here." Another door opened as silently as the first. Since he didn't make a move to go inside, I stepped by him to explore.

A tubular thing stood in one corner. "The cleansing unit, I believe you humans call it shower."

"Us humans? You've met more of my people?"

His face scrunched up, displeased. "Unfortunately."

I waited for a beat, but he didn't elaborate.

"All right, how does this thing work?"

He approached it, and the walls of the cylinder moved to the side, kind of like one of those rotating X-ray machines, only larger.

"Step inside and activate the cycle by sayingcleanse. You can also tell it hotter or colder."

"Great, like a carwash," I snarked.

"Once you're finished, simply notify it to dry you too," he instructed, unperturbed.

"Okay, cleanse, hot, cold, stop. Got it."

"I will be back once I get us off this godsforsaken piece of galaxy trash."

I wondered ifgalaxy trashwas similar totrailer trashbut decided I didn't care. Right now, all I wanted was the promised shower.

THARAAX

The soundof my footsteps echoed through the hallway as I stomped toward the bridge, fuming and cursing my bad luck of having picked up another obnoxious, ungrateful, querulous human.