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D inner was fantastic, which was pretty standard for Luna’s. We skipped dessert with the decision that we’d have coffee and cookies back at my place after the sunset-watching.

We walked to the elevators together, then went our separate ways from there. Neither of us wanted to snoop around the Ohuli’s ship in our nice clothes.

I set the sphere on a carved wooden box on my coffee table, using the design of the box’s lid as a way to keep the sphere from rolling off.

Harry was asleep, as usual, in his charging bed on the couch, but he woke up at the sound of me placing the sphere. He yawned. “Hiya, Mum.”

“Hello, baby boy. I’m just here to change and then I’m heading out again. You good?”

He stretched, chest down on the couch, rump up in the air. “I could do with some squirrels. Or bats.”

I picked up the tablet that controlled the screen and straightened, giving him a look. “Bats?”

“Mmm. Do we have a channel for those?”

“Not that I’m aware of.” I put on the squirrel channel. Actually, it was squirrels, birds, chipmunks, and the occasional hedgehog.

“Shame, that. They’re like squirrels and birds combined.”

“Are they?” I chuckled. “Well, tomorrow at the library, I’ll search the archives and see if I can find you some bats to watch.”

“That’d be brilliant.”

“See that?” I pointed at the sphere. “It’s not a toy.”

He looked up at me with great sincerity. “I can see that, Mum. Looks quite fragile.”

Smarty-pants. “Well, I just wanted us to be on the same page is all.”

“Righto.”

“Frank and I will be back here later. Might watch a movie or something.”

His eyes rounded ever so slightly. “With bats?”

I laughed as I went to the bedroom. “No promises.”

I changed into jeans, sneakers, and an easy long-sleeved top of soft purple knit. I added a zip-up sweatshirt jacket as an afterthought, because while the disabled craft was hooked to Athos ’s power, it would still most likely be cold.

Harry was fixated on the screen when I went back out. I tried to think of anything I might need to bring to snoop around an incapacitated starcraft but came up blank.

Frank would know and probably already had it in his handy messenger bag.

“All right, Harry. I’m headed out. See you in a bit.”

“Bye, Mum.” He never took his eyes off the screen.

I left smiling and arrived at Frank’s the same way.

He let me in, greeting me with a kiss on the cheek. “Ready to prove my paranoid suspicions wrong?”

“Hey, no judgment. For all we know, that ship of theirs could be filled with poisonous gas and flesh-eating bacteria.”

His eyes narrowed in obvious amusement. “Yes, that’s what I was thinking. Poisonous gas and flesh-eating bacteria. Why else do you think I want you with me? Who wants to die a slow, painful death alone?”

I gave him my best perturbed look. “You know what I mean. That ship is an unknown.”

“It’s not that unknown. They’ve been living on it, after all.”

“I suppose that’s true.”

“If you don’t want to go?—”

“No, I do.” I poked him in the arm. “Come on. Gather up all your gadgets, Mr. Bond, and let’s go.”

Smirking, he picked up his messenger bag from the coffee table and hooked the strap over his shoulder. “Bye, Gracie.”

“Bye, Papa.”

I gave her a little wave, and we were out the door.

Security lights were the only thing lighting the docking bay when we arrived, and we left it that way. It was a little spooky, but I wasn’t alone, so I wasn’t going to make a big deal out of it.

Frank used the code he’d been sent to unlock the hatch. It shushed open, releasing a breath of air. “I’ll go first. Unless you’d rather…”

I tipped my head slightly. “No, I’m fine with using you as a human shield.”

“As I suspected.” He headed through the hatch.

I followed. The temperature dropped significantly a few steps in.

Enough that I could see my breath. I’d been right about the cold.

Made sense. The accordion tube that coupled the Athos with the Ohuli ship was connected to life support, but heating it would have been a waste of resources, as the tube’s flexible material had very little insulation.

Frank passed into the Ohuli vessel, took a couple of steps in, and stopped. I came through and stood next to him, my breath curling out in slips of icy vapor.

The lights inside were dim, just whatever was coming off the instrument panels and various other mechanical things in the bridge room we’d entered, but it was enough to see by.

What I saw was nothing I’d ever seen before. I slowly shook my head. “What is this? Have you ever seen a ship like this?”

“Not personally, but I heard about one,” Frank said, his tone ominous.

“Years ago, briefly, on the edge of Thrass’s radioactive asteroid belt.

The lone survivor succumbed before we could learn anything, and the craft was deemed dangerously unstable due to exterior damage and radiation, so it was destroyed. ”

“Too bad.”

All of the lines in the vessel were soft arches and undulating curves. There was an organic look to it, as if the craft had been grown, not built. Thin membranes stretched between bonelike structures, softly luminous in the ambient light.

It reminded me of being a kid and shining a light through my hand to see the bones. “It’s … weird. What is this built from? Animal hides?”

“I don’t know,” Frank said. “But let’s make this quick.”

No argument from me. “You do what you need to do, and I’ll have a look around.”

“Okay. Ten minutes should be plenty.”

“Meet you back here.” I tugged my jacket a little closer, glad I had it. Frank pulled some stuff from his bag and went toward the far wall.

I walked in the other direction. Beyond the bridge control room was a large common area with big, oversized floor cushions arranged in a sort of makeshift couch. There was a screen on one wall and, next to that, a narrow galley kitchen.

Leading off the common area was a central corridor.

I followed it. Strips of lighting ran along where the walls and ceiling joined, providing dim illumination, but my eyes adjusted.

There were doors on both sides of the corridor.

More like portals, really. None of the oblong entrances were the same size or shape.

Some were taller, some were wider, but without any rhyme or reason that I could discern.

I touched one and immediately drew my hand back. It felt like plastic but not exactly. More like skin. “So weird,” I whispered.

I touched it again. It wasn’t that it was warm to the touch, but it had a leathery feeling that made it seem like the skin of something .

The door slid open when I pushed on it. I looked in, not quite sure I wanted to enter. The interior gave off feminine vibes with tapestries on the walls, fringed pillows on the bed, and scarves draped on several surfaces. It had to be one of the women’s rooms.

I went in, hoping the door would stay open if I didn’t close it from the other side. Thankfully, it did. A drawer in the cabinet near the bed was partially open, a sign perhaps of the hasty packing that had been done. I peeked in. Clothing. Underthings, by the look of them.

I glanced around the rest of the space. The opposite wall held shelf after shelf of books. I took one down and opened it, leaning it toward the light from the corridor. I guessed it was in Ohuli, but whatever language it was, it wasn’t one I read or understood.

And yet, they’d spoken very good English.

Not that uncommon in the universe, however.

English was pretty widely spoken. We believed that happened due to the Orgenia, the benevolent race that had made human deep space exploration possible with their gift of technology.

They’d learned English within days of arriving on Earth, and we thought they’d probably spread it through the universe.

Bringing the book closer to the open door and the light, I snapped a picture of the page with my wristband, then replaced the book and took more photos of the shelves and the room as a whole.

I stepped through the door and back into the corridor. I went to the larger portal across the hall. Again, it opened when I pushed on it.

This room was vastly different. Orderly and austere.

I went in. The wall opposite the narrow bed held a desk surrounded by shelves, which were filled with books and a few curios.

A large green stone sphere sat on the desk.

Maybe a version of a pila, like the ones we’d been given, but I couldn’t be sure.

It sat in a metal cup. I touched the stone.

It was cold to the touch, as it should have been.

The desk was bare, but I could only assume whatever had been on the desk had been packed up and brought into the Athos .

The bed had one pillow and a thick, tufted quilt. A pair of worn slippers sat beside the bed, large enough to easily belong to the father. On the nightstand was a clock displaying the wrong time. Maybe because they’d lost power?

I slid open the top drawer. Nothing inside but a folded length of fabric with tassels on the end that might have been a belt.

I checked the time. Three minutes left of the ten we’d allotted.

I went back into the corridor and opened more doors.

I found two other bedrooms, a bathroom, and a storage area.

There had to be more to the ship, though.

This wasn’t a lot of space for four people to live in, even if they were family.

Maybe especially if they were family.

What was I missing?