The next day Dr Pill allowed the furry creature out of its quarantine. "Are you planning to name him, Solaris?"

Solaris raised an eyebrow. "I don't see why I would be expected to?"

"We can't let him off elsewhere and distort the local ecosystem. He'll have to be a shipboard animal. And you did find the thing. He seems to like you."

Solaris looked down at the animal, already trying to curl up in her arms. "Then I shall name him Lucky to commemorate his luck in finding me before the anomaly could take him."

Dr Pill smiled and nodded. "Lucky, that's a pet's name alright. You take good care of him."

*

Jennifer took a final deep breath and shook off most of the stress of the mission.

"I do feel better after that. Thank you, Dr Fortuna," she said.

And it hadn't all gone wrong. Almost everyone had been rescued and Agent Pinkerton from the Bureau of Time Investigation had assured her the situation was fully contained and would not pose a threat to surrounding communities.

"Are you sure you don't want to talk about it?" Fortuna asked.

"Absolutely sure. I prefer not to have people attempting to ruffle around in my memories and feelings if I can avoid it."

Fortuna dropped her hands in her lap and leaned back, eyebrows raised. The previous day her hair had been dishevelled, sweaty at the edges, as she drove to their rescue – a good look on her, Jennifer thought. Now her hair was perfectly smooth, over-straightened and lacquered into place.

"I imagine that will make things difficult with a first officer with psychometry as powerful as Commander Solaris has," Fortuna said.

Jennifer remembered letting Solaris touch her hand in a brief moment on North Port before they departed. A sign of trust and hope. She had no interest in regretting it. "I assure you, that is quite different. Commander Solaris has no interest in forcing her way into my memories. Nor have I any interest in forcing my memories on her. I'm comfortable in the belief we won't impose on each other in that way."

"Communicating feelings and events in our lives is an important part of interpersonal relationships," Fortuna said, voice wry.

Jennifer laughed. "I assure you, I have no problem with that in the normal course of communication. Merely with being expected to give when I am not comfortable or people prying where I did not give permission."

Fortuna nodded and stepped away.

"You did well on Rommys," Jennifer said, as she reached the door. "I'm glad we have you on our team."

*

She found Richards further down the hallway. He snapped to attention as soon as he noticed her coming toward him.

"Did our adventures on Rommys help you face your fears, Lieutenant?"

"A little bit, sir. It wasn't all bad."

"I'm pleased to hear it. No unfortunate visions?"

Richards scratched at the back of his head, slumping, then stood up straight again with a jerk. "There might have been a thing or two, but..." He drifted off, his face easing into a wide smile. "There was one good thing. I don't know if it was a vision or just a fantasy in a dark moment, but I saw a glimpse of the man I'm going to marry some day. That is, it wasn't a whole vision or anything, and I'm not going to get any strange ideas like Miss Bow did. I only saw his hands. He had nice hands. It gave me hope."

"Well, that's something, I suppose."

*

Solaris found Captain Li in the recreation area that evening and presented her magnetic Go board for inspection before placing it on the table between them.

"I will allow one game," Solaris said.

They played quietly for some time, the only communication the near-comical expressions on the Captain's face as she chose where to place her stones and Solaris's occasional raised eyebrow.

The Captain held one white stone in her hand for a while, turning it in her hands as she looked over the board with a frown.

"Did the anomaly make you see anything?" Captain Li asked, then tapped her stone down on the board.

"That is an outlandish move," Solaris said, and then, "Not this time, no."

Captain Li looked up from the board. "Your previous time? You don't have to share the details with me if you don't want, though I confess that the curiosity is eating me up."

"You will remain undigested. I merely saw something that cannot be true. I witnessed myself in many other worlds, in lives that I have not lived, taking choices I would not take."

Jennifer smiled and leaned back. "You don't believe in the possibility of alternate universes?"

"Whether or not I believe in that possibility that physics can neither rule in or rule out, I do not believe that is what I saw. I believe the anomaly induces hallucinations, that is all."

Captain Li nodded. "It is a possibility. Certainly I didn't see anything of great depth that I would want to pin my hopes on."

They were quiet again for a while, attention drawn back to the game.

Until Captain Li looked up again and said, "I didn't want to ask this. I'm still not sure it's a good idea. But when I grabbed your hand at North Port to pull you up, before you wisely changed your grip, what did you see?"

Solaris put her stone down in a random place, careless. "I saw no earlier than your last three days on the Dream of Adventure. I collected no sensitive information from that glimpse into your memories."

"That is six months in which my ship blew up, I struggled with physiotherapy and I suffered a humiliating break up. Some might call that sensitive."

One side of Captain Li's mouth turned up into a smile, but Solaris worried.

"I will not expect you to have an emotional conversation. I do not wish to think of these things. They change nothing about our working relationship," Solaris said.

"You saw the memory of me disobeying orders to save my previous Captain from certain death. I would imagine that gives you great insight into how I might act in an emergency."

"You were right to do it," Solaris said. "A bad order should be ignored. There is room within regulations for..."

Captain Li smiled with her whole face. Even the light tap of her fingers at the edge of the table seemed cheerful. "On that we agree."

"We have already experienced two emergency situations together. I believe I understand who you are as captain of this ship." Solaris did not ask if she was similarly seen. Instead, she looked down at the board between them. "You have surrounded too much of my territory. I do not wish to play anymore."

"I have the tendency to do that," Captain Li said, as she rose. "Good night, Commander Solaris."

Solaris collected her things and walked into the dark behind her Captain.