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Jarlin Fairhold de Argentum a Denal woke to the sound of sheets rustling next to zir. Alarmed, zie thrust one clawed wing at the intruder catching him on the shoulder and spinning him around before he grabbed it and thrust it away.

"Lights on!" Jarlin called out, bathing the room in soft lights and revealing the other parahuman in the room with her. He appeared to be a grey wolf at first, though his back was covered in a black "cape" that seemed to extend down over his tail. On seeing him clearly something stirred in zir memory, a pattern, a rank, captain? Captain who? Of what?

The canid looked at her in shock. "Jarl," he asked, "what are you doing?"

Jarlin started to withdraw her claws, "I'm sorry." Zie searched zir memory for his name. "Shigeto, you're Shigeto, right?"

Shigeto sighed audibly, "it's your memory again, isn't it?" He pressed a hand to his bleeding shoulder and grimaced. "This was the first time you went straight to attacking me though, what happened?"

The chimeric fox considered, why had zie been so quick to attack this time? To assume that a strange male in zir bed was a threat to herself and her child. Jarlin clutched at zir belly and considered, zie hadn't forgotten that she was in female phase and pregnant, that much had been obvious if only for the weight pressing on her ribcage. Could the hormones have amplified her protective instincts to the point of lashing out at the father in a moment of memory lapse? "I... I think I need some time to myself." She eventually concluded.

Shigeto shrugged, his microbots already knitting his wound closed. "Well," he said, "I suppose I'll see you later then." He got up and headed for the lavatory, but then paused and turned back to suggest "maybe you should use your lifelog to refresh your memory."

As he closed the door behind him, Jarlin picked up the AR lenses on zir nightstand. As zie affixed them to zir head the apparatus turned on, displaying the date and time in one corner: 6:26 ST 6.10.2173 PX. Jarlin tried to calculate zir age based on the display but found zie couldn't count with that level of precision that early in the morning and instead asked the lens to check zir math. The program read back "you are 376.43 standard years old chronologically."

Three hundred and seventy-six? Zie had just been starting zir third century when zie took this assignment, hadn't zie? "Vicki," she spoke into the lens' pickup. "Compile and display a three hour synopsis of the lifelog entries from the time I first came on board this vessel to the present."

At zir query the image of an impossible creature, some chimera of parahuman fox and implausibly massive insect, manifested in the corner of the room. The AI's avatar development algorithms were clearly still experimenting. "Would you like me to compile a new synopsis or would you like to review the one made on 7.30.2003 again?" It asked.

Jarlin considered, it would take additional time to compile another lifelog synopsis, and the more time had to be compressed the more likely something important would be missed. "I'll review the old one," zie decided. "However, compile a separate summary of the past..." she considered the size of her belly, "eight months, for later review."

"Noted," Vicki replied. "Would you like to review the synopsis in holo or VR format?"

Jarlin finished securing the lenses and laid back on the bed. "Full virtual reality, please." As the lifelog began to play the fox began the mantra to enter a dissociative trance.

---

170 years previous

"Here we are, your home for the next 12 years on the trip from 61 Cygni to Barnard's Star." Jarlin was being lead down the ship's winding passageways to zir cabin by the first mate, a feline of indeterminate species by the name of Gudrun Korba de Aniya. She was about 1.8 meters tall, with a dusky coat spotted with green ringlets, and Jarlin could have sworn zie had spotted a second tail coming off of the primary one.

"Thanks," Jarlin replied, almost robotically. The starship, the Defiant, was drab and lifeless compared to most of the gate-liners and yachts zie was used to. Zie had expected, based on the massive vessel's 2 kilometer length, at least as much living space on board as on the shorter-range craft less than a tenth of the size. Even though zie logically should have known better, zie was disappointed by the relatively cramped quarters being presented to zir. Starships leaving the gate network needed a lot more fuel than those simply gliding from gate to gate on EM drive after all. Jarlin stepped into the center of zir cabin and spread out zir wings, the tips of the longest feathers brushed against the walls to either side.

Gudrun looked around the room and noted zir wingspan. "The rec drum is four halls to stern, it's large enough for you to stretch those out, you could even set the spin low enough to fly if you want." She offered, helpfully.

Jarlin broke out of her reverie, realizing zie hadn't been paying attention zie replayed the audio of the last minute. "A rec drum?" Zie asked after the delay. "What facilities?"

"We have morphic sports equipment that can be adapted to most games," the feline kitsune explained. "Wrapping around the drum we can set up a stadium or a shallow swimming pool. The coriolis effects make for some interesting throws."

"Oh," the chimeric scion of Centauri replied. "I was thinking for a moment that this ship was going to be..." zie hesitated, what to say that wouldn't sound insulting. Cramped? Smaller than zie was used to?

Gudrun's tails brushed against the doorframe as she responded, no sign of offense in her voice. "We don't have very many crowds in the hallways, and do you honestly expect to entertain many guests in this cabin while you're years away from anyone else?" It seemed like she had three tail-tips now, how high ranking was she? "You can't expect half a dozen people to spend years in the same habitat without some space available for assorted things, but when there's this few and almost all of them are busy working you can easily put all the things that require open space in one location." Her tails were all bunched together to make the number ambiguous, why? "Sir envoy, if you want to stare at my rear you will have ample opportunities later."

Jarlin jolted out of zir, his, current trance and looked up. "Sorry, ma'am, I was looking at your tails. You're a Kitsune, aren't you?"

"Yes." Gudrun replied, a sour tone coloring her words. Her tail unraveled into four thinner tails, all looking much less fluffy than the one they'd combined into. "Is that a problem?"

"No, no, of course not." Jarlin said shyly. "My mother became a kitsune after her sister died."

The feline parsed his words for a few moments before asking a single word. "Telepath?"

"I am." The chimera replied. Then, realizing she might have been referring to someone else added, "she was."

Gudrun seemed to read something in his face, then stopped and stated simply and firmly, "the captain invites you to join us for dinner in the galley at 18:00. If you need more time to adjust we can reschedule."

"Thanks," Jarlin said. "I think I can make it." With that, Gudrun Korba turned and left. Leaving him alone in the small cabin.

---

The recording jumped forward over two hours as Jarlin froze in place, trying to parse the whole situation before finally making some token efforts to unpack. By the time that the log skipped ahead to zie had barely gotten around to placing a couple jumpsuits in the closet. What had proven significant enough to count turned out to be a reminder zie had set before coming to the ship, before leaving zir prior assignment on Wolf even. Set up personal drive, it stated in large block letters.

Mentally chastising zirself for forgetting one of the biggest reasons why zie was on this ship in the first place, Jarlin dug a blue plastic-cased rectangle from the depths of zir suitcase and began to look around the room. Spotting a power outlet over by the bed the vulpine grabbed the blue block and a roll of adhesive. The block looked like a standard memory backup drive, the sort that people offloaded entire centuries of lifelogs into when their implants, or in Jarlin's case AR lenses, were full. It seemed slightly outdated, in fact, large enough that it could have been used in the Core Worlds before zie had even been born.

Jarlin popped open a compartment on the memory drive and drew out a power lead, which zie plugged into the outlet, then zie held the block against the wall and ran the adhesive spool across it. The roll left behind a thin molecular bonding tape that was inert as Jarlin held it, then with the push of a button the spool severed the extruded tape and activated nano-hooks on the side facing the wall, securing the drive in place. With the block secured, the vulpine turned zir attention to the end of the lead sticking out of the outlet, as zie watched a small spider-like robot no more than a millimeter wide crawled out of the plug and slipped its' way into the outlet housing. Jarlin knew that the almost invisible bot was trailing behind imperceptible wires that connected it to the "drive", but zie would just have to wait for the report it gave whenever it was done with its work.

The important thing done for now, the Envoy turned to the more grueling task at hand. The dinner with the captain and crew was in less than an hour now and zie had not even begun to prepare. Jarlin had packed three outfits worth of formal clothing, but zie was unsure now whether any of them would be appropriate for the setting. Zie had worn a state toga to meetings with gate-liner crews in the past, but this was a smaller crew, like family almost, would that much formality be off putting? On the other hand, Jarlin was here to represent the Federation government after all, that might be expected for this first occasion at least. The other two were designed for what zir family commonly referred to as "networking", one for zir female form and the other for zir male form. Jarlin had the impression that appearing so forward right away might be poorly received, though maybe a bit later into this years-long voyage it might prove useful leverage. Yes, perhaps the toga would be best for this first meeting.

Zir choice made, zie threw it on and fussed over the right length and tightness to use, then finally applied the molecular fasteners and fidgeted with the fit a little more. When the reminder that it was 1800 sounded zie realized the time and strode off for the galley, walking at a decent pace but not making it look like zie was in any way hurried.

---

Jarlin arrived at the galley within five minutes, the ship's unfamiliar layout hindering zir but limited by its small size. It was a small room by zir standards, again, but there was enough room for a table that could sit ten standard-sized parahumans, or half that many taurs. Presently, it was occupied by five people, the first mate zie'd seen previously dressed in a form-fitting black dress that left little to the imagination, a male canine hybrid with white fur in an old green Federal Guard Engineer's corps uniform, a male tiger whose legs seemed bent oddly under his white lab coat, a seal uplift perched on a long couch perpendicular to the table, and the captain. If not for zir lenses' facial recognition software Jarlin might have forgotten that he was the ship's owner, he appeared to be a standard wolf-majority canine dressed in a drab-looking brown tunic, however the file Jarlin had suggested that he wasn't so simple. An outcast from an exiled Cetan house who had escaped his xenophobic tribal upbringing by signing up with the crew of a data trader, later buying his own ship nearly three centuries later. Jarlin had to keep reminding zirself not to underestimate Captain Shigeto Terryn based on his appearance.

Spotting an empty chair opposite the captain, Jarlin tentatively took a seat upon it, making a show of trying to find a space for zir wings. Zie eventually set them onto the edge of the chair's back, requiring them to spread impressively for the onlookers' view. There was a moment of silent tension as they all looked around the table at each other, Federation Envoy gauging the crew zie was to be living with, crew gauging Envoy and watching for reactions from each other. Eventually, the ice was broken by First Mate Korba, "ah, Envoy Jarlin Fairhold de Argentum a Denal, correct? Would you care to introduce yourself?"

Jarlin settled in zir seat and began to speak. "Yes, I am Jarlin of the Fairhold line of the mitochondrial genus of Argentum, second born out of Sharlin Fairhold de Argentum. Most recently chief communications official on Wolf 359. I'm a telepath with five bonded siblings scattered throughout the western fringe. Would you like to know anything else?"

There was a moment of hesitation before the white canine hybrid spoke up. "Henrik Andreasohn, sir, ship's engineer. I served in the Guard for a tour of duty, while escorting an Exile ship I got to know one of your relatives. Castien de Argentum a Maximus."

The lens Jarlin wore automatically searched for and brought up the files on Henrik and Castien. Algorithms confirmed that they had both served on Memetic Quarantine Colony Ship #213 at the same time, Castien had been the resident political officer while Henrik was on the engineering team. While reviewing the files the vulpine pulled up a genealogy of the House focused on the two of zim. "My closest relationship to Castien is third cousin, twice removed." Zie said, rotating the three-dimensional chart with zir eyes, "we've met a few times in the past, but our duties are often in different parts of known space you understand."

"I see." The engineer replied, sounding a little disappointed almost. Jarlin wondered why, could he have hoped to achieve some matter of status from working with one of the thousands of verifiable descendants of the Founder?

Jarlin noted that for later investigation, for now zie needed to focus on the situation at hand. Think of something to mention as a topic of conversation, the food, maybe. On the table there were several self-warming plates full of flattened bread wrapped around some mixture of green vegetables, fried beans, and cubed meat. Zie took one and examined it, lifting the edge of the tortilla and holding it up to zir eye for closer inspection. The imperfections were slight, but there, an edge that bulged out half a centimeter, an off-center fold, all subtle indications that the food was not machine-prepared. "Are these handmade?" Zie asked across the table.

It was Captain Terryn who answered then, "yes. Most of the ingredients were purchased at Cygni, the vendor assured me that they were locally grown in system, mostly in the starport's hydroponic farms in fact. The meat is vat-beef of course, would spoil too quickly if we couldn't culture it ourselves. The seasonings though, they're a mix of both Earth spices and something we picked up at Altair the locals call smokeweed."

"Smokeweed?" Jarlin inquired, checking zir lens' database. "I thought Altair was an alternate biochemistry world."

"Yes," Terryn confirmed. "But the local lifeforms aren't all inherently toxic, it's mostly that there's no nutritional value to them. The spice is in small enough amounts to make no difference nutritionally but it does add to the flavor." He picked up one of the burritos and took a bite.

Cautiously, Jarlin grasped another one of the folded sandwiches and considered it. Zie could tell the captain was trying to impress zir with these samples of exotic and "natural" foods. But so far, zie could not say whether he was simply attempting to ensure a good result on the ship's evaluation, or if he was hiding something. Jarlin bit down and gently rolled the assorted meat and vegetables around in zir mouth, whatever the case, zie would find out soon enough.

---

As the crew dined with their guest down in the galley, an algorithm began to worm its way into the ship's systems. Data was copied from the device Jarlin had plugged into the wall terminal onto the various digital machines running the vessel's assorted systems at a rate of gigabytes per second. The amount of data copied onto each device was small, it would barely be noticed amidst the bits generated and junked by normal operations every minute. When the source determined that a device had accumulated data up to the safe limit for avoiding detection it stopped and began copying files to another device instead. The engineers that had designed the ship had build a great deal of redundant processing into the computer systems, a safe plan in such an environment where rescue might be years away. As such, even hidden as it was, the AI only needed to compromise 9.657% of the vessel before it had unpacked sufficiently to truly come online.

As the data packets were copied, they formed an encrypted private network within the ship's mesh. Like synapses links formed between infected devices hidden from a virus scanner 30 years out of date. Within an hour of being plugged in the ship's newly installed AI was beginning to review the task list it had been assigned:

1. Search ship for illicit cargoes.
2. Examine financial records for irregularities.
3. If tasks 1 or 2 uncover positive results, determine root cause.