#0378

I sit, staring listlessly at the matte gray metal of the space station wall. It’s difficult to tell time so many light-years from the star on which the human calendar is based, but I’m confident in my assessment that it’s the middle of the night. The fluorescent lights overhead buzz dully, bleaching the room and lending a sense of liminality to the proceedings. My fellow intergalactic travelers wander aimlessly or slouch on uncomfortable benches. They’re quiet, for the most part, too exhausted to create much of a ruckus. Even the man that had spent the entirety of our last flight having a loud argument with his son via holoscreen has settled down, arms wrapped around his suitcase and chin tilted down. 

“Um, excuse me.”

I hardly register the words, intent on watching a cockroach as it scuttles along the base of the wall. It’s the most interesting thing I’ve seen in the last four hours of this seemingly endless layover. 

“Ma’am?”

I look up from the cockroach and into the eyes of a skinny human teenager. “Are you talking to me?” I ask.

“Do you mind watching my bag? I have to go to the bathroom.”

“Sure,” I say. 

The kid dumps the bag and hurries for the bathroom. Luggage isn’t allowed in the bathrooms, but unattended luggage tends to grow legs and walk away in stations like this. The less said about transport shuttle bathrooms the better, so there’s really no winning. I tighten my hold on my own bag. It’s a flawed system. 

I glance at the shuttle schedule as rotates through estimated arrival and departure times. My eyes find #0378 and slide to the status column. Big yellow letters. Delayed. Inconvenient, but not the end of the world. More shuttle statuses flip from On Time to Delayed and from to Delayed to Cancelled as I watch. #4093’s status just says Uncertain. 

The kid returns, snatching his bag back from me like he’d been expecting me to steal it. It’s not an unreasonable suspicion, except that he’s so ratty-looking I’m not sure why anyone would bother. A small plastic container of red and yellow pills falls out of one of his bag’s pockets. We both look at it, then at each other. 

“You didn’t see that,” the kid says. 

“See what?”

He probably means to look intimidating when he squints at me, but mostly just looks near-sighted. “Keep it that way,” he tells me, then backs away to huddle somewhere else. 

I go back to watching the cockroach. It’s caught in the web of what passes as a spider in these parts. I’ve seen real spiders, and this isn’t it. Whatever it is, it looks like the unholy offspring of a rat and a tarantula. The cockroach doesn’t stand a chance. At least, that’s what I first thought. The cockroach isn’t really a cockroach though, as evidenced by the stinger it produces. 

The other denizens of the space station are starting to take notice of the conflict. “Five credits on the roach,” a man announces. 

“Ten on the spider thing,” a woman three seats down from me retorts. 

“You’re on, lady.”

My view of the fight is quickly blocked as more people crowd around. I sigh. So much for that as a way to pass the time. My eyes drift back to the shuttle schedule. #0378 is still delayed, with an estimated arrival time of 02:53. That would be more helpful if the big digital clock looming over the room hadn’t burnt out an indeterminate amount of time ago. It’s been at least three weeks since it was burnt out the last time I’d flown through here too. 

A roar goes up from the assembled crowd, which brings a security guard ambling over. He doesn’t look overly concerned—they rarely do, unless projectile or laser weapons are involved. While the spider thing certainly ought to be illegal, it isn’t. Neither is gambling, not this far from civilization. 

“Everything alright here?” the guard asks, followed shortly by, “what in Orion’s name is that?” which makes me think he caught sight of the spider thing.

A harried voice comes on over the loudspeaker, but it crackles so badly I can’t make out what it’s saying. “Did you catch any of that?” I ask the being next to me. Most of the beings here are human or human hybrids, but not this one.

They shrug huge orange shoulders and wave their antenna. “I think they said something about a three?” they offer. “I don’t know how anyone is supposed to know when their shuttle is leaving when they can’t understand anything that’s said.” 

“You’d think if they can afford jet fuel they’d be able to buy a decent intercom,” I agree.

I go back to studying the shuttle schedule. #0378 is nowhere to be found on the list. My stomach drops. Had it been canceled without me noticing? They usually left canceled flights on the board though. And it should have left hours ago...

 The synthetic ding that indicates a shuttle is arriving echoes across the station and a different voice—this one miraculously clear—instructs everyone to back away from the bay doors. A moment later, the doors open and a wave of humanity and other beings pours out. The volume in the station immediately triples. I have to struggle to tune it out, still scanning the shuttle schedule. I’m halfway through cursing the very existence of whoever had decided shuttles shouldn’t be organized numerically, or at all from what I can tell when a familiar voice reaches my ears above the din.

“Mom, hey, Mom!”

I stand up so quickly that I get light-headed. “Stefanie?” 

“Mom!”

Stefanie slams into me with all the force a four-foot-tall half-human can muster, which is quite considerable. The robot I’d hired to travel with her makes distressed clicking noises and hurries after her. I mentally tack on a few extra credits to its tip. “Hey, pumpkin,” I say. “I missed you. How’s your dad doing?”

Stefanie grins up at me, displaying her missing front teeth. “He’s good! He says to tell you that he misses you.”

“I miss him too,” I tell her. “Do you want a snack before we go planetside?” 

She looks around, wrinkling her nose. “From here?”

“Don’t hate,” I say. “They’ve got pretty good muffins.” 

Stefanie rolls her eyes. “Mom,” she says, drawing the word out to four syllables. “Let’s just go home.”

I ruffle her hair. “Home it is.”