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something actually works on this ship.”
    “Wanker?” the hatch asked as he went in.
    “Vahn-ker. You have a problem with that?”
    The hatch apparently had no problem.
    The rooms inside were small by ordinary standards but spacious for quarters aboard a starship: two rooms, one with a bunk in it, the other with a settee, a chair, and a desk. The head, complete with shower stall, was off the bedroom. There were shelves, clean towels, and other amenities, but Wanker was too depressed to notice. He sank into the lumpy settee and heaved a great gray sigh of despair.
    The communications panel on the desk buzzed.
    “Oh, crap.”
    He cranked himself upward. At the desk he flipped a switch. “Wanker here.”
    “Captain? This is Darvona. All comfy in there?”  
    “Huh? Oh, yes, yes. What is it, Ms. Roundheels?”  
    “A call for you, sir, coming in by cosmophone transmission.”  
    “Who is it?”  
    “Your parents, sir.”  
    “Put the call through.”  
    “Aye-aye, sir.”
    Still dejected, Wanker sat at the desk and looked at the screen above it, waiting. Presently the screen lit up with the face of his mother, Tess Tosterona-Wanker, herself a retired warrant officer in the Forces. The camera widened the shot to include his father, Frank Wanker, who sat on the sofa by his wife, doing a cross-stitch. David knew the couple were vacationing on a wilderness resort planet named Grenada. Tall purplish trees swayed in the background.
    “Hello, Mother,” David said. “Hello, Father. How are things at Camp Grenada?”
    “Great,” Tess told him. “Well, kid, how was your first day aboard the new tub?” As always, her hair was clipped short and flattened on top. Recently, though, she had let her mustache flair out into scooter handlebars. (“Strictly nonregulation,” she liked to quip, “but they’re somethin’ to grab besides my ears.”)
    “Just reported, Mom. The day’s just begun in this time zone.”
    “Hello, David dear,” his father said. “Hope you’re eating right and watching your weight. That space chow tends to be so fattening.”
    David patted his soft, nascent potbelly. “I’m watching my weight, Dad, don’t worry.”
    “Don’t worry about what you eat, kid,” Tess said, “get exercise. Don’t sit on your butt and brood. Get to the gym regularly and work out. With weights, like I do.” Tess raised her right arm and flexed her impressive biceps.
    “Great definition, Mom,” David said.
    “Thanks. You were always a pudgy kid. But I tried to bring you up proper.”
    “You did, Mom. You did.”
    “Betchur sweet ass, kiddo,” Tess said, then upended a beer bottle into her mouth.
    Frank asked, “Is your cabin nice aboard… what’s the name of the ship again?”
    “Repulse. Here, I’m panning the camera around the place.”
    “Oh, that’s very nice. The bed looks awfully narrow, though. You were always such a bad sleeper, tossing and turning all night. You flopped all over your bed.”
    Tess belched, then snickered. “When he wasn’t pissin’ all over it.”
    “Aw, Mom, come on!” David’s ears turned a burning magenta.
    “Just kiddin’, guy,” Tess said. “Hey, lighten up.”
    “Sorry. How’s your vacation been so far?”
    “Pretty boring,” Tess said. “Bunch of old farts sitting around playing canasta, complaining about the weather and the food… shee-it. I wanna get out into the bush and shoot me a swamp dragon.”
    “They’re pretty dangerous,” David said. “Aren’t they?”
    “Naw. Biggest they come is a couple ten meters long, five high. Small game.”
    “Geez, that sounds pretty big to me.”
    Tess reached off-camera and brought forth a formidable-looking weapon, a short-barreled proton beamer with an immense scope and other flourishes. “Not with one of these babies.”
    “Wow. New one, Mom?”
    “Picked it up before we left. You get one of those critters in this scope, it’s ancient history. We’re talking pharaohs and pyramids,