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“Sure do.” Mur tapped a couple buttons and the little cover slid open to show a palm-sized hole in the wall. I was privately glad I didn’t have to stick my hand in there. Despite the cover and the clean state of the ship, it always seemed like the kind of dark crevice that might hold spiders or worse.

Mur had no such worries. When the external cameras put a view of the grabber arm onscreen next to the space junk waiting to be gathered, he went for it. Stuck a tentacle in there as easy as putting on a house slipper, and got to work manipulating the large metal tentacle that reached from the hull, following his every motion.

Another type of ship might have a more fingerlike pinching design, but as Kavlae had said, this ship wasn’t designed for us.

Mur easily curled the grabber arm around the largest chunk of metal drifting outside — leftovers from a crash that hadn’t been cleaned up properly, by the looks of things — and he pulled it carefully to the cargo airlock. Didn’t bang the sides or anything. On a different screen, Blip and Blop waved from the cargo bay when they had it safely cycled through. The airlock’s scanner reported no contamination.

“Ta-da,” Mur said, sounding pleased with himself. He pulled back and pressed the right buttons to close the little hatch again. “Think I can cross this one off the list.”

“Yeah, you’ve got it down,” Kavlae said. “We’ll let you know when there’s a good opportunity for something harder.” She made a note on the digital chart of who had mastered what in the cross-training that Captain Sunlight was having us do.

Honestly, it made a lot of sense to have as many crewmembers as possible ready to step in for the essentials. I was surprised more ships didn’t give everybody a rundown on how to launch a distress beacon, or diagnose a red alert in the engine room, or turn on the basic self-operated machinery in the medbay. I was certainly enjoying the chance to learn it all, and taking lots of notes.

Today was just practice, though. Because some things are easy to understand but tricky to do.

“Righto, somebody else’s turn!” Mur said as he swung down to the floor. “I’m off to lunch.”

“Can I go next?” Paint asked.

I stepped aside and made an after you bow toward the chair, which Paint received with a sunny smile full of sharp lizard teeth. She scrambled up and tapped out a different set of commands.

This time a controller popped out of the underside of the console, moving forward on its own metal arm until Paint positioned where she wanted it and locked the thing in place.

The first time I’d seen it, I’d had to laugh. Somehow I’d been expecting a joystick or a grid of more buttons, but nope. It was a small model of the grabber arm itself, which would follow the shape this one was pushed into. Really, this was the same idea as the hollow one in the wall, but it looked like a funny little toy. According to Wio, the proper term was a “manipulating simulacrum,” or mani-sim. I always thought of the tiny plastic steering wheels you might give a toddler who wants to try steering the car from the back seat.

Paint was more focused than the average toddler. With the controller arm locked in place, she watched the screen while curling the mani-sim into a spiral that almost got a good grip on a warped piece of some other unfortunate ship’s hull. She huffed in annoyance and tried again. Her scaly orange hands were a bit too small for this, even with the adaptive design.

Eventually she got it, beaming as she deposited the chunk into the airlock. “Yes!”

“Well done,” Kavlae said. “I think it’s safe to say you can do it, just not super fast.”

“Right, yes, I won’t be volunteering for something time-sensitive unless I need to,” she said. “Can I try again?”

I didn’t mind waiting for my turn, and the two pilots were in no hurry since our schedule had plenty of wiggle room today, so I took a seat in the third chair while Paint got some more practice. She left plenty of detritus for me to work with when she was done.

“Your turn!” Paint said, unlocking the stabilization so she could push the mani-sim toward me.

I took it and sat up straighter while Paint vacated Kavlae’s chair and everybody shared pointers for me. I had done this before, though only once, and there hadn’t been much time to get a feel for it then.

The metal was cold as I felt it now. Which made sense, of course; Paint’s coldblooded fingers were hardly going to warm it. But it just seemed like all the more immersion into the idea of manipulating the big metal thing that reached into the blackness of space.

The really awkward, unwieldy metal thing. My fingers were longer than Paint’s, but it was a lot to keep track of.

“I need more hands,” I grumbled. “I’ve got to keep this part bent to the side to get around that thing, because I’m trying to curl this part around that thing, and I could try to grab the other bit, but I don’t want to break up the clump of tiny bits because then the visibility will be shot…”

“Yep,” Kavlae said cheerfully. “It stinks. That’s why I usually let Wio do it.”

“Can I — nope.” I tried to get an elbow involved, then my chin. Neither was helpful. “I swear, I should just take off my shoes and use my feet.”

Wio brayed in laughter. “That sounds hilarious; you should definitely do that.”

Kavlae frowned. “Then it’ll smell like feet!”

“And? Surely that can be cleaned,” Wio said, with all the confidence of someone who didn’t have shoes, or feet, or any reason to care what the mani-sim smelled like. “Go on; let’s see if it helps.”

Kavlae sighed dramatically while Paint tittered behind me. What the heck, there were cleaning supplies just down the hall.

“All right, fine,” I said. I kicked off both shoes and reached around the controller to pull off one sock, then the other. “You’re all lucky I haven’t been walking all over on deliveries in some hot climate today.”

“You get to clean it,” Kavlae told me.

“Yep,” I agreed, dropping the last sock and unlocking the controller arm. There was no way to make this dignified. I adjusted the height to where I could get at it with all four limbs, then I Did My Best.

It still wasn’t great. The detritus floated away at the slightest touch, and glittering flakes of broken stuff made the view iffy. But it did help. I pressed the lower part into place with my toes and curled the top into a careful grip with my much more dexterous fingers, and I managed to grab what I was aiming for. Paint applauded when I did.

Wio thought it was the funniest thing she’d seen in ages, nearly falling out of her chair while laughing at the sight of somebody with only four limbs trying to use them all on the same task.

“Congratulations,” Kavlae said when I shoved my catch into the airlock. “Now how much cleaning is that going to need?”

“Not too much.”

Still laughing, Wio declared, “It is absurd that your feet smell bad, just because you cover them up all the time. Do you really need the shoes that much?”

“Well, maybe not onboard,” I admitted with a glance at Kavlae, the only other shoe-wearer in the room. “But I definitely wouldn’t want to leave the ship without them.”

“And it just feels wrong,” Kavlae said. “Full clothes, on the job, but no shoes? Pshh, garbage behavior. Something you’d expect of unwashed bandits with no sense of pride.”

Paint put in, “Or someone who just wants to manipulate more controls at once?”

Kavlae frowned at her. “That is a wildly inefficient way to do it.”

“Probably depends on which controls,” I said as I unlocked the arm and pushed it away.

“None of these are made for feet!” Kavlae declared, spreading blue-skinned hands to wave at the control panel. “They’re barely made for fingers!”

Wio said, “No, you could probably do some of this with feet.” She sounded like she was just arguing to get a rise out of her copilot, and enjoying every moment. “This doesn’t take much dexterity, and that could be pressed with anything. Oh, and the slider for wormhole scans! Super easy.”

Kavlae argued back on principle while I gathered my shoes and socks. I didn’t bother to put them on. “I’ll be right back with the cleaner.”

Paint looked at my bare feet as I left, raising one browridge in question. I just smiled and hurried down the hall to fling my shoes and socks into my quarters, wash my feet, and gather a couple cleaning scrubs.

“I’m back,” I said over a discussion of propriety and social standards. Kavlae and Wio didn’t even look up. I sat down again and cleaned the mani-sim thoroughly while only Paint watched. Then I put the scrubs on the floor and deliberately pressed the button sequence to retract the apparatus with my big toe. “All done! What’s next? Should we do a wormhole scan?”

Paint giggled. Kavlae stared at me. Wio burst into laughter again.

I said, “It’s fine, I cleaned them. With soap and everything.”

“Good enough for me!” Wio declared. “Can you reach that slider? Wait, lemme see if you can turn a sensor dial.”

I could, in fact. Wio was delighted. Kavlae sank into her chair like a teenager who didn’t want to be seen with embarrassing family members. Paint stood close and suggested other awkward things to try.

It was uncomfortable and challenging and hilarious, made entirely worth it by the antennae-tilting expression on Zhee’s face when he clicked by in the hallway later, with silent judgement in every angle of his insectoid body. Wio just laughed louder. Zhee left before anyone could try to explain.

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Good news! Volume One of the collected series is now available in paperback and ebook form! (Check your local store, or this handy link hub.)

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These are the ongoing backstory adventures of the main character from this book.

Shared early on Patreon! There’s even a free tier to get them on the same day as the rest of the world.