"I've fucking seen him," Erin Tan snapped, "And don't you go saying I haven't!"
Helmi Alpassi didn't sigh or roll her eyes, although it took fairly heroic self-restraint. Ancestors spare me.
Not that they ever did, in Helmi's experience.
"Erin," she said reasonably, scraping the last forkful of beef-flavored protein off her plate. "You saw your grand-dad in the engine room and some woman made of fire down by cargo. Maybe - "
Erin turned sharply enough to set her sleek black hair swirling out around her shoulders. "Yes! I did see them. And I saw the Chief too! Clear as I see you, Helmi, clear as I see you right now!"
"All right." Helmi leaned forward and rested her elbows on the mess table. "Say you did see the Chief. What was he doing?"
"He was adjusting the enviro controls."
Helmi grinned. "Well, that explains why it's been so spirits-damned cold around here lately, anyway."
"No!" Erin dropped onto the bench opposite Helmi and leaned forward. "He was turning them up. You know, it's cold because Pilot's always telling us to set them down further. And the Chief was putting them back to normal!"
Helmi pushed her plate away. "Uh-huh. So ghosts can change the settings on things?"
"Sure! Like, there was that one on that ship, the frigate, that kept setting the autopilot to the old pilot's home world? And the one that - "
"Erin." Helmi rubbed her forehead. Ancestors and spirits spare me from superstitious fools, if you would be so fucking kind. For once in your afterlife. "Those are just bar stories."
Erin folded her arms and set her chin. "You don't believe me."
"I've never seen a ghost, I've never seen any proof of a ghost, I - "
"What about the ghost ships, the - "
"It's a big black Deep out there, Erin. You don't need ghosts to have a reason for strange stuff happening."
"You believe in spirits, though, don't you?" Erin asked. "Dead people, protecting you?"
"It's not exactly the same thing," Helmi said.
"Well, why not? If your ancestors can watch over you, why can't the Chief be watching over the ship?"
"Well, they don't follow me around fiddling with enviro controls, for one thing!"
"Then what do they do?"
Helmi thought about the low table in her quarters, the little figurines worn featureless and smooth with years of handling. "You know what? I'm not going to get into it. Religion is religion, and it's private."
"Well," Erin said stubbornly, "What I believe is private too."
Helmi shook her head. "No, not so much. Not when you're going around telling people that dead people are hanging around. Then it's ship's business. And - " Helmi held up her hand as Erin drew an angry breath to reply "And, if you think I'm wrong about that, then just think about what the XO would say if she heard about it."
"I'm not going to pretend that - "
"Don't be a fucking fool!" Helmi snapped, and got wide-eyed silence from the engineering ensign at last. "You can't be stupid enough not to realize what's happening to this crew! Sarge is gone. The Doc's gone. The Chief's dead. Pilot's in medical every day and she never was exactly proactive, was she?"
"So?"
Helmi sighed. "Ship's more than steel and engines, Erin. Maybe being engineering makes that hard to see? But look around. Hear what people are saying. Place is coming apart at the seams. You think telling ghost stories is going to help that?"
"Um ..."
"Um is fucking right." Helmi picked up her empty plate and stood up. "So do us all a favor, okay?"
"What?"
Helmi tossed her plate in the 'cycler and turned to the door. "Keep what you see to yourself."
"Don't you think it would help?" Erin asked. "People knowing ... that the Chief was still looking out for us?"
Helmi stopped at the door. "The dead don't look out for us, Erin."
The dead look out for themselves.
In that way, at least, they're just like everybody else.
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