"The time is oh-fifty-eight hours," Andromeda's hologram said.

Android Rommie just grunted, sitting on the platform next to Command's pilot's station. She'd spent the day since her encounter with ... whatever it had been ... prowling the ship in search of her crew. Nothing.

"You're very quiet," the hologram said.

"What do you want me to say?"

"You could tell me why you're so upset; I can feel it through our telemetry link."

"I'M NOT DAMAGED!" Rommie shouted, getting up. "That ghost had it wrong."

"If it was a ghost."

"You've verified everything in its account?"

"What occurred within range of my sensors at the time, yes."

"Including the bit with the card."

"I never saw Harper make it-"

"-Because he blinded my sensors."

"Is that what's bugging you?"

Rommie began pacing back and forth. "And if I was damaged, how can anything following from it be my fault?"

"Logically, one could surmise that the fault is how one dealt with the trauma, not the trauma itself."

Rommie glared at the holo. "Am I taking its side now!?"

"I was answering a question. Or was it purely rhet-Intruder alert!"

"At least they're punctual. Loc-"

"Ladies?"

Both aspects of Andromeda turned to one of the big view screens. Seamus Harper filled it, dressed in a red, velvet robe that went to his ankles, some kind of fancy shirt on underneath, hair slicked down, a "sexy-man-of-the-world" look on his face, a pipe in one hand.

"You are cordially invited to my humble abode. We, my dear ... dears ... are going to have a party." He suavely brought the pipe to his lips and blew into it; bubbles floated out the other end.

"I was about to say, slipstream core," the hologram said.

"I knew it!" Android Rommie ran out of command.

/

/

Rommie's anger built with every step she took as she ran through the ship. Of course Harper was behind it! How could she not have seen it? This was all some twisted plan of his to get her into bed with him. 'Well, he'll be in bed,' Rommie told herself, 'a hospital bed when I'm done with him!'

"Ah, Rom Doll!" the object of her fury called out as she surged into engineering, paying no attention to the hearts and streamers decorating the room. "Come in and know me bett-"

She grabbed the lapels of his robe and got right in his face: "All right, you little spaz! You have thirty seconds to undo this, or I swear your grandchildren will feel what I'm going to do to you!"

Harper seemed plus-plus-nonplussed as he reached up and grasped Rommie's wrist. The next thing she knew, she was hitting a bulkhead ten meters away.

"Y'know," 'Harper' said as he strolled over to her, "when my Sparkly Purple Past Princess told me you could be so difficult, I thought she was exaggerating. I owe her a tail rub."

Rommie got to her feet; it hadn't taken her long to guess things were not as they appeared. "So, you are the second ghost?"

"The Ghost of Valentine's Day Present at your service," the ... ghost said, bowing with a flourish. "And I am here to see to all your needs. *All* of them."

"You don't have to imitate Harper so perfectly."

"Sorry. Blame my older brothers; they said he was quite the character."

"You have siblings!?"

"Oh, yeah, more than, I dunno, three, four thousand, something like that."

"Tremendous family to provide for."

"Hey, you were a friend of the family, once."

"Are we going to go over that again?"

"No; I'm the *Present,* remember?"

"Yes. So, where are we going?"

"'Going'?"

"Yes. Where are you going to take me?"

"Nowhere, Rom D-Sorry, ROMMIE. We're already here."

"What do you-?"

"Ack-Rommie!" Harper's voice called from behind her. "You're choking me."

Rommie turned to see Harper and ... herself!? ... over by the bed. Harper - the real Harper, she supposed - was almost dressed in a suit, and her other self was helping with his tie. And neither seemed aware of Rommie and the ghost and the room's decorations.

"I am not," the other Rommie said. "I am monitoring your vitals and your airway. You're fine."

"Reminds me of those hangings I witnessed on Omicron Seven," Harper whined. "Couldn't I do without the monkey suit?"

"She's a diplomat, Harper! While one can question her taste in contacting you, you will be presentable for your meeting with her." She made a final adjustment to the tie. "There!"

Rommie and the ghost found themselves at the main docking airlock, watching as Dylan, Harper, and the other Rommie greeted the Commonwealth diplomats, including the beautiful Inarian ambassador who'd, apparently, taken a shine to Harper.

"Seamus," she purred, giving him a kiss in the cheek.

"Hey, Laryssa." He almost floated.

She looked him over. "My, don't you look just scrumptious!"

"Well, you are a diplomat. I had to look my best, didn't I?"

"And you did it so well."

(Both Rommies rolled their eyes at that.)

The group made more small talk as they went down the corridors, until they got the obs deck, where the other Rommie excused herself.

"You're not joining in?" Laryssa asked.

"No," Rommie said. "But please, enjoy yourselves." Rommie turned and left. Dylan smiled and shrugged. Laryssa didn't seem to give it another thought as she went into the huge room, on Harper's arm.

Then Rommie found herself and the ghost back in the slipstream core, by Harper's sleeping area. Harper and Laryssa had come back and were under the sheets, not exactly sleeping.

Rommie turned to the ghost. "What did I tell you before?"

"Sorry. That's not the important part, anyway. *This* is."

"And you take care of this all yourself?" Rommie saw Laryssa walking around the core in her bare feet, wrapped in a sheet.

"Well..." Harper called from the bed. "Not entirely. Andromeda helps me. We make a great team."

"Yeah, we do," Rommie muttered.

"But under your guidance," Laryssa said. "Your creativity, your genius, provides the plans that you and she follow."

"Well, yeah." Harper sat up, attentive; he smelled there was something behind this. "You goin' somewhere with this?"

Laryssa came back to bed and sat next to Harper. "Listen, Seamus, I'm not here just because I like you - and I do - Ever since Dylan undid our ... commerce with the Pyrains-"

"You mean drug dealing."

"Whatever you want to call it. The point is, we are in desperate need of engineers, scientists, and technologists to rebuild our industrial and scientific base. People with vision and creativity. People like you."

"You're here to offer me a job!? That's why you...uh..."

"Call it mixing business with pleasure; I said I like you."

"I like you too, but ... I dunno, this ship, this crew, it's like my family."

"I know; I can see how close you all are. But the time comes when you have to leave your family and strike out on your own."

"Do I have time to think about it?"

She snuggled with him. "All the time you need."

"Be prepared for disappointment," Rommie taunted.

"You think so?" GhostHarper said.

"He won't leave me."

"Oh, no?"

"No. He-Is it just me, or are you getting older?"

The ghost seemed unmoved by his gray hairs. "Hey, I have ONE DAY on your plane of existence, and we're condensing it. What do you expect? Anyway, you were saying...?"

"Yes, I was saying, Harper loves me, and I feel closer to him than to any other sentient who's ever been aboard. And we do make a great team."

"You ever tell him that?"

That shook Rommie's confidence. "No...but that's beside the point! I know my own engineer. He won't go with her, no matter how ... good she is in bed."

"If you say so."

"You know something I don't?"

The ghost's eyes turned inward. "I see a neat, organized slipstream core, manned by military personnel, no living area, no trace of its former owner. If these shadows remain unaltered by the future, Harper will not be here when my siblings come here."

"With that hussy!? I don't believe it!"

"Why should he stay?"

"I look after my friends."

"Really?"

They found themselves in the *Maru's* sleeping area, Trance Gemini tossing and turning on one of the bunks. Then she suddenly woke and sat up, screaming. When she realized she was awake, she fell back to the bed, sobbing.

"Listen to that," GhostHarper said.

"What?" Rommie said.

"Your core AI calling in to reassure her. Like any friend would."

"I don't hear anything."

"Exactly."

Rommie rounded on the ghost. "I have just about had enough of-" She broke off, looking down at his feet. "What's that? A claw?"

"It might be. Look here!" GhostHarper parted his robe; where his legs should have been were two...Rommie supposed they were humanoid children dressed in rags, but there was something sick, twisted about them.

And familiar.

"Are they yours?" Rommie asked.

"They're yours," the Ghost said, suddenly serious, not imitating Harper. Rommie found that very unnerving.

"They belong to all sentient beings who ignore the emotional needs of their fellows," the ghost went on. "But they cling to me. The boy is Pain. The girl is Loneliness. Beware them both, and all of their degree, but most of all, beware this boy, for on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the writing be erased. Deny it! Slander those who tell it ye! Admit it for your factious purposes, and make it worse. And bide the end!" The ghost suddenly smiled in imitation of Rommie's engineer. "Oh, will you look at the time?"

The ghost and the frightful children suddenly vanished. Rommie looked around to see Trance had vanished, too. Then the airlock doors slid open. Rommie found she was trembling as a tall figure in black armor entered the compact starship. Rommie had never seen anything like this creature before; apart from the tattered cloak and spikes protruding from the helmet and different parts of the suit, it was featureless, with no indication of where it came from. It stopped in front of Rommie, the very air around it seeming to scatter gloom and misery, unseen eyes boring into her, through her.