20
Scout spent a long, restless night missing her dogs. She woke several times to find herself reaching around the bed, trying to find the warm body that must have just rolled away, only to come fully awake and remember they weren’t there.
She had left her bunk open, as had Seeta, not minding the light from Emilie’s bunk or the staccato bursts of tapping as she navigated through the space station’s computer systems. Emilie mumbled to herself from time to time, but the shout that Scout and Seeta were both listening for, that she had found something, never came.
Seeta had left the lidded cooker out on the table, and as the night progressed the smell of slowly cooking oatmeal grew stronger. It permeated what passed for Scout’s dreams. It was a comforting smell but it mixed oddly with the i
