It was a very wide corridor, vast, empty, and smelling of industrial steel.

Two shapes moved in the distance, and their voices echoed metallically as they made their way along the endless length of drab hallway. From one came the sound of echoing footsteps and a calm, confident voice, a human male voice that, seemingly, was well accustomed to being listened to. The other had a soft, purring sort of voice, entirely feminine, and made no noise walking. As she neared, one could see glimpses of a languid tail waving behind her.

“Peter, are you being sarcastic?” inquired Edie politely.

“I hope that doesn’t mean you’re going to be talking to passengers about this.” he replied. “I’d hate to see the nice kitty kept on a leash at all times, ‘kay?”

Edie’s ears went back for a moment, then she remembered that this Peter was to be her boss, indeed was the ship’s master and as such was everybody’s boss. Perhaps it’d gone to his head. She tried again.

“I’m sure you’re joking,” she purred, “about the leash. That is NOT in my contract. However, were you joking about the dragons? I refuse to believe there are actual dragons in the main hold. Unless some dragon totemized people went swimming?”

“When you understand, that’s the last you’ll mention swimming. There be dragons, I say again. Believe me,” said Peter, growing more serious, “you’ll wish they were dragons. Dragons are pussycats by comparison. No offense.”

“None taken,” muttered Edie. “Peter, if you don’t mind my asking, are there other totemized people like me? Or will I be putting up with th… I mean, will I be seen as unusual?”

“Everybody but me,” remarked Peter. “Surprised? Oh, that’s not counting the passengers, they might be anything.”

Edie blinked. “Actually, I am. Why is that? What sorts do you have here?”

“Well the usual mostly. You cats seem to benefit from some sort of inherited reflexes, and I have a lot of you working for me. The usual foxes, wolves and so on. So you might think of it backwards- a normal human would be out of place, I’d be leery of hiring one.”

“We’re still human, Peter,” snapped Edie, and immediately restrained herself. “Er, don’t you follow the news?”

“News? How so?” he asked, with a surprising naivete, rather out of place in such a competent person.

Edie felt herself bristling slightly, and made a pretense of scratching her ear with one carefully designed pawlike hand, to smooth down the fur on the back of her neck. “Oh, it’s the same old story. Still some people out there who don’t believe in totemizing. That’s putting it mildly, actually. Ever since the Red Flag there have been no atrocities…”

“Oh, that, of course. Some of my people spend a lot of time following that stuff. Seems kinda strange on a tanker millions of miles away from any of the planets involved, but I wouldn’t think of trying to stop them. Their jobs keep them from getting too distracted with politics.” Peter grinned, wryly, with a certain look in his eye, and Edie spotted it and lifted a feline eyebrow.

“Just what are you hiding. Peter? This wasn’t in the job description. You’re acting like this is a high-risk job, and I’d thought the main problem would be boredom.”

“Oh, it can be, don’t get me wrong,” said Peter. He looked Edie over appraisingly, until she felt quite uncomfortable, his eyes inspecting her furry body with a seemingly amused disinterest. “You won’t be bored.”

“Then what have you been hinting about?” she continued, flustered. “Dragons? I mean, come on now.”

“We call them denizens, kay?” said Peter. “You’re working for Aquarius now, you need to know more than the travel brochures admit.”

“And just what does that mean?” snapped Edie.

“Settle down, kay?” remarked Peter. “You’re bristling. I was about to tell you. Don’t get your tail in a knot.”

Edie heaved an exasperated sigh. “Tell.”

“Look at it this way. Aquarius serves two purposes. There’s the cruiseliner. You’ll know all about that, we’re famous for it. I heard there was even a TV show set here…”

“Two.” corrected Edie.

Peter pretended not to notice. “So there’s a facade in place. Think of it as a world-class hotel… to rival any hotel on any world… but it’s the size of a world, basically. Sculpted like a Japanese garden- in fact Aquarius is better suited to the travel needs of koi people than any known planetary facility…”

“I’ve never understood why anybody would choose not to have arms,” noted Edie.

“They can afford to. Look, stop interrupting me, kay? I mean it. You cats are always independent, but you don’t seem to understand that we’re already underway. I like to keep a casual attitude, because my people work better that way, but understand right now that you are working and your job at the moment is to listen. Is that understood?”

The cat-girl looked startledly at him, taken aback at the sudden tone of command. She blinked, seemed about to say something, and then gulped and simply nodded, remembering certain passages in the contract she had signed, passages that had not seemed important. ‘The ship’s master is the final authority and law aboard Aquarius, and while a voyage is underway his authority is absolute, his judicial decisions answerable only to a board of inquiry at the conclusion of the voyage…’

Edie didn’t notice for a moment that Peter hadn’t begun talking again, for she was imagining herself chained to a wall in a jail cell… and so, when a firm hand touched her furry shoulder she nearly jumped out of her skin. Peter’s hand massaged her shoulder, her neck, rather impersonally, but expertly, showing a disquieting knowledge of cat-people behavior. She wasn’t used to anybody handling the scruff of her neck but a lover, and nobody fit that description at the moment.

“Settle down,” said Peter very firmly. “I know exactly what you were thinking about just then. In fact, I might be able to tell you the part of your contract that you’d just remembered. About one in six new staff have a moment like that. You can see in their eyes when they realize they were sassing God, for all practical purposes. Let’s drop Aquarius for a moment. Are you able to deal with the idea that I won’t normally be bossing you about, that I keep a fairly loose rein on my staff, but could shoot you or anybody aboard in a really desperate emergency and answer only to the hearing held when Aquarius returns to Earth? Have you ever been under military discipline? Aboard a working ship as staff? I need to know, right now, whether you will be able to handle this. Some can’t. You have to understand this- there is no higher authority. Period.”

Peter had stopped rubbing Edie’s shoulder midway through his statement and stood patiently waiting for her to respond. He looked ready to wait for a long time for his answer. Edie fidgeted a little, shifting from paw to paw, and thought hard. “Have you had to do that? Shoot somebody, I mean?”

“I’m not going to tell you, Edie. There are situations where I would have to. Take your time- but answer. If you can’t deal with this then you can have a comfortable trip as a passenger, no charge, but you won’t be working for me in any capacity.”

“I can deal.” decided Edie. “I really wanted this job- and you say you keep a loose rein. I honestly think my judgement is good enough that I won’t be in trouble. How’s that?”

“Good. I like that answer, Edie. You were hired for your judgement, and I’d be a fool to try and run every operation on the ship personally. Frankly, I doubt you can get in any trouble worth punishing- I don’t want you running scared. But I run a risk with every new staff acquisition, and I have to be sure before I’ll bring you up to speed with what’s happening.”

Edie’s tail lashed frustratedly. Finally she asked, in a very small voice, “So what’s happening?”

Peter resumed walking. “Back to Aquarius. You already know about the cruise-ship side of things- that’s the surface. Literally- passengers aren’t allowed down here. You’ll also know that Aquarius doubles as a water tanker that serves entire worlds, and I imagine you figured out that our gravity is supplied for us by the mass of water in there. Ever consider the logistics of transporting oceans worth of water? Technically, many times that much.”

Edie thought. “Well, you’d need Bergenholms, of course, or it wouldn’t move. It would be impossible to go anywhere without setting up waves that would destroy the ship. Even with the Bergenholms and no inertia, you’ll need lots of power just to push the ship through normal cosmic dust… the size of Aquarius is pretty outrageous.”

“Which is why this ship takes three times as long as a normal transport to get anywhere. That’s not the point. What filtering would you use?”

Edie blinked. “Filtering? You can’t. Well, you can put up big screens that keep out the larger fish- maybe even small enough to get most of them… but there are too many tons of water being transported…”

“That’s putting it mildly. And you’re overlooking plant life, which will clog up screens faster than you would believe. Most worlds end up using heavy screens with holes between one and eight feet wide. Zoo uses six inches, but of course they are trying very hard to maintain a specific ecosystem, and they’re failing. And they still take five times as long to load as any normal fleet, because of that. Aquarius was really meant for terraforming, of course.”

Edie thought more. “Which water worlds do you load from, and what screens do you use?”

“Very good question. All of them, and none. Getting the picture?”

Edie was. “Denizens. How big is the biggest portal you use to take on water?”

“I could tell you, but it would be misleading. Familiar with hydrophilicus garylarsoni?”

The cat-girl winced. “Point taken. That’ll grow to take up any given space in a matter of weeks. Days, sometimes.”

“Nope. The denizens eat it.” remarked Peter.

“Must be a lot of them.”

“Or a couple really big ones.” suggested Peter.

“Or a lot of really big ones?”

“Now you’re getting the idea.” said Peter. “Understand why this is classified? Not for passengers to hear about? You’re working on the inside. You have to know. Doing okay with it so far?”

Edie considered that, and figured as long as she didn’t focus too much on the reality of what was under her feet, she could avoid screaming. “Yeah.”

“Okay. Now a little background. Think of Aquarius as an orange. The subs we have for keeping things in line can go down about as far as the peel, and we can sense a little farther than that. Biggest thing we’ve ever sensed is about the size of an orange seed. That would equate to not quite as deep as the sub can dive, just to go from one side of it to the other.”

Edie gulped. “How does that equate to me, standing here?”

Peter looked at her levelly. “Too big to comprehend. About half again larger than the largest cities on Earth, including outlying areas. If you ever run into one, your best bet is to pretend it’s a submerged island or the sea bottom. You won’t be able to get deep enough to approach it anyway, and it’s not real mobile. Does a great sea bottom impression. It has tendrils that can reach up to your max depth. Avoid them. They can’t possibly outmaneuver you but it’s psychologically dangerous to have a tendril as thick as a office building coming at you.”

Edie froze in her tracks. “Stop. Please.”

“You’re programming, Edie. You won’t have to deal with this day in and day out. You may not ever have to dive below the surface.”

“Is…. is it okay,” asked Edie hesitantly, “that I want to run back the way we came and never come down here again? I’m sorry… I can’t go another step right now… what are you going to do with me?”

Peter walked back to where the cat-girl was stuck, shivering, frozen to the spot. “Take it easy, ‘kay? You’re imaginative. You’re also programming, not a pilot.” He rubbed her shoulders very gently, ruffling the silvery fur under his thumbs absently. “Your reaction is normal, Edie. My guess is you’ll be able to go on in a few minutes, and you may not understand it, but I’m very reassured by this…”

“Why?” asked Edie, trying not to think of the expanse of bottomless ocean under her paws, hidden by cold steel.

“Some people aren’t frightened by Aquarius, and they’re dangerous. Enough of that, it won’t help. What are your hobbies? Anything you’ll want to do up at the surface? As staff you get unlimited allowance on a lot of the games and rides and stuff they have up there.”

“Why do you say they?” asked Edie, beginning to relax but disconcerted by Peter’s gentle massagings. “If you’re the ship’s master, I mean.”

“Subcontractors.” explained Peter. “The cruise ship side is dealt with by people who are suited to that. You outrank all of them, by the way. Anybody from inside is very important topside. Makes breaks more enjoyable.”

Edie decided to risk it. “Peter, are you trying to pick me up?”

Peter did not stop rubbing her shoulders. “Not if you begged me. You’ll be finding emotional support very soon, Edie. In fact, I suspect I’ll have a headache or two over you, simply because you are a very attractive cat, well proportioned if one likes that sort of body type with the digitigrade legs and all and no proper breasts to speak of, and I can name at least three people who will be very, very interested. However, right now you have no such support, and you are shaking in normal fear and unable to go on. I have to get you back to Center, or turn around and go back with you and find you a place topside. And I badly need my computer tech team back to full strength. Am I bothering you? My guess would be that I am not, and that it’s helping.”

Edie nodded. “It is. Do you do this sort of thing a lot? Seems like a strange thing for the lord and ruler of all this to be doing.”

“I’ll repeat. You’ll be finding emotional support very soon. Right now you are alone in a long corridor leading to Center… which, by the way, we normally use cycles to travel, hence the width of the corridor… and you are on foot, or paw if you like, because I wanted the time to observe you in person. This corridor tilts downward, and you really get the sense of descending when you traverse it on foot. During the time it takes to walk it, I can generally figure out who’s going to be able to adapt. You might be sore tomorrow from the walk but you won’t be scheduled to start working for a while.”

Peter grinned faintly, and continued. “If so, you’ll have to find somebody else to give you a backrub. I will not be available to rub pretty kitties. However, it might be a convenient way to meet some of your colleagues. That’s not an order. It’s a suggestion. Now, ready to go on? I can spare up to an hour or so here. No more than that.”

Edie nodded, and the two continued down the long steel corridor. It was a very long time before they were lost to sight.