"Yay, more new people!" Minerva hopped up from her spot and whirled around the room, pulling up more chairs and trays for everyone. She was like a firestorm, plucking Rennik's sausage out of his coffee and returning it to it's plate, snatching the enourmous bag from Adele and lugging it breathily to the corner, all the while with a pot of coffee in her left hand.
"Just sit down wherever you want! Alex told me to expect another girl. You must be Adele!"
-----
Blinking more sleep out of her eyes, Ally eventually took to rubbing them with her hand. She took some sleep out of the corners, watching the cage with something akin to dread. Alex had a strange way of dealing with people, and Ally didn't want to get near until she knew what was inside the box.
"Go ahead." Alex urged her softly, "It won't bite you unless you harm it."
With a really bad feeling, and almost not doing it, Ally reached out across the small officer's compartment and unlatched the door. Momentarily, a small beige ball of fur emerged from the tiny cage, adorned with floppy ears and black marble eyes. It was the most plain-looking dog ever created.
"Minerva came along with me. I'm not sure if you met her. She insisted on something more outlandish like one of those furry pink Yamataian ones." Alex explained, lifting the tiny creature towards Ally. "But I knew better. My 'smart girl' Alexis Arms would make the rational decision and choose the genetically superior animal that would live longer."
Alexis looked at it bleerily, as it gave her the flat, black look. It was smart, alright. It had, somehow, in Alex's presence, already resigned itself to being manhandled without permission.
"It's a Rhodesi Lab," Alexis explained, reaching out for the dog, to spare it from being held aloft by the scruff the entire conversation. "It's just a pup, now, but this thing is going to get pretty big."
Alex twitched in the face. "That will be fine." He said, obviously not fine with it.
Settling it in her lap, where it crouched timidly, Alexis gently messed the short fur over its shoulder until it lay down completely. "I didn't know you liked animals."
"I do not." Alex replied, "But my intuition suggested that perhaps you do."
"My parents used to own a kennel," Ally explained. "It was one of my dad's stupid hobbies but he never paid much attention to it, he just let other people run it for him and used it to brag. They won a lot of shows, and he'd always tell people when they visited, and show off the ribbons. But he never showed the dogs himself."
Alexis turned the pup so its feet were up, and began scratching beneath its forelegs. The sound of Alex's shutter clicking formed a bizzare revelie with the tug of the fur.
Looking back up, Ally fixed him with a accusing stare. "You are not taking pictures of me with my arm off, with hardly any clothing on, are you?"
Alex's implant twisted and zoomed a bit before he replied, "I am photographing the animal. I wish to monitor its growth. You are barely visible in the images." Click. Click.
Sighing, Alexis asked, "Did you buy any dogfood?"
Alex flicked an eyebrow, "Doesn't it eat meat? It appears to be carnivorous."
Picking the dog up and cradling it in her one arm, Ally kicked off the covers and put her bare feet on the ground, slowly. The metal floor wasn't very warm. Standing, she wandered over to her pants, in the corner, and crouched - letting the dog down onto the floor. Then, she started digging.
"You have to buy dogfood," Ally explained. "They don't digest human food very well. It has chemicals and things in it that their digestive system doesn't agree with and unless you want this puppy shitting everywhere on the ship, you're going to have to go back out there and buy about, well, say fifty pounds of puppy chow, and then when it gets bigger we'll have to switch over."
Glancing back over her shoulder, Ally tossed a small folded pocketbook at Alex, who snatched it out of the air and tossed it to his side, onto the bed. "I will see to it that we acquire some of both. The animal will be well-fed, and will have assigned crewmen to watch over it while we're away."
Ally glanced over to her pocketbook, and then back to Alex, picking the dog back up and, with some dexterious manuvering, settling it comfortably against her chest in the crook of her arm. "You're just going to walk outside and just like, tell someone else to do it, aren't you?"
Alex turned his head and pressed his hand against the implant, focusing on a corner of the cieling, appearing as a thinker. "Sounds logistically sound. Perhaps I will."
Shaking her head, Alexis settled the pup on the side of the spartan sink provided with the officer's quarters, plugged the drain, and ran some of the water into the basin. The dog began lapping it up immediately. Its tail, which had been stationary, began to show just the hint of the shadow of wagging.
"Whatever, I should have figured you'd pull a stunt like this. Buying a dog, but no food. Just... have them knock."
Alex snapped his head back around again. This was not how the events were supposed to transpire. The dog was supposed to be a carnivore, capable of eating the meat that was in abundant supply on the ship. Not some weak-stomached beast which would grow to be three times his size.
"I will go out and get some food myself." He said quickly, raising a hand slightly in the universal sign of surrendering to a woman's desires, "I will go on my airbike and return before we set out for our operation, Ally. Will that make you feel better?"
Looking up, Ally did manage a sort of smile. "Yea. Thanks."
The dog was considerably more active now, and Ally had to snag it by the scruff to keep it from slipping straight into the growing water pool.
"Okay, good. That is good. Very good." Alex nodded a couple of times, trying to ignore the clumsy creature before him. There was more twitching involved. The contemplative hand had since wandered to his hair to scratch at that spot next to his temple, "Oh, and I should mention another thing as well. One of our newer arrivals, a former friend of mine. Her name is Minerva Ipps. She has prepared breakfast for you. For each of us, personally. She wishes to 'get to know' everyone, she says. You may enjoy her company; she too is small and at times child-like."
Alexis twirled her hand in a circular motion. "Yea, like, maybe, alright? Let me find some place to settle this little guy."
"Right." Alex shot back. He ran his fingers under his lapel and made for the door, saying, over his shoulder, "If you'll excuse me-- I have seventeen minutes to procure two detonators and puppy food. Everything must be on schedule."
"Well," Alexis Kimball-Styrling, dog-person extraordinare, said, settling her hand on her hip and leaning her other side against the sink, the water now high enough the apparently starving, dehydrated animal could reach it without going head-first. "I guess you'd better hurry, then?"
The only reply Alexis got was a brief glimpse of Alex's implant before the door slid shut and the room was empty of visitors once more.
Alexis looked down at the dog.
The dog, finished gorging itself on water, looked up and gave her a really happy face.
"Numbskull."
