Coming in LIGHTSPEED magazine: “The Whole Crew Hates Me.”
Excerpt:
“They hate me. They have told me this, again and again, starting from almost the first day of the mission, and continuing every day since then, carrying their hostility well outside the confines of the solar system and into the realm of bentspace. Their hatred does not quite extend to the realm of murder, at least not yet; but it does include telling me every day, in every possible way, that they find my presence intolerable and that they wish I would just do something considerate, like die. I’ve given up on asking them why. They just tell me it’s obvious. They say I’m stupid for not being able to figure it out for myself. They say it’s all they can do to not smash my face. I ask if they have any specific complaints, if there are any specific transgressions I can work on. They just look disgusted. This is universal; all thirty members of the waking shift, all saying the same thing, all making the same points. They hate me, all of them. Every single one.
The various facilities the ship has for crew recreation have all been shut down to me. I am not allowed anywhere near the game room. I am not permitted to access the library, audio or video or neurec or text. Even the ship’s mess is forbidden to me. I cannot sit and enjoy my meals at leisure, listening to and participating in the give-and-take of shipboard life, the way they do, but must collect a weekly allotment of reconstituted foodstuffs from the galley, and take it down to the guts of the ship where, they assure me, I belong, because otherwise I’d be among them, ruining their appetite, making them sick. I’ve protested it in the strongest possible terms, both in the last list of grievances transmitted to Earth and with the Captain herself. But Earth has not responded and the Captain merely rolls her eyes and says, “What do you expect me to do about it? I can’t force them to socialize with you if they don’t want to.” I ask, “And that’s it? Then? I’m supposed to just lock myself away and not talk to anybody for another ten years? She rolls her eyes again – a great eye-roller, is our Captain – and tells me that it’s not her fault; it’s not anybody’s fault; it’s not even my fault, because I was born the prick I am. But she can’t help it if everybody hates me. She can’t even help it that she hates me too, as, she takes pains to assure me, anybody would.”
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