Page 23 of Yorix

I giggled at his antics. “Did you know Ulalily is spending her time between tasks reading fantasy novels at human reading speed?”

Yorix shook his head as he began opening the cardboard food containers. “No, but it doesn’t surprise me. Jurto, the one we had for our bachelor quarters on my old ship, binge watched old TV vids. Really old ones, from the dawn of TV broadcasting. He was watching shows from all over the world, at human speed. My favorite was his "I Love Lucy” phase. You’d come into the common area, and he’d have the shows playing.”

I covered my mouth with my hands, smothering back a laugh.

“They really are like people, huh? More Commander Data and less Hal.”

He stared blankly for a split second. ”Ah, yes,” he replied, as he seemed to figure out my meaning. “Definitely more Data, and yes, they are definitely people. Simply nonorganic ones.”

“Wait- he was your bathroom assistant?”

“Yes.”

“How’d he get to watch in the common room?”

“Since they are affiliated with Sickbay, in case of medical or psychiatric emergency, they can access the cameras Xeranos usually uses in our quarters and public spaces.”

That made sense. I smiled to myself, wondering if I could convince my new friend to watch Charmed with me in our living room. Which, now that I looked, was also sporting my favorite color, tempered with black soft furnishings and the white terrazzo look flooring. I decided I liked it. It wasn’t as if we were stuck with it forever anyway, right? So if our feelings changed, so could the furniture.

“Give me a little bit of everything, please,” I asked him, as he scooped food onto the plates.

“I forgot the bowls. Could you get them, please? It’s the cabinet to the left of the top oven there.”

I came to his aid, finding the bowls easily. As I passed them to him, I reflected just how easy and right this all felt. As if we’d been doing this for months, not hours. The Mylos certainly knew their matching skills, alright.

“I’ll pour the tea,” I told him, pausing on my way past him to kiss the underside of his jaw. “Sugar?”