Captain Grelben became harsh in enforcing Swelk's detention once the Consensus neared the humans' solar system. Detention was her term, not his; he merely made clear that she was unwelcome without invitation beyond the crew quarters. Rualf's coterie made similar feelings plain. Officers and passengers alike fell silent whenever she approached—and there was no possibility of sneaking up on beings who sensed equally well in all directions.
A life spent as an outside observer then served her well. She gleaned what she could from overheard bits of conversation, from changes to shipboard routine, from the general announcements that preceded and accompanied the ship's maneuvers. She knew, though no one told her directly, that the Consensus had stopped at Earth's moon, that still-mysterious preparations had been made there, that direct radio contact had been established with—in the crew's words—Swelk's freaks.
Rualf occasionally solicited her help in the translation or interpretation of a radio intercept while sharing as little information as possible: her "independent" commentary, he said, was invaluable. Rualf was always scrupulously polite; Swelk realized too late that the open-mindedness she had trusted was a sham, an example of his art. She remained clueless as to his interest in the discovery of the humans, so interested that he'd championed rerouting the flight he had chartered.
So, from many sources and with much deduction, she learned that her hopes had been realized. The humans had not let their technology destroy them!
Now, as the ship hopped from one Earth location to the next, the crew was content to stay aboard. Experiencing an alien culture had no attraction to normal Krulirim, nor was Earth itself hospitable: its sunlight was too hot and yellow, its thin ozone layer admitted unsafe levels of UV, its carbon-dioxide level was nonlethal but debilitating. On board at a landing strip or on board in a parking orbit—it was all the same to the able-bodied spacers. Her own requests to visit with the humans were rejected.
Something happened at those landings, though, something to which only the officers and normal passengers were privy. Rualf alone among the inner circle occasionally shared crumbs of news about the humans. The more robust her translation program grew from extended use, the more Rualf's sporadic comments tilted toward smug superiority about progress in some undisclosed grand scheme.
Swelk burnt with curiosity, outrage, and feelings of injustice. Before each planetfall she was escorted to her cabin, "So as not to be in the way, you understand."
Fuming in her tiny room yet again, she reached a decision. She opened her door. "Brelf," she shouted. "I have an offer for you."
The deckhand was off duty, which meant he'd be drinking or gambling. Probably both. Hearing his off-color stage whisper to his shiftmates, and their titters, she allowed herself a moment of satisfaction: she'd picked her words to encourage some amusement at her own expense. Brelf emerged from the crew galley looking satisfied with his cleverness, his buddies following. "What do you want, Swelkie?"
"Out of here, of course." To their laughter she added, "Any more time in this closet will drive me insane." She dipped her sensor stalks in a pout. "Trust me, that wouldn't be a pretty sight."
They roared in appreciation, the freak poking fun at herself.
"So here's my idea. I'm so tired of talking to myself that even a Girillian swampbeast would be enjoyable company."
Brelf flexed the digits of an extremity thoughtfully. "Well, Swelkie, that is an interesting suggestion. I'm sure you know that we have a couple of swampbeasts on board. Not just them; we have ourselves a whole Girillian menagerie, and a messy, ill-tempered bunch they are. Thanks to you and your humans, we'll be watching over the monsters for a whole lot longer before they get to the imperial zoo on Krulchuk." He tipped onto twos, sweeping the unburdened limb inclusively across the group of his mates. "Anyone here care to let Swelkie take their shift feeding the beasties?"
"And cleaning up their shit afterwards!" someone added, evoking more hilarity.
"What do you say, Swelkie? Are you so tired of your deluxe accommodations that you would do a little light cleaning for us?"
Success! Willing her voice calm, she flexed her shortened limb. "I guess I can use the exercise."
"Come along then, Swelkie," said Brelf. "Who knows? A swampbeast may find even you attractive."
Swampbeasts turned out not to be the most stimulating companions Swelk had ever had, but neither were they the worst. Where Swelk's sidedness resulted from a congenitally deformed limb and the need to cope with it, swampbeasts were naturally bilateral in two different respects. There were three limbs on each side, each limb flaring into a large webbed appendage that distributed their weight over a broad area to keep them from sinking into their native muck. The eating end had a protuberance that held not only the mouth, but also the brain and many of the creature's sensory elements. The animals ate more or less constantly, and excreted almost as rapidly out the other end, an apparent trick to keep them well stocked with nutrients while minimizing the body weight to be suspended above the swamp.
She raked together their many droppings without complaint. The animals wouldn't care about her disapproval, and anyway, she had asked to be here. Every so often she would trade her rake for a shovel, emptying the dung into a standard bioconverter. The machine recycled the wastes, plus a dollop of fresh chemicals from ship's stores, into fodder as wholesome as could be found in any swamp on Girillia.
That was the theory, anyway. With Swelk's surreptitious adjustment to the bioconverter, the food was not quite that wholesome. She felt some minor guilt about her actions, the swampbeasts being aggrieved first in their capture, then in the mud-free artificiality of their confinement, and now in her treatment of them. Guilt or no, the feed they now received failed to agree with them. The cargo hold pressed into service as a zoo was awash with feces, fouler smelling even than usual. None of the crew objected to her taking as many caretaker shifts as she wished. Brelf and his pals found the outbreak of diarrhea hilarious. "Seeing Swelk makes even a swampbeast ill."
The stench served a purpose: it substituted for close supervision when she was out of her cabin. No one wanted to be near her while she took care of the menagerie. That, in the end, was her purpose. The Consensus carried four lifeboats, one of which was reached through the cargo hold that had become the Girillian zoo. The access hatches that led to the lifeboats were all monitored by sensors that reported to the bridge—but one cut wire guaranteed that the sensor to this lifeboat always reported the hatch to be shut.
She had unencumbered access to the tiny but complete spacecraft. One part of the lifeboat's equipment was a radio.