Samantha would have slapped me for imagining those kind of things. She used to roll her eyes and laugh: "You’re such a child, Edward." Usually I’d laugh too and say she was the child — younger than me by a whole ten minutes.

But I knew I was acting like a kid, letting myself get scared of nothing. Fifty-seven years old; I should know better. Halfway to the cafeteria, I turned around and headed for the captain’s quarters instead. I was supposed to be master and commander, not some puss-puppy trying to make it all better with warm milk. As of now, I’d devote myself to captainly things instead of hiding back in my cabin.

Besides, it’d be harder to have bad dreams in a captain’s bunk, wouldn’t it? Captains don’t let themselves get carried away by imagination.

"Ship-soul, attend," I called out loudly as I entered the captain’s room. "Vidscreen on, forward view."

The room had a nice big monitor, filling up a whole half of one wall. The screen flicked on, showing a calm empty starscape. Nothing out there but nothingness.

"Aft view," I said.

More stars in the infinite black. No nightmares chasing us.

I took a breath. "Interior view, recreation lounge."

The screen changed to show the lounge and all the bodies, still exactly where they’d fallen. Most of the holograms were gone: their battery power had run down. Instead of the Roman soldier and the alien thistle bush, an ordinary man and woman lay crumpled against each other, both of them naked except for the harnesses that held their holo-projectors.

The dead people looked so sad and pointless. Even the admiral woman, lying where I’d set her down… she wasn’t going to turn into a kiss-hungry demon who came slobbering at my door. She was just going to lie there and lie there and lie there, never getting up again.