Corey Naylor – Space Janitor

Corey Naylor was elbow-deep in an ambassadorial toilet when the ship announced that humanity was a valued member of the galactic community.

That was not the exact wording. The exact wording had been composed by seven committees, translated into forty-three official languages, and softened at every stage by people who believed good relations were mostly a matter of removing verbs.

What reached the ceiling speaker was the calm, genderless voice of the Radiant Accord’s public information system.

“Passengers are reminded that the Human Cultural Exchange Reception will begin in the Aster Gallery at nineteen hundred ship standard. All species are encouraged to attend in the spirit of mutual understanding, peaceful curiosity, and appropriate caution.”

Corey looked up from the toilet.

“Appropriate caution,” he said.

The toilet indicated a difference of opinion. Something inside the bowl gave a low mechanical cough, followed by a wet little noise that suggested several design principles had been violated.

Corey tightened his grip on the extractor handle and leaned closer.

“Come on,” he said. “Don’t do this to me today.”

The ambassadorial toilet belonged to Suite Seven, a luxury compartment occupied by Deputy Speaker Halvek of the Tesselan Accord, his two aides, his nutritionist, his atmosphere consultant, and something in a jewel-studded cage that had been described on the manifest as a “companion plume.” Corey had not yet worked out whether the companion plume was an animal, a plant, or a hat with opinions.

He had, however, worked out that Deputy Speaker Halvek’s species processed mineral-rich ceremonial algae very badly.

The public information system continued.

“Human guests and crew are respectfully reminded that Earth cultural demonstrations must be registered with Diplomatic Recreation at least four hours in advance. This includes, but is not limited to, competitive singing, improvised grilling, physical dares, recreational shouting, experimental beverages, ceremonial face-painting, and the activity referred to in several submitted forms as ‘seeing what happens.’”

Corey closed his eyes.

“That was one time.”

Behind him, the bathroom door opened.

Corey turned as much as a man could turn with one arm inside a toilet designed by architects who had never had to clean anything themselves.

Chief Steward Pell stood in the doorway with a tablet tucked under one long, pale-blue arm and an expression of formal disappointment arranged across all three of his eyes.

Pell was a Varkari, which meant he was tall, narrow, almost entirely hairless, and built like a formal complaint that had learned to stand upright. Small breathing vents lined his neck in tidy vertical rows. His uniform was immaculate. His badge shone. His shoes had never personally met a floor.

Corey had once seen Pell apologise to a smear on a mirror because he had assumed it was a passenger.

“Naylor,” said Pell.

“Chief.”

“Why is Suite Seven still listed as unavailable?”

Corey looked at the toilet, then at Pell, then back at the toilet.

“Plumbing situation.”

“That is not an explanation.”

“It’s more of a hostage negotiation at this stage.”

Pell’s upper eyelid twitched. On a human, this might have been irritation. On a Varkari, it meant he was consulting every regulation ever written and finding Corey untidily placed in all of them.

“The Deputy Speaker has already filed two complaints,” Pell said.

“That’s optimistic. He only checked in three hours ago.”

“He has expressed concern that human maintenance practices may not meet the Accord’s expected standard of civilisation.”

Corey gave the extractor handle another careful twist.

Something below the porcelain gargled.

“I’m trying not to take that personally.”

“You are not human civilisation,” Pell said. “You are a Cabin Services Assistant Third Class.”

“Sanitation Technician,” Corey said.

“That title has not been approved.”

“I approved it.”

“You do not possess that authority.”

“I was present at the meeting.”

Pell’s left eyelid twitched.

“You were alone in a cupboard.”

“There were biscuits,” Corey said. “It felt formal.”

Pell did not have to reply. His stare did it for him.

Corey smiled helpfully.

Predictably, this did not help.

The ship hummed around them, clean and elegant and full of people who had never once wondered where anything went after it vanished down a drain. The Radiant Accord was one of the finest civilian cruisers in the Mid Arm. It had seven diplomatic decks, three arboretums, a theatre where gravity could be adjusted for interpretive dance, and a restaurant that served sixteen kinds of oxygen.

It also had several miles of waste conduit, numerous access panels hidden behind things that no one was meant to move, and a recurring pressure problem in the starboard grey-water spine that Command insisted was “within acceptable flow tolerance.”

Command did not clean the tolerance when it came back up.

Corey did.

“Naylor,” Pell said, “this evening is important.”

“I know.”

“It is the first Human Cultural Exchange Reception held aboard a major Accord vessel since the Thessara Station incident.”

“That wasn’t really our fault.”

“A human ambassador attempted to ride an emergency catering drone down a flight of ceremonial stairs.”

“He got people talking.”

“He broke both legs of the Talarian peace envoy.”

“There were too many stairs.”

“There were the correct number of stairs.”

“That’s a matter of perspective.”

Pell inhaled through the small vents along his neck. Varkari did not sigh. They performed controlled atmospheric exchange in a manner that made everyone nearby feel they had failed morally.

“The reception,” Pell said, “is intended to improve humanity’s reputation.”

Corey braced one boot against the base of the toilet and pulled.

There was a pop.

There was a slurp.

There was a moment in which the universe seemed to reconsider several of its choices.

Then the extractor tube came free, bringing with it a dark green object the size and shape of a boiled egg, coated in blue slime and trailing what looked like golden hair.

Pell recoiled.

Corey held it up.

“Found the blockage.”

“What is that?”

“No idea.”

“It is moving.”

Corey looked at it.

The object trembled in his gloved hand.

“So it is.”

Pell took one step back into the corridor.

Corey grabbed the specimen jar from his kit and dropped the object inside. It bounced once against the transparent side and stuck there, pulsing gently.

“Probably belongs to the companion plume,” Corey said.

“You extracted an unauthorised organism from a diplomatic toilet.”

“Better than leaving it there.”

“That remains to be seen.”

The jar pinged as the object bumped itself against the lid.

Pell’s eyes moved from the jar to Corey’s face.

“Naylor,” he said carefully, “please confirm that you did not touch this object with exposed human skin.”

Corey glanced at his gloves.

“No.”

“Please confirm that you did not smell it.”

Corey hesitated.

Pell closed all three eyes.

“It was right there,” Corey said.

“You smelled it.”

“Not deliberately.”

“How does one smell something accidentally?”

“You breathe near it and regret having a nose.”

Pell opened his eyes again. His voice became very calm, which Corey had learned meant he was filing incidents in his head.

“You will take the organism to Biohazard Containment.”

“Yep.”

“You will complete Form Twelve-G.”

“Probably.”

“You will not tell any passenger, officer, technician, kitchen worker, visiting dignitary, or human that you found a living object in the Deputy Speaker’s toilet.”

Corey considered this.

“What about if they ask?”

“Why would they ask?”

Inside the jar, the object had sprouted a thin golden filament and was tapping on the glass.

“I feel like it has a future.”

Pell made another controlled atmospheric exchange.

“After Biohazard Containment,” he said, “you will report to the Aster Gallery and assist with reception preparation.”

“I’m on guest-facing?”

“No. Absolutely not. You are on spill response.”

“Bit harsh.”

“You are human.”

“I’m also very personable.”

“That is one of the concerns.”

Corey sealed his kit and clipped the specimen jar into the side compartment.

The jar tapped once.

“Don’t start,” Corey muttered.

He stood too quickly. His knees objected, which seemed unfair at twenty-three standard years old, but the ship had been asking a lot from joints recently.

Pell stepped aside to allow him through, though he did it with the air of someone allowing a small industrial accident to pass.

Corey went past him into the corridor.

The door to Suite Seven opened onto a deep red carpet that cleaned itself every six minutes. Corey knew this because he had once spilled soup on it and watched the carpet absorb the soup, consider the soup, and then project it neatly into his shoe.

He pushed damp brown hair out of his eyes as he walked. It had been cut two weeks ago by a crew barber who owned scissors and optimism, and not much else.

His Cabin Services uniform had started the shift grey. It was still grey in a few sheltered places. The rest had collected cleaning foam, coolant mist, sauce vapour, and a streak of something from the laundry drone incident which nobody had been able to identify without sounding accusatory.

Corey looked down at himself.

“Professional,” he said.

The badge on his chest read C. NAYLOR. Under it, in smaller letters, someone had printed HUMAN. Corey had asked whether all crew badges listed species. Pell had said no, but in his case it was considered “operationally useful.”

Two passengers stood nearby, both tall, silver-skinned and elegant in the way of people whose ancestors had apparently skipped every awkward stage of evolution.

They stopped talking as Corey emerged.

One of them saw the jar.

The thing inside the jar tapped again.

Corey smiled.

The passengers moved away.

Pell walked beside him, tablet tucked firmly against his ribs.

“You see?” Pell said.

“What?”

“That.”

“They were blocking the corridor.”

“They were unsettled by you.”

“They were unsettled by the toilet egg.”

“Do not call it that.”

“Containment slug?”

“No.”

“Deputy Speaker Junior?”

“Naylor.” Pell’s tone had changed for the worse.

Corey decided to stop helping.

They passed a panoramic viewport that looked out across the dark curve of folded space. The Radiant Accord travelled faster than light by refusing to admit that distance was a serious objection. Beyond the glass, stars dragged into thin silver threads, then snapped back into place as the ship adjusted its field. It was beautiful, if you were the sort of person who could look at the impossible and not worry about who had to clean the viewport.

Corey had been aboard for four months. Long enough to know that Deck Fourteen smelled faintly of hot pennies when the humidity rose. Long enough to know that Lift B pretended to be broken if more than two priests got in at once. Long enough to know that the decorative fountain outside the Aster Gallery was connected to a maintenance reservoir that should, by law and good sense, not be connected to anything decorative.

He had reported that twice.

The system had thanked him for his concern and closed the ticket.

At the end of the corridor, a group of junior officers came through the crossway in crisp navy uniforms. Security. Corey recognised the one in front.

Lieutenant Marra Vey.

She did not look anything like Pell, despite the blue. Where Pell was long, pale, and arranged in vertical lines of disapproval, Marra was slate-steel and compactly controlled, all clean angles and contained motion. A short dark crest swept back from her brow. Narrow black markings ran from her temples to the corners of her jaw, sharpening a face that already looked as if it had never once been surprised by paperwork. Her ears were drawn to clean points. Her uniform sat on her like armour even before the sidearm at her hip made the point.

Her species, the Avel, were famous for discipline, civic restraint, and a form of poetry that required fourteen years of study before anyone was allowed to enjoy it.

Marra saw Corey’s stained uniform, the tool kit, and finally the jar.

Her expression did not change. This made it worse.

“Chief Steward,” she said.

“Lieutenant.”

Her eyes moved to Corey’s badge.

“Crewman Naylor.”

“Sanitation Technician Naylor,” Corey said.

Pell said, “No.”

Marra looked at the jar again.

“Is that organism authorised?”

“On its way to not being my problem,” Corey said.

The thing inside the jar pressed itself against the glass in a shape that might have been a face if one were feeling generous and had suffered a recent head injury.

Marra’s hand moved slightly towards the sidearm at her hip.

Corey lifted the jar a little.

“It came out of a toilet.”

Her hand stopped.

“I see.”

“You don’t, really. You missed the worst bit.”

Pell made a small sound as professionalism died slowly in front of him. It wasn’t quite a whimper, but it was related.

Marra ignored this, and kept her focus on Corey.

“Are you assigned to tonight’s reception?”

“Spill response.”

“That seems appropriate.”

“Everyone keeps saying that it's not a compliment.”

“It is not intended as one.”

Corey nodded.

“Still taking it.”

One of Marra’s junior officers made a sound that might have been a laugh. Marra did not look back, but the officer immediately became very interested in the wall.

“The Human Cultural Exchange Reception,” Marra said, “is subject to additional security restrictions.”

“Because of the drone stairs thing?”

“Among other incidents.”

“That particular one keeps coming up.”

“It was widely viewed.”

“Good angle, though.”

Marra stared at him for half a second longer than politeness required. Corey had the uncomfortable feeling that she was trying to decide whether he was joking, stupid, or saying something which might be used as evidence later.

Possibly all three.

“Crewman Naylor,” she said, “during the reception, you are not to demonstrate human improvisational behaviour.”

Corey frowned.

“What counts as improvisational behaviour?”

“Any action beginning with the phrase ‘watch this.’”

“That feels targeted.”

“It is.”

“Fair.”

Marra walked on with her officers.

Pell waited until they were out of earshot, then said, “You see? This is exactly the problem.”

“What, security noticing I’m good in a crisis?”

“Security noticing you are likely to cause one.”

Marra had already reached the next junction, her officers moving around her in neat formation. Nobody ever moved around Corey in neat formation unless they were trying to avoid a spill.

“You know,” Corey said, “if people expected humans to be less weird, maybe we’d be less weird.”

Pell gave him a sideways look.

“Has that worked anywhere?”

“Not yet.”

“Then perhaps it is not a strong theory.”

They reached a service door marked STAFF ACCESS ONLY. Beneath that, someone had added in five languages, NO PASSENGERS, NO PETS, NO CEREMONIAL FLAME, NO EXCEPTIONS.

Underneath, in marker pen, Corey had written, THIS MEANS YOU, DECK NINE.

Pell had not noticed yet.

Corey palmed the door open. It recognised his print after only three attempts and a small threat. Beyond lay the service spine of the Radiant Accord, which was where the glamour ended and the ship admitted it had pipes.

The corridor was narrow, grey, and warm. Conduits ran along the ceiling in tidy clusters. Cleaning drones slept in wall docks. Somewhere below, pumps thudded with a rhythm Corey trusted more than most senior officers.

Pell remained outside.

“You have twelve minutes to deliver that item,” he said. “Then report to the Aster Gallery.”

“Chief.”

“And Naylor?”

Corey paused.

“Yeah?”

“Do not embarrass humanity tonight.”

Corey thought about promising.

He thought about saying something earnest and reassuring. He thought about telling Pell that, despite everything, humans did know how to behave when it mattered. That they had joined the galactic community because they could learn, adapt, cooperate, and rise above their worst instincts.

Then the thing in the jar gave a tiny sneeze and turned purple.

“I’ll try my best,” Corey said.

Pell looked as if this was exactly what frightened him.

The service door closed between them.

Corey stood alone in the maintenance corridor and looked at the jar.

“You and me both, mate,” he said.

The jar tapped.

Corey took the long route to Biohazard Containment.

Not because he was avoiding work, though that would have been a respectable guess. The long route passed through the lower service galleries beneath the Aster Deck, and Corey wanted to check the decorative fountain before the reception. There was a pressure flutter in the pipes. He had felt it under his boots while walking past the viewport. Nobody else noticed things like that because nobody else had spent three hours lying under a laundry press listening for a blocked vent.

The ship spoke to people in different ways.

To officers, it spoke in reports.

To passengers, it spoke in lighting, music, and polite doors.

To Corey, it spoke in knocks, smells, vibrations, and the occasional burst pipe at groin height.

The lower gallery was empty when he reached it. Above him, through two decks of alloy, carpeting, and diplomatic optimism, stewards would already be setting out the reception trays. Human food had been carefully selected for cultural accessibility. This meant nothing with bones, shells, visible blood, strong smell, aggressive crunch, religious significance, or legal history.

Corey had seen the menu.

It was mostly beige circles.

He passed under a cluster of water lines and stopped at a tiny shudder in the blue pipe. It was barely anything, but it came again after six seconds, then again after six more.

Corey frowned.

“That’s not good.”

The jar tapped.

“You don’t get an opinion. You’re evidence.”

He clipped the jar to his belt, opened his tool kit, and unfolded the small diagnostic clamp. The pipe ran above head height. Corey dragged over a service crate, stood on it, and fixed the clamp around the line.

The display blinked.

PRESSURE VARIANCE WITHIN ACCEPTABLE LIMITS.

“Liar.”

The display blinked again.

PLEASE REPORT ANY CONCERNS TO MAINTENANCE OVERSIGHT.

“I am concerns.”

He gave the pipe a gentle knock with his knuckles. The vibration came back dull.

Not water, then.

Foam concentrate.

Corey looked up.

The decorative fountain outside the Aster Gallery used treated water, coloured light, and a low-gravity shimmer field to create floating droplets shaped like local flowers. It was the sort of feature rich people liked because it looked natural after a large amount of engineering had been used to prevent nature getting involved.

The fire-suppression system used emergency foam concentrate.

The fountain was not supposed to be connected to emergency foam concentrate.

Unless someone had patched a line wrong after the last refit.

Corey remembered the closed ticket.

He remembered the words within acceptable tolerance.

He also remembered that tonight, above this very pipe, several hundred diplomats would be gathering to celebrate humanity’s place among the stars.

Corey slowly smiled.

Then he stopped himself.

“No,” he told himself. “Bad. Not now.”

The pipe shuddered again.

The clamp lied politely.

Beside it, the toilet egg tapped.

“Fine,” Corey said. “Quick look.”

That was the thing about humans. Most species treated curiosity as a civilised discipline. Humans treated it as an itch with consequences.

Corey opened the side panel.

Inside, the valve assembly blinked at him in neat rows of green and blue. At first glance, everything looked normal. At second glance, the bypass regulator had been installed upside down.

At third glance, Corey realised it had not been installed by accident.

There was a small black device clipped to the regulator.

It was not ship issue. It was not maintenance issue. It was not decorative, unless someone had recently invented a school of design based on menace.

A red light pulsed in the centre of it.

Corey stared. The device stared back, in the way devices did when they were waiting to ruin your day.