I turn to face him, tucking my legs under as I sit up. "We slept right here with a dead guy right THERE," I stab a finger at the ladder. "All night!"
Kaspar props up on one shoulder, giving me a sleepy look. His hair is falling over his forehead, and I realize it's getting a little shaggy. It looks sexy that way, tousled and wild, and the hooded gaze he's giving me would make me drop my panties if I had any. "He's not going to bother anything," the big alien yawns. "And I'm pretty sure he won't eat much."
"We need to bury him," I decide.
"We will."
Oh. I purse my lips, thinking. He agreed so readily that it's deflated my argument entirely. "I feel weird going to sleep here and knowing there's a dead guy right in the next room."
"Are you afraid you're going to breathe in his dead guy particles or something?"
I stare at him in horror. "Well, now I am."
Kaspar shakes his head, still sleepy. "There's nothing left of him to breathe in, Sunshine. Sterre didn't even blink at him. Come back to bed."
I hesitate. He looks sexy and inviting, sure, but I can't stop thinking about the dead guy. "It feels wrong to just move around him and act like he's not there. We were so busy raiding his home yesterday that we barely paid any attention to him!"
"Are you upset because of that, or are you upset because you see yourself as him and you worry you'll be forgotten and discarded here on this planet?"
Wow. That is a whole lot of psychological shit to unpack first thing in the morning. I hate that he might be right. "Or it could be that he's a dead guy and deserves respect?"
"Because he's dead?" Kaspar rubs his eyes. "No one came after him all this time, Sunshine. That means one of two things—he was very lonely and had no family and no one set to inherit a single credit if he died, or that he was a bad man and possibly a thief, and no one's sad that he disappeared. I know which one seems more likely to me."
"Fine, he's a bad man," I mutter. I cross my arms over my chest. "Maybe I just don't want a dead guy in my new house because he makes me uncomfortable."
"Fair enough." Kaspar sits up, scratching his belly and yawning, and I can't help but notice that his cock is half erect and growing more erect by the moment. Morning wood, probably not helped by me staring at him. But Kaspar only winks at me, as if amused by my staring, and gets to his feet. He stretches very deliberately, practically waving his cock around, and then pads toward the ladder. "I'll get rid of the dead guy for you, Sunshine."
He heads down into the lower level of the ship, and I hear him moving around and something rustling. I wrinkle my nose, imagining all the awful things that could happen—how does one move a crumbling dead guy anyhow?—and decide I don't want to look. Instead, I glance around our new “quarters.”
In a way, it reminds me a bit of the escape pod. The room is rectangular, an odd sight given that the ship seems to be all rounded edges outside. The bed platform is attached to one wall, and Sterre lolls on it, belly in the air, while I walk around and explore. One corner of the room looks like it has collapsed in on itself, and dust motes dance through the light filtering in. Across from the bed is a counter built into the wall, but it's empty. There's a depressed switch in the wall that does nothing when I push it, and I guess all the power is out in this ship. Makes sense. I use my nails and try to work the door open manually, and finally succeed in prying it back. It folds into itself, revealing a wall full of old clothes entangled amidst a vine that's grown up through the flooring. Most of the clothes look like dark, functional jumpsuit type uniforms and shoes. I touch one sleeve, and a cloud of dust fills the air.
Coughing, I wave a hand in front of my face and step back. Those are gonna need to be aired before they can be worn. I try the other walls in the small cabin. There's another switch that opens up to an old lavatory and one that houses vid screens and some other communication technology. By the time I pry them all open, my nails are ragged and smarting, and I give up for the day. Kaspar's still down below, so I return to the bed, pet Sterre's head, and wait for him to return. Eventually I lie down, curling up with the carinoux and taking a nap.