Starlaw by Candace Sams

breeding with other entities—”
    “God. I believe in God,” Laurel murmured.
    “That’s one name the Creator has been called. There are others. And I’m glad that you
do
believe. He’ll help you on this journey, Laurel. With him, you’ll never be alone.”
    “Yeah, I’m gonna need the company. But, if your teachings are correct, why didn’t we advance at the same rate? I mean … if all of us came from a few seed individuals, shouldn’t they have all had the same technology to begin with?”
    “That’s one of the mysteries for the priests to explain. Maybe it has something to do with the Creator’s will that we make our own choices.” Gemma shrugged. “It’s a choice to build a weapon to fight your neighbors. Another to put all your energy into a source of fuel to light cities, then to move into the stars. Perhaps that was where technology began to separate one civilization from another.”
    “Well, there’s one thing your commander is right about.
None
of the technology I’ve seen should be on Earth yet. We have too many ways to kill each other as it is!”
    “I was told, before we were sent on this mission, that Earthers can be excessively violent,” Gemma said as she nodded in agreement. “Our scientists have monitored transmissions from your world and they’ve reported on this tendency. Your statement proves their summation is true. How difficult it must be for you to enforce your laws under such conditions.”
    “Only sometimes. It’s worse when innocent people have to die.” Laurel heard the bitterness in her voice but couldn’t have curbed it. “I understand the man who killed my partner is in custody on this ship.”
    “Yes, he is. Goll … the vamphiere who killed your friends … is in a cell, within stasis mist. He’s sort of frozen in time. We don’t have to worry about any escape attempts or his threatening any of the crew. His species is very volatile.”
    An idea suddenly popped into Laurel’s head.
    What if she could find a way to get to Goll and make sure some so-called advanced race
didn’t
set him free? The very thought went against everything she believed in as a cop, but something told her she may never see home again. More to the point, she knew Cory would try the same thing she was thinking.
    Despite the commander’s statement over wishing the vampire-like thing dead, who knew what an advanced culture might do? That he’d murdered primitives—like Earthlings—on a far off planet might not even be a pertinent factor in his sentencing. If she understood the situation correctly, space cops were probably as ineffective when it came to penalizing requests as they were on Earth. Hadn’t the commander only
wished
Goll dead? That openly uttered sentiment meant the man in charge of this space ship didn’t have a lot of pull in getting his quarry sentenced.
    “Uh, Gemma, maybe you could show me how to use the computers now? I’m kind of hungry,” Laurel lied.
    Gemma smiled brightly and briefly clapped her hands in a show of joyful expectation. “That’s a sign your health is improving. Come on. I’ll show you how to order food, though the capacity to obtain more than the basics is limited from the med bay.”
    Laurel hated using blue girl, but what did she really know about her? And what difference did her personal feelings make when one was trying to survive? She had to use her wits. Empathizing might not be the best thing to do.
    With that in mind she watched every move Gemma made and made a mental note of each button the woman pushed. To further glean information she might need, she began a casual series of questions.
    “Um … I may speak and read a lot of other languages now, but that won’t account for customs. I don’t want to push anyone the wrong way. I’ve already had a bad start with your commander. Will you help me learn how to stay out of trouble, Gemma?”
    “Of course! That’s a very prudent idea,” Gemma said as she nodded. “The commander is