Jessica stared at him. "Did you just assign odds to my personality?"

"I rounded down."

She looked toward the viewport before the smile became obvious. There it was again, that narrow line between useful observation and deliberately provoking someone because he'd decided he could get away with it. At least he wasn't entirely unaware of what he was doing.

For several minutes they ate in comfortable silence. New personnel came through the doors and Marn's attention shifted toward them automatically before returning to his tray. Jessica had noticed the habit enough times now that she finally commented on it.

"You keep track of everything in here, don't you? The doors, who comes in, where they're sitting. I'm reasonably sure you've been keeping track of something around the replicators too."

Marn thought about it before answering. "Mostly."

"Sounds exhausting."

"Not doing it is worse."

The answer landed differently from the others, and Jessica left it alone rather than trying to pull something more personal out of him. She understood the sentiment better than he probably realized. Signals work did something similar. Eventually you stopped choosing to notice when a frequency disappeared or interference changed in a way that suggested another transmission underneath it. You simply did.

Maybe Marn's version involved people, terrain and exits instead of frequencies.

His tray was nearly empty when Jessica noticed she'd made almost no progress on the coffee. Marn noticed too, his eyes moving toward the cup before returning to her.

"You keep looking at it."

"I'm hoping intimidation will improve the flavor."

"It won't."

Jessica gave him a flat look. "Four days aboard and you've declared yourself the authority on coffee?"

"I've had four days to establish a pattern."

That made her laugh, and Marn reached for his tray before she could decide whether admitting he was funny would encourage him.

He stood and paused beside the table. "Chief" he said, putting just enough emphasis on the title for Jessica to know exactly what he was doing.

"Petty Officer."

The small smile returned before he walked toward the recycler.

Jessica watched him for a few seconds before looking back at the cup. Twenty-five, Petty Officer Second Class, recon specialist, four days into the Rubicon and apparently convinced most things could be understood if he watched them long enough. Difficult without being hostile, observant enough that she was going to have to pay attention around him, and now on the same team.

As much as she might regret admitting it to him, recon and signals did make sense.

Jessica took another drink of coffee and immediately regretted it. Across the room, Marn glanced back, first at the cup and then at her. Jessica caught him doing it, and he knew she'd caught him, but neither of them said anything.

She waited until he'd turned away before getting to her feet and crossing toward the port-side replicator.

If he ever brought it up, she would deny the entire thing.