He followed the control deck corridor to its end, where a trapezoidal door was marked “Authorized Personnel Only.” This was written on a sign beneath the depiction of an optical illusion—a triangular arrangement of bars that could not exist in real life.
It was a little after 8pm when Rosemary retired to her cabin with the teasing remark about the luxury Lamont enjoyed in having a private suite. It was nothing more than a quip, but it got under his skin a little. The regular crew members had practically no privacy, with six individuals sharing a cabin just large enough to contain four bunks, a tiny toilette, and a small storage space for a few personal effects. His own two-room apartment was posh by comparison, and he felt a twinge of guilt over it. But after all, he hadn’t designed the ship, nor had he selected his own room. He sometimes wondered to whom the space would have gone if he had not cajoled his way into the mission. At any rate, he did not feel like returning to his opulent appointments directly after that, so he found himself wandering back across the length of the ship in the direction of the control deck. At about halfway through the second shift, the aft of Westward was a quiet buzz of concentrated activity as crew members moved from one console to another, pushing buttons, turning knobs, comparing readouts. Peeking his head into the engine control room, and then the computer center, it occurred belatedly to Lamont that he was looking for someone in particular. He followed the control deck corridor to its end, where a trapezoidal door was marked “Authorized Personnel Only.” This was written on a sign beneath the depiction of an optical illusion—a triangular arrangement of bars that could not exist in real life. Lamont hovered his finger over the communication unit at the side of the door and then thought the better of it, turning back and entering the command deck instead.
It was quiet. The scene that met him was the same as it had been earlier that day, with lights dimmed as a rainbow of colors from the kaleidoscopic display outside passed slowly over the floor and walls. Bishop and—who was it? Lazarus—had been replaced by other crew members at the pilot and navigator stations. Lamont glanced to his right and noted that the captain’s office was empty, and then to his left. There, he rather unexpectedly saw the face he had been looking for: The pink, oversized cranium of Phobos. He was seated in Chief Santana’s office, awkwardly folded into one of the chairs in front of her desk. Amila herself was not behind the desk, but sitting in the chair opposite Phobos, quite close to him, her back to Lamont. The newspaperman suddenly felt as if he was interrupting something, but the deep-set golden eyes of the Martian had taken note of him through the glass wall of Santana’s office the moment he entered the command deck. It would be conspicuous to turn around and leave now. Instead, he casually turned left, passing by the long side of the chief’s office on his way to the beverage dispenser. Her attention having been drawn to him, Lamont noticed Santana pushing her chair back a few inches, putting a little bit more space between herself and Phobos, and otherwise ignoring him. He drew himself a half-cup of coffee and meandered back to the center of the deck, taking a seat on the bench in front of the control console and exchanging a brief greeting with the pilot on duty.
A few minutes later, the door to Santana’s office slid open, allowing the quiet strains of a Latin-style jazz record to escape until it was closed again. Lamont glanced over his shoulder to see Phobos exiting with long strides while the chief rose and moved to her desk.
“Mr. Phobos,” Lamont greeted the Martian, placing his empty cup on the table built into the side of the bench. “I was actually hoping I’d see you.”
Next: The Ant’s Conundrum
I don't know if it will actually happen as such, but I feel like a proper interview between Lamont and Phobos would be either amazing, or very brief and perplexing (or both).
I feel like Phobos, insofar as we've gotten to know him at all (and presuming the old incarnation still fits at all) is the kind of person who actually doesn't "revel in the luxury of being circumspect" at all, but is hampered by his alien-ness and the limitations of his audience to understand the concepts his would love to share with them.
I see him very much as a "big brother" figure as Carter called him. He loves humanity and wants to see his 'little brother' flourish, but he doesn't know how to relate to it very well, and human culture and science hasn't advanced enough for us to understand the knowledge he yearns to bestow. My take up to now anyway.
So Lamont could actually look forward to straight answers from Phobos, in theory. In practice, it's probably impossible, and they'd equally be pained by that. As an old Jewish proverb about teachers goes, "more than the calf wants the suckle, the mother wants to nurse."