The Bantam (Phantom Traveler, #1)

Ehli is an iscillian, designed in a lab to serve as a bantam, a ship custodian for a merchant crew. She imagines no future beyond the care of her starship and the quiet hours between ships spent painting in her quarters.

But when she discovers a vague clue that undermines the clear purpose of her existence, the satisfaction she once found in her simple routine dissolves into an unsettling, deadly obsession to learn the truth.

Her job is to put the needs of her ship and its crew before her own...