‘What? I did!’

‘Amira. From the tech shop.’

‘That’s what I said.’

‘She’s, like, twenty-five or something.’

‘So?’

‘So she probably just thought your hair looks stupid and couldn’t stop staring.’

‘Remmet telli toh.’ Ras cuffed him, but grinned. ‘Your hair looks stupid.’

‘Yeah,’ Kip agreed. No argument there. Had he combed it this morning? He couldn’t remember.

The crowd went back and forth, back and forth. Same faces, same patterns as every other day. ‘What do you wanna do after work?’ Ras asked.

‘Don’t you have history this afternoon?’

Ras shook his head with an expression that said he did have that class lined up, but there was no chance of him being there for it. ‘Wanna go to the hub?’

‘Nah,’ Kip said. There weren’t any new sims out, and they’d played all the ones worth playing. Ras was always down for Battle Wizards, but Kip was kind of sick of it.

‘Wanna go look at the new transport pods?’

‘We did that yesterday.’

‘So? They’re cool.’

Kip shrugged. New pods were the kind of thing that were cool only when you’d never seen them before.

‘Okay,’ Ras said. ‘What do you want to do?’

Kip shrugged again. ‘I dunno.’

Ras took ownership of the choko. ‘You have a bad day or something?’

‘It was fine. M Santoso kind of just let me hang out. Let me have mek during my shift.’

‘That’s cool.’

‘Yeah,’ Kip said, taking the choko back. ‘She’s all right.’

‘I dunno why you’re doing job trials anyway. Exams are coming up.’

This was Ras’ grand plan, unchanged since they were twelve: take the qualification exams and get into university (the fastest ticket out of the Fleet – all there was at home were trade classes and apprenticeships). After that, get a cool job, get on a big ship, and make lots of creds. That was as good of a plan as any for Kip – and more than he’d ever been able to come up with on his own – but he wasn’t as sure as Ras that he’d be able to come along.

‘When I don’t pass, I’m gonna need a job,’ Kip said.

‘You’ll pass,’ Ras said.

‘I suck at tests.’

‘Everyone sucks at tests.’

‘You don’t suck at tests.’

Ras didn’t say anything, because he didn’t suck at tests, just like he wasn’t doing job trials because he knew he wouldn’t need them. When Ras said he was gonna do a thing, the thing happened. Sometimes Kip was jealous of that. He wished he could be more like Ras. Ras always knew what to say, what to do, what was happening. Kip was real glad they were friends, but sometimes he didn’t know what Ras got out of the arrangement.

‘Hey, M Aksoy,’ Ras called out. The grocery seller was walking past them, followed by an autocart carrying . . . ? ‘What is that?’

M Aksoy turned his head, gestured at the cart to stop, and waved them toward him. ‘Come on and see.’

Kip and Ras ambled over. Among the recognisable boxes – mek powder, root sugar, bottles of kick – there were three plex tanks full of water, like jellyfish tanks. But whatever was inside wasn’t jellyfish, no way. They were long and wispy, covered in soft spines. They shivered their way through the water.

‘Special order from the Archives,’ M Aksoy said.

‘Are they pets or something?’ Ras asked. ‘Some kind of science thing?’

‘Nope,’ M Aksoy said. ‘They’re called—’

‘Pokpok,’ Kip said, saying the word before he realised he knew it.

Ras turned his head. ‘The hell’d you know that?’

Kip had no idea. Something from when he was little? Like something in a learning sim, or a Linking book, or . . . he couldn’t say. He’d been a dork about that kind of stuff as a kid, and it had been a long time since that was his thing. But wherever pokpok had come from, the dusty old memory remained active. He could feel Ras looking at him, though, so he just shrugged and didn’t say anything about the bit where he was pretty sure the swimming things were Harmagian food. Ras was real smart, and Kip didn’t want to look stupid by saying something wrong.

‘You’re right, pokpok,’ M Aksoy said. ‘M Itoh has a Harmagian guest arriving today. These, apparently, are one of their favourite things to eat.’

Kip watched the pokpok wriggle around the tank, looking like spiky snot brought to life. He felt his nose pull into itself.

Ras mirrored his expression. ‘Do they fry them or—’

The grocer’s eyes crinkled at the edges. ‘You know, I don’t know if they cook them at all.’

Kip groaned with disgust. Ras looked at him. ‘Give you twenty creds if you eat one.’

‘You don’t have twenty creds.’

The grocer laughed. ‘One of these’d cost you well more than twenty creds, and they’re not for you anyway. But here.’ He reached into one of the crates on the cart, and pulled out two snack bags. ‘Free sample, all the way from the independent colonies.’