‘On shore leave. We just finished a … a big job—’ she was definitely not discussing the details of that, even though she could see them plain as day every time she shut her outer eyelids ‘—so now we get a break. Everybody’s off in different directions for a while, then we’ll get back together and head on to the next.’

‘Where are you going?’

‘To visit a friend.’

‘Where’s your friend live?’

‘On a ship. He’s a spacer.’

‘Aren’t you a spacer?’

‘Yes.’

‘So …’ Tupo looked unimpressed. ‘For your vacation, you’re going to a different ship.’

‘I mean, vacation’s about the company, right?’

Tupo was not convinced. ‘What kind of ship?’

Stars, but the kid didn’t stop once you got some sugar in xyr. ‘Mixed. My friend is Human.’

Tupo let out a fizzing chuckle. ‘Humans look so funny.’

‘What?’ Pei said. ‘Why?’

‘I dunno, they’re just funny. They have furry heads and nothing else.’

‘They have fur all over,’ Pei said. ‘It just grows really, really thin in most places.’

‘Yeah,’ Tupo said. ‘Like babies.’

Pei laughed at that, her face flushing green. ‘I don’t know,’ she said in friendly disagreement. She took a thoughtful bite of her pudding, letting it spread across her tongue, savouring the sugar as it melted slowly. A few private notes of fond blue bloomed here and there. ‘I think some of them look nice.’

A different shade of blue appeared down the path leading back to the Five-Hop’s main buildings, and Pei noted it with interest. Ouloo was giving the grand tour to a Quelin, whose ship had presumably been the one that landed before the pudding arrived. His bold cobalt exoskeleton glinted in the sunlight, but there were no other colours visible on his shell, none of the embedded jewellery his kind commonly wore. Pei could see the dull scarring where the gems had been forcibly pried loose, the harsh lines carved through formerly intricate etchings detailing his class and lineage. An exile, barred from home. The only individuals you really saw outside of their territory. She pressed her tongue against the back of her teeth with quiet pity. The Quelin Protectorate were a real bunch of bastards.

‘You get all sorts here, huh?’ she said to Tupo as she watched Ouloo excitedly showing the Quelin around. He seemed particularly interested in one of the flowering hedges, and bowed the vertical half of his body low to inspect it closer.

‘We’ve had Quelin before,’ Tupo said, looking forlornly at xyr empty bowl. ‘Not a lot, but sometimes. Never had an Akarak, though. My mom won’t let me go talk to her alone.’ This fact made Tupo look even glummer than the lack of dessert did.

Her, Pei noted. She had no idea how Akaraks defined gender, so she had to follow the child’s lead. ‘Did your mom say why you can’t?’ she asked carefully. She really wanted to know what the Akarak’s deal was.

‘No,’ Tupo said. ‘Just that I can’t.’ Xe reached over to the cart and took another bowl of pudding. ‘Is it true they’re all pirates?’

Pei paused, because of course they weren’t, but that was the exact same knee-jerk thought she’d had when she’d caught her first glimpse of the mech suit. ‘No,’ she said. An Akarak was just an Akarak. Yellow could just be yellow. Reflexes could make you stupid.

This answer yet again disappointed Tupo, but xe looked unsurprised. ‘She didn’t have any guns, so she’s probably not a pirate.’

‘Your mom’s pretty serious about locking up weapons, huh?’ Pei said.

‘Yeah,’ Tupo said, swallowing xyr mouthful of dessert with the same vigour as all previous ones. ‘She doesn’t like guns at all.’

‘My friend’s the same way.’

‘Your Human friend?’

‘Yeah,’ Pei said. ‘He’ll probably make me leave mine on my shuttle.’ Which was fair, even if she didn’t like it. His house, after all.

‘Why do Humans—’ Tupo stopped talking with a jolt. Xyr eyes grew huge.

‘Bite your tongue?’ Pei asked. The talkbox had delivered the question teasingly, but as soon as the words left it, Pei realised the kid wasn’t looking at her. Xe was looking up.

‘What’s that?’ Tupo shouted.

Pei followed Tupo’s gaze, and turned toward the horizon. Her cheeks flooded with colour, her blood with adrenaline.

‘Captain Tem, what—’

‘Stay here,’ she said, getting quickly to her feet. ‘I’m gonna—’

‘What is it?!’

‘I don’t know,’ she said. Her first instinct was to reach for her gun, but of course, she didn’t have it. She took a step forward, in between Tupo and the sight that was making xyr freak out, trying to understand what she was seeing.

Far above the dome, way up at the edge of the sky, something in the atmosphere was burning.

SPEAKER

Looking upward in a mech suit was difficult. The cockpit window allowed Speaker some degree of peripheral vision, but swinging her view properly up required manoeuvring the suit so that it would tip her seated body backward. She wouldn’t have thought to do this if she hadn’t glanced up from the engine compatibility specs she’d been reading and seen the aliens in the garden pointing and shouting.