‘Oh, yes.’ Ouloo turned and pointed. Pei followed the line of her paw out past the dome and through the desert. ‘Tobet works at the Halfway Hotel. And there’s Sila over at the art walk – you can’t see the dome from here, but it’s a hop and skip away. Let’s see … I know of several Aeluons on the TA orbiter. One’s called Sen, she’s usually the one who renews my business licence. And, of course, there are lots of places here that mainly cater to you folks. There’s a city field on the other side of the planet. We do get a lot of you passing through.’

Pei mulled that over. She was hardly the only Aeluon stuck on Gora, but walking into a city field and chatting up random people with her predicament was the last solution she wanted. ‘Any of them in particular you know well?’ she asked. She worked to keep the tone of her talkbox light.

‘Tobet and I are quite friendly. She sent over that jenjen cake I had out when you all first got here—’

Pei tuned out everything that came after the female pronoun, because no matter how good her jenjen cake was, Tobet would be of no help to her. ‘I see,’ she said once Ouloo had finished. She paused, trying not to tip her hand too much. ‘What about men? Or shon?’

Ouloo thought about this. ‘Well, there’s Kopi at the tea garden. I don’t know—’ She paused, stumbling on something. ‘Shon don’t use neutrals, right? I don’t know what Kopi is right now, so I don’t know what to call – not xyr, but—’

Pei came to the rescue. ‘Shon only use neutrals when in the middle of a shift. Whichever gender Kopi was the last time you saw Kopi is the polite thing to use.’

‘Ah, thank you. I’ll remember that. In any case, I don’t know Kopi well at all, beyond running into him on the orbiter and at parties and whatnot, but he’s quite nice. A little buttoned up, but—’ She paused and rocked her neck. ‘Why do you ask?’

Pei shrugged and continued to paint. ‘Just curious. I—’

Whatever feint she was about to attempt died the second she felt a warm, fuzzy paw gently push up the edge of her jacket sleeve so as to reveal the bare skin underneath.

Ouloo held Pei’s arm, staring at the scales. ‘Oh, stars,’ she said in a hush. She stared a moment longer, then looked up at Pei with shining eyes. ‘Congratulations.’

ROVEG

He was so happy Speaker had joined him. He hadn’t been sure how she’d feel about his invitation – not because he could think of anything in it that would be poorly received, but because Speaker was still a stranger to him. Did meals and socialising mix well, for her? Was she the sort to go to the home of someone she barely knew for breakfast?

Apparently, she was.

As she walked through the airlock, she seemed markedly different than she had two days before, when she’d come in, scrib in hand, confidently asking him what it was he could do in a pinch. Today, there was no scrib, only the bundles of food he’d prepared for her, carefully tucked around both sides of her cockpit seat in an endearing way. She looked … not nervous, no. Shy. That was it. Speaker looked a touch shy, and even with his limited knowledge of her, that was not a trait he’d expected.

‘I’m delighted you’re here,’ he said, bowing his torso. ‘I was thinking we could eat in the projection room, if that’s all right by you?’

‘Oh,’ Speaker said. ‘Um, yes, that sounds fine.’

She followed him down the hallway, the clank of her mech suit providing a funny harmony to the familiar patter of his own legs. He had been ready for small talk, as she’d been pleasant company in the days before, but she was quiet now. Glancing back, he could see her studiously taking in the hallway, the architecture, the artwork on the walls. What did she make of it, he wondered. He thought of her weary shuttle parked next to his, and of what he’d known of her species before he met her, and of what he’d learned of them since. At this, he became self-conscious. Embarrassed, almost. He wondered if this was insulting to her in some way, if it came across like he was some wealthy bastard with more than he deserved. He knew he was a wealthy bastard, and he certainly didn’t deserve it any more than anybody else. These were facts, but he hoped she didn’t dislike him over it. He shuffled his abdominal plates, and told himself that however she felt was simply how she felt. He could do nothing about that, but what he could control was the embarrassment, which was antithetical to the point. He’d been taught that if one person had more than another, feeling guilty about it was the least productive reaction. The only proper way to approach such inequities was to figure out how best to wield them, so as to bring others up to where you stood. (This lesson was one of the better-known components of the Central Tenets; not everything in there was nonsense, and not all of it were things he’d felt the need to root out. Most, but not all.)

‘Well, here we are,’ he said, leading her into the projection room. The background he’d chosen for the occasion was a giant terraced fountain, with languid waves of water cascading slowly down its mossy sides. He’d wanted something that would serve as accompaniment, not distraction. His table in the middle was already set, laden with plates containing larger portions of the treats he’d packed for her. The meal was far more lacking in protein than he was accustomed to, and he was sure a bellyful of nothing but plants was going to call for a follow-up snack once she’d gone, but enjoying a meal with someone was as much about sharing an experience as it was about sharing space. ‘I’m very much looking forward to trying these things. They’re all ingredients I had aboard, of course, but I did some reading, and I prepared them in a way I hope will suit. I wasn’t wrong about them being safe for you, correct?’