“You’re busy, I know that. What are you giving us?”

“Er… quick and hot, Quincy said, so we’re using the fresh stuff and making a crunchy sorga”—a Slotter Key favorite, fresh vegetables chopped into a spicy sauce—”with chicken slivers and rice. Nothing fancy.”

“Sounds good,” Ky said.

“Ten minutes, Captain,” Li said.

“Want to thank you again for taking us out of Sabine,” Skeldon said. His expression, a mix of gratitude and admiration, made Ky uneasy.

“Skeldon,” Li said; he reddened and said no more. Li went on, “We are grateful, Captain Vatta. We didn’t know how bad it was going to get, of course, but to get not only a ride out, but with Vatta…”

What did she think Vatta could do for her, when they had no communications and no FTL drive? Why was Vatta that special to her?

“We’ll do,” Ky said again, as she had to Lee, and again it seemed to be the right thing to say.

She left the good smells and warmth of the galley and headed for the environmental workspace. There she found Mitt and Ted, out of their pressure suits, both busy with handcomps running simulations.

“Dinner in ten minutes,” Ky said as she came in.

“The sim’s coming along,” Mitt said. “Luckily we’d recharged everything when we came in. We were running light-crewed, so four extra isn’t putting any strain on the main cycles at all. But I don’t know how many days we can squeeze out of it yet.”

“Well, don’t forget to eat,” Ky said. “Whatever we’d save by not eating today isn’t worth it. Tomorrow we can starve if we have to, but those perishables won’t do us any good anywhere but inside us.”

Ted laughed, and even Mitt grinned at her. “All right. But I should eat here.”

“No,” Ky said. “You shouldn’t. The new ones have put some effort into this, and we’re all going to eat together like civilized folk, even if it is cramped. Your sim will run without you.”

“It might finish—”

“And so you’ll see it after supper, when you can’t interfere with dessert.”

“Dessert!” He looked shocked. “They aren’t wasting essential supplies on dessert, are they?”

“I have no idea,” Ky said. “But surely one dessert won’t unbalance everything? And if you think it does, we can always pull out my Aunt Grace’s fruitcake.”

“No, we should save that for emergencies,” Mitt said.

If this wasn’t an emergency, what was? Ky didn’t want to think of the emergency that would require them to survive on three ofAunt Gracie Lane’s fruitcakes.

“Less than ten minutes, now,” she said.

From environmental to engineering was a short walk and a single climb. Quincy and her juniors, also out of pressure suits, were poring over diagrams, schematics, holograms; a display board was covered with their lists.

“Dinner in seven minutes, troops,” Ky said, and then wondered where she’d gotten the “troops” from. But they looked up at her with such confidence that her heart turned over. “In the crew rec area,” she said, to forestall the same protest about leaving the area that she saw inQuincy’s eyes.

“It leaves sections uncovered,”Quincysaid.

“You’re all linked in,” Ky said. “As I am. And seconds from active control boards. We eat together.” She glanced at the chronometer. “Less than seven minutes, and it smelled good. At least one of our newbies can cook.”

“All right,”Quincysaid, with a quick shake of her head. “We’ll be there.”

Gary Tobai and his cargo crew didn’t argue at all, but headed for the crew rec area—by then it was five minutes to dinner, if the newbies had their timing right. And if they didn’t, a minute or two wouldn’t matter.

Ky followed the cargo crew up the passage, then went on as they peeled off into the loos. She went back through the galley, where the smell was even better than before.

“They’re starting to gather,” she said. “We’ll eat in the rec area. There’s just room. I’ll be back in a minute or two.”

Forward to her cabin—a quick touch to her hair again—and then to the bridge.

“Riel, you’re linked, right?”

“Of course, Captain.”

“Well, then—come to dinner. We can race each other to the bridge if we need to, but we all need to see one another’s faces right now.”

“But leaving the bridge—”

“The log’s running, Riel. If something goes wrong, it’s my neck and not yours. It’s not a suggestion.”

“Yes, Captain.”

“And get the rest of the way out of that suit,” Ky said. “You might as well be comfortable for dinner.”

A line from an ancient text, many thousands of years old, came to her; they had studiedOld Worldmilitary history one term. The Spartans, the night before the Persians attacked the pass, had eaten well.

“Yes, Captain.” He stood up,stripped off the pressure suit, and put it away, meticulously checking every readout and connection. Ky didn’t hurry him; she used the time to check her implant’s linkage to every compartment for the fiftieth time, and look again at the longscan display. The warships had moved, of course—they would not sit there to be targets in case Sabine Prime had weapons they didn’t know about. A sprinkling of Prime’s little cutters lit up the screen in no particular formation that Ky could recognize; most were coasting. The afterglow of the ansible explosions had changed shape and color as the debris spread and cooled.

“Ready, Captain,” Riel said finally. Ky queried their mutual linkage—live and clear.

“Fine, then,” Ky said, and led the way off the bridge. That was unorthodox; that was, if anyone complained, illegal. Someone was supposed to be on the bridge at all times. Linkages could fail. But the most important linkage was human, heart-to-heart, and for that they needed one another. Ky stopped by her cabin just long enough to pick up the little candlepair her mother had insisted on including. Supposedly it had been patterned after one fromOld World, a pair of candleholders in a single-footed stand.

The rec area tables had been shoved together, and someone had found or improvised an actual tablecloth and set the rather uneven-looking table with Glennys Jones’ best china—the familiar red-and-blue-lined Vatta pattern, with a little red sailing vessel in the center and the ship’s name underneath. Ky set the candlepair in the center. Of course no one lit open flames on a ship, but the safelights set on medium flicker were lovely enough.

Her crew crowded around the tables. Those who had found seats stood up; Ky looked at each face, and tried to think of something to say. Before the silence became too awkward, she said, “We can’t let it get cold; it smells too good,” and sat down. There was a surprised chuckle, and the others also sat.

“What are we going to do about—,” began Beeah Chok, through a mouthful of sorga.

Ky held up her hand. “No business at dinner. Not this dinner anyway. Our new crewmembers have cooked us a good one, and I want to enjoy it. So when they’ve had a chance to eat a little, we can get to know them better.”

“Seth has a wicked sense of humor,” Mitt said. “I can tell you that much.”

Ky nodded, and worked her way through the excellent sorga—realizing that she had completely missed whatever meal should have preceded it, in her dash to get off the planet and then off the station. The others ate more slowly, and the talk picked up around her.

Seth was explaining that his sense of humor had come from his grandfather Jandrai, not his grandfather Garlan. Lucin Li countered with a story about her grandfather Li, a custom knifemaker.

“Chanhodri Li?” asked Gary Tobai.

“Yes,” Lucin said. “You’ve heard of him?”

“I have one of his knives. Fine piece of work. Inherited it from my dad, who got it from your grandfather. Small universe, eh?”

“May I see it?” Lucin asked.

“The knife? Sure.”Garyfished in his pocket and brought it out. Ky looked at it—a small black-handled folding knife. It looked smoothed by time, well-cared for, but nothing unusual.