I had just finished spicing a pot of mashed, reconstituted potatoes when Hao burst in.

  “I know what it is – the smudge,” she said, grabbed a spoon off the counter and dipped it in the mash. She shoved it into her mouth, then started cursing.

  “It’s hot,” I said, belatedly. “You can tell by the steam rising from the pot.”

  I handed her a glass of water with bits of ice tinkling in it, a bit of lemon stuck to the rim. No need to skimp on the luxuries if they could become spoiled within a day. Or spoils.

  She drained half of it in a single gulp, sank down on one of the benches, and leaned against the pastel-green wall.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

  “It’s a graveyard,” she said.

  “A ship graveyard?”

  “No, a blueworm graveyard.” Hao scraped some mash off her plate and stuffed the spoon into her mouth. “Yes, a ship graveyard. This is good.”

  “Laced with diacetyl,” I said. “Gives it a nice, buttery flavor. A billion square kilometers of ship graveyard. That’d be…” I fell silent, counting.

  “At least ten thousand ships,” Hao said, grinning as my mouth fell open. “Anything else to eat?”

  “Protein patties are in the oven,” I said. “Two of them are real rat. Take what you want and leave me the rest on a plate. I’m going to see.”

  “Not much to see,” Hao said. “It’ll be an hour before we can make anything out with our current sensor array.”

  “In that case,” I said, taking a plate from the sonic washer and applying a generous helping of mash to it, “I’m staying.”

  The food was good. For a moment, I let myself imagine a world where I could eat a leisurely dinner with a friend, laughing and talking.

  It didn’t last.