That had been Kalico’s work. The wily Supervisor purposely got the guy so intoxicated he couldn’t see straight. She’d figured it was the best way to ferret out Dek’s furtive goals, given that Board politics might have sent their dirty tendrils some thirty light-years across space. Turned out that Dek was just running away from home. No power play.

“He’s a Taglioni. Can’t let anything happen to him,” Kalico had said. “Can you keep an eye on him?”

Which meant Talina had taken him home. Put the guy in her bed and prayed he wouldn’t puke on her sheets.

The next morning she’d found the hungover wreck soaking in her shower. Having not had a man in her house since Cap, something had felt complete in her as she fed him breakfast, watched him devouring her tamales. Sure, he’d been soft meat, but something about the guy had been game. For days afterward, she’d caught his scent in the bedding, on the kitchen stool where he’d sat.

“Oh, Talina,” she told herself. “Even if he isn’t interested in Kalico, he’s still a Taglioni.”

9

The way Felix Schwantz saw it, the Pod was a miracle. He’d been born on Crew Deck in Ashanti. All he’d ever known was the crowded warren of rooms he had grown up in. He missed the old Maritime Unit ship’s quarters where people slept in beds that were built—one on top of another—into hollows in the walls. He and his mom and Yee had lived in a lower bunk, just up from the floor. All the families with kids had low bunks. It was that way so none of the little babies could accidentally fall and hurt themselves or be killed and have to go to hydroponics.

On Ashanti, Yee had taken Felix down to see what hydroponics was. He knew it was bad, that it was on Deck Four, which was beneath Deck Three where the cannibals lived. Cannibals ate people. Killed them, cut them into pieces, and cooked them. So, being even further down, those yuck-suck green tanks of goo were pretty horrifying.

A lot of babies had been born dead and had been dropped into the hydroponics chute. Some were called miscarriages and were really small and bloody. Others were what they called “closer to term,” and some, because of the mother’s health were something called “aborted.” When any of those things happened, it had been a sad time, with a lot of crying and people hugging each other. The old saying, “The child is in hydroponics now, it will be part of us all soon” was said over and over afterward.

The Pod had a hydroponics, too. But this one was different. It was just behind the kitchen where Bill Masters made the best food Felix had ever eaten.