“Yes! And some on my ship too!”

“Yes. The more backups the better.”

He bounces back and forth some more. “Erid will live! Earth will live! Everyone live!” He curls the claws of one hand into a ball and presses it against the xenonite. “Fist me!”

I push my knuckles against the xenonite. “It’s ‘fist-bump,’ but yeah.”

There has to be liquor somewhere. I can’t imagine Ilyukhina going on a suicide mission without insisting on some booze. I can’t imagine her going across the street without some booze, honestly. And after looking through every box in the storage compartment, I finally find it—the personal kits.

The box has three zipped duffels. Each one is labeled with a crewman’s name. “Yáo,” “Ilyukhina,” and “DuBois.” I guess they never replaced DuBois’s personal kit, because I never got a chance to make mine.

Still a little mad about how that played out. But maybe I’ll get a chance to tell Stratt my feelings on the topic.

I pull the kits into the dormitory with me and Velcro them to the wall. Deeply personal belongings of three people who are now dead. Friends who are now dead.

I may have a somber moment later and spend some time looking at all these bags have to offer. But for now, this is a time of celebration. I want booze.

I open Ilyukhina’s bag. There are all sorts of random knickknacks inside. A pendant with some Russian writing on it, a worn old teddy bear she probably had as a kid, a kilogram of heroin, some of her favorite books, and there we are! Five 1-liter bags of clear liquid labeled водка.

It’s Russian for “vodka.” How do I know that? Because I spent months on an aircraft carrier with a bunch of crazy Russian scientists. I saw that word a lot.

I zip up her bag and leave it Velcroed to the wall. I fly through to the lab where Rocky waits in his tunnel.

“Found it!” I say.

“Good good!” His usual jumpsuit and tool-belt bandolier are nowhere to be seen. He has an outfit on I’ve never seen before.

“Well, well, well! What have we here?” I say.

He juts out his carapace with pride. It’s covered with a smooth cloth underlayment that supports symmetrical rigid shapes here and there. Almost like armor, but not as fully covering, and I don’t think they’re metal.

The top hole, where his vents are, is ringed with rough gems. Definitely jewelry of some kind. They’re faceted, similar to how Earth jewelry might be cut, but the quality is horrible. They’re blotchy and discolored. But they’re really big and I bet they sound great to sonar.

The sleeves leading off the shirt stop about halfway down his arms and are similarly ornamented at the cuffs. Each shoulder is connected to its neighbors by loose braided cords. And for the first time I’ve ever seen, he has gloves on. All five hands are covered in coarse, burlap-like material.