‘Come on in,’ said a burly, bearded man, indicating two vacant spaces either side of him at the table. He had an open, friendly face. ‘We don’t bite. If you’ve already met Prozor, then you’ll find the rest of us a distinct improvement.’ He slid a tankard across the table, from a black hexagon to a white, lifted it, then pinched his lips around the drinking nozzle in its lid. ‘Mattice,’ he added, after a sip. ‘Opener to his imperial majesty Captain Rack. And a damn fine one if I say so myself.’

‘You do,’ said the woman next to him. ‘All the time.’

‘Whereas you’ve never been known to brag about your touch with the gubbins, Jusquerel.’

‘That’s not bragging, Mattice. You think this ships runs on moonbeams and puppies?’ She nodded at us. ‘Jusquerel. Integrator. Did Prozor show you the bridge?’

‘Not yet,’ I said.

‘I’ll show you later. I put the main sweeper in, and the squawk, and that secondary console over there. My job is getting one box of gubbins to talk to another, even when they weren’t even made by the same species. Anything on this ship works the way it was meant to, you can thank me for it.’

Jusquerel was an older woman with a strong jaw, a small upcurved nose, and very long hair, which she wore in a complicated braid, slung back over her shoulder so that it hung – or floated – down her chest, cutting diagonally across it. The braid was all threaded shades of silver-grey and bluish-white, as if it were spun from extremely fine metals. There was a poise to Jusquerel, an elegance to her posture that set her apart from the others.

‘Come and sit with us,’ Mattice repeated, patting one of the vacant chairs. ‘Here. Beer. Bread. Are they all so skinny in Hadramaw?’ He directed a reproachful look at Prozor. ‘I hope you haven’t scared the wits out of them.’

‘Someone needs to,’ Prozor said, unconcerned, taking her own seat at the table. She slid a metal box across the table, black hexagon to black hexagon, and eased open the lid, fishing around until she came out with a loaf of bread. ‘Any greener, they’d be foetuses.’

‘We were all green once,’ said a third member of the crew, as we took our places, one either side of Mattice. ‘None of us were born on a ship, out in space.’ He coughed, touched a hand to his throat. ‘Triglav. Ion systems. I’m the poor bastard who has to move this ship around when the sails won’t flap.’

Triglav was small, bald and unassuming. He had the sort of downcast face that was bound to look worried about something regardless of what kind of day he was having. ‘Cazaray thinks you might be our new Bone Readers. If Cazaray says it, it’s good enough for me.’