“To the Prefects we’re all just happy little data points,” said a bulky woman to her left, snapping Rachel out of her introspections. The woman was the one who had made the “rust in piss” comment. She had billowy blond hair and a dominant air, and turned to Rachel with, “How you like living on Luna?”

“Let’s just say our bathroom is not a religious experience.”

A snort. “Let’s just say? Trainees and Hounds can’t choose.”

Rachel nodded grimly.

“Name’s Ruby,” the woman said, shooting out a hand. “I’m a Hound.”

Rachel shook; strong grip. “Rachel Cohen.”

The woman leaned near and chuckled, “Succulent,” maybe just the booze talking. “Some say I’m a reg’lar hound dog.”

Feeling uncomfortable, Rachel sought a simple topic. “How many people work in the Library?”

“About half.” Ruby gave a big, booming laugh.

Catkejen leaned in from Rachel’s right and whispered, “Smile and sling the slang and keep your lip zipped. Unless you’d like to kiss a likable somebody.”

This was going too fast for Rachel. Luckily a spindly woman came to the table, surveying them with authority, and they all fell silent. She smiled and barked out, “Greetings to the newbie, welcome, Rachel. I’m MeiLee. We’ll start with heirloom tomatoes, fresh from the agro lava tubes.”

So it was. Servers brought plates with big red slices on them, richly flavored with oil.

Rachel blinked. “There’s dirt on them.”

MeiLee said, “Yeah, our robo-scrubbers clean this place too damn much. Best to go farm-to-fork, direct. Good old-fashioned dirt with microbes galore helps your health, especially allergies. So we say, screw the robos. I engaged last night with a miner who played by percentages in a certain card game. Never bet on percentages; skill carries the day over time. I came out ahead and swept up his latest crop, grime as an extra spice.”

Rachel tasted one. “Delicious.” She could not keep her surprise out of the word.

The silver-haired guy leaned toward her and said, “See, dirt here’s salty, a good thing. Salt acts as a facilitator of ion transfers and, simply put, enables your taste buds to get the food signal at a higher volume than without the salt-based assistance.”

Not to be outdone, Ruby came in with, “Plus, the amount of salt matters. There are specific ratios of salt to water in your saliva where too much salt will activate some of the receptors you don’t want activated so much and give you a surge of bitter or sour reaction. If you’ve ever oversalted something, that’s what I’m talking about.”

Silver Hair flowed right back: “Salt’s just a volume knob for your food. At lowish doses, it boosts the signal on many of your sweet and savory receptors, but at too high a dose, you get feedback, and that’s when the ‘salty’ kicks in.”

Catkejen intervened. “Around here, as you can see, you can never be overdressed or overeducated.”

Soon enough the gang was taking up anagram challenges. Minds skipped playfully through language. Now that Rachel thought of it, that was somewhat the task of the Library: to sense the deeper realms of alien Messages. The silver-haired guy won with an instant solution to “phoneboxes,” snapping out, “Got it—‘xenophobes,’ my friends.”