“Hm?” answered Commander-Healer Paolim, good-naturedly. “You called?” He was sorting through vials in his carry bag, clearly eager to slurp back to his shipboard lab and analyze samples of native life. “You all really should come on up,” he urged Fu Tichi and Sully and Lorg, in a tone that I imagine spiders use with flies.

I sidled next to Ohm, who wore a worried expression.

“You’ve noticed it too, Captain?”

“Something’s not right, Adviser.” He nodded his head toward the security team. “I don’t know any of these guys.”

“Yeah,” I murmured. “Me neither. On the other hand, we did take on about fifty new crew, back at Nebula Base Twelve.”

“Hm, that may be it. But still… there’s something about them…”

A mutter of low, demmie semi-curses rustled behind us, where both Nuts and Guts were staring into the receiving compartment, blinking rapidly in surprise.

“Captain!” said Commander-Artificer Nomlin. “You had better come and see—”

There came a low gurgling sound as the last liters of solvent fluid flushed out of the chamber into holding pots. A chime announced the opening of the compartment’s big door, accompanied by a loud hiss… and out stepped the latest batch of arrivals, freshly slurried-down from the Clever Gamble. Half a dozen more crewmates – and this time led by someone we recognized.

“Talon,” Ohm breathed. But not without a ragged edge to his voice.

The officer was as handsome as ever, tall (for a demmie) and rangy. Only now the rich, black follicles of his mane looked faded. Deep creases and age-freckles lined the periphery of his eyes and mouth… and a long-healed scar now ran across half his brow, all the way to one ear.

Commander Talon looked at least twenty years older. Maybe more!

“Captain Ohm,” he said, saluting, though his voice carried a complex mixture of undertones, like someone who had been both dreading and looking forward to an event, for much too long. “So it worked, after all. I am… we are all so glad to see you.”

Behind Talon, I saw a senior demmie woman who looked at me with knowing wonder, as if re-encountering a favorite memory.

“Ensign Nota Taken,” I said, then discerned two comets on her collar. “I mean Lieutenant Commander. Congratulations, then. And is that Frieder behind you?”

“I greet you, sirs.” He gave a crisp Earthling-style bow to Ohm and then to me, while formally biting his thumb. My advisor-apprentice, a young lieutenant when I saw him last, about a month ago, fresh from Earth’s Academy, then a callow youth, was now – by all appearances – as old as I was.

This universe will hurl surprises at you and the trick is to roll with them. One must be quick on the uptake, and try never to seem at a loss.

“I assume you’ve given good advice to these commanders, in my absence?” I asked.

“I have tried, sir.”

“He has,” Talon confirmed.