He frowns, confused. Not called the trading docks, then. “Thing is, I left some stuff on the transport, things with a lot of sentimental value, from home, you know, things I really don’t want to lose. I need to catch the captain before they move on.” She scratches behind her ear, plays up the lilt of her accent. “I’d trace my steps back, but I got in the weeds, there’s so much station…”

“Are you looking for the transit jetties?”

“Yes. That. Sorry.”

A nod of understanding. “It’s a bit of a journey. We’re on the other end of the Capital. But don’t worry, there’s transport, and it’s free. Here, let me show you.” He moves his wrist, encircled with a silver band, toward Misery’s ear.

“Whoa.” Misery draws back. “What’s that?”

Momentary surprise melts into understanding, and a prying curiosity. “You don’t have an implant?”

“No,” she says. “I’m from Rootsdown.”

His returning frown exposes that he’s vaguely heard the name, but isn’t sure where that is. “It’s an outer colony,” she says. “The Black Hole Moon? Stonemining colony?”

“Ah.” Curiosity manifests as a hunger: Tell me what it’s like living in a true shithole. “You really are fresh from the gates, huh?”

Hunger looks ugly on Bear Foltzer. Misery sees the shape of his life laid out before her: a bright-eyed boy hoping to make a piece of himself at the center of all things, all excited by the prospect of glamour and in denial about his obvious place in the world. He thinks he’s better than her, more worldly.

People are so easy to read once you study them.

Still, she plays nice. “It’s my first time offplanet. Never knew a space station could get so big.” Which isn’t a lie.

He smiles, and his hunger shapeshifts. It’s not exactly predatory, but it’s become an eager, almost hopeful, sniffing. Misery is too practiced to roll her eyes, but she is tired by how predictable people are. “I know how it gets,” Bear Foltzer says. “Hang on.” A few seconds riffling under the counter and he reemerges with a thin bronze cylinder between his fingers. “We have physical maps. Some sects won’t get implants, for belief reasons.” He twists the cylinder and it wakes, projecting a fist-sized miniature of the Capital, perfectly rendered, glowing as it rotates. “Do you know how to use this?”

“I do.” She quickly lifts it from him as he turns it off, because she saw a hint that he was about to grab her hand as she reached for it. “Thank you, this will be very useful.”