“Of course I’m right,” said Falconi.

With newfound enthusiasm, Trig scraped the rest of his food into his mouth, chewed, and swallowed. “I’m going to regret that,” he said, smiling as he got to his feet.

“Don’t hurt yourself,” said Hwa-jung.

“Go on, eat the whole thing this time,” called Sparrow.

“Video! Take video,” said Falconi.

“Just make sure you wash afterward.” Nielsen grimaced slightly.

“Yes, ma’am.”

Confused, Kira looked between them. “A religious experience?”

Falconi picked up his plate and carried it to the sink. “Trig has an uncommon love of hot peppers. While back, he picked up a Black Nova off a wirehead on Eidolon.”

“I take it a Black Nova is a kind of pepper.”

Trig bounced on his heels. “Hottest one in the galaxy!”

“It’s so hot,” said Sparrow, “they say you’ll see the face of god if you’re idiot enough to eat one. That or you pass out and die.”

“Hey now,” Trig protested. “It’s not that bad.”

“Ha!”

“Have you tried it?” Kira asked Falconi.

He shook his head. “I prefer not to wreck my stomach.”

She eyed Trig. “So why do you like it so much?”

“Well, uh, if you don’t have enough food, hot sauce really helps, you know? Cuts the hunger. That’s what got me into peppers. That and I kinda like the challenge. Gives me a sense of control. It doesn’t even hurt after a while, and you just feel like, whee!” Trig rolled his head, as if dizzy.

“Helps with hunger, huh?” Kira was starting to understand.

“Yeah.” Trig took his dishes to the sink and then hurried out of the galley. “Wish me luck!”

Kira took a sip of her chell. “Should we wait?” she asked, looking at the others.

Falconi activated the holo-display on his table. “If you want.”

“A while back, Trig mentioned there were food shortages on Undset Station.…”

A frown settled onto Sparrow’s sharp face. “If that’s what you want to call it. Royal fuckup is more like it.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah. Way I understand it, the sublight transport that was supposed to resupply Undset from Cygni A broke down, went off course. No big deal, right? The station had a hydro bay plus plenty of extra food stockpiled. Only problem was—”

“Only problem was,” said Falconi, looking over the gleaming holo, “the quartermaster had been cutting corners, pocketing the difference. Less than a third of the food was actually there. And most of it was rotten. Faulty seals or something.”

Kira winced. “Oh shit.”

“You can say that again. By the time they realized how bad the situation was, the station was nearly out of food, and the replacement tug was still a few weeks out.”

“Weeks? Why so long? Cygni B isn’t that far from A.”

“Bureaucracy, time it took to gather the supplies, prep a ship, et cetera. Apparently they didn’t have any FTL transports set up at the time so they had to do it sublight. It was a whole collection of screwups.”