Annoyed, she hit Accept. Falconi did the same, and everything on Kira’s overlays froze. “Okay,” she said.

Falconi nodded and picked up his cards.

Kira looked at her own cards. A two, an eight, and a jack: twenty-one. How many sevens did that make? Despite the math she’d done during FTL, multiplying and dividing numbers in her head still wasn’t easy. Addition it was. Seven plus seven is fourteen. Plus another seven is twenty-one. She smiled, pleased that she already had a score of three.

Then Falconi reached out and turned over the first of the four communal cards: an ace. “I’ll start the betting,” he said. Behind him, the Entropists deposited their empty meal wrappers in the trash and headed out of the galley.

“You dealt. Shouldn’t I?”

“Captain’s prerogative.” When she didn’t argue, he said, “Same question as before: What’s bothering you?”

Kira already had her own question ready: “How did you get those scars on your arms?” A hard expression settled on Falconi’s face. He hadn’t expected that from her, she could tell. Well, good. It served him right. “Call. Unless you think that’s a raise?” She asked in the same tone of challenge he had used before.

Falconi’s lips flattened into a thin line. “No. I think that counts as a call.” He turned over the next card. A five.

They were both silent as they checked their math. Kira still came up with the same figure: twenty-one. Was that a good hand? She wasn’t sure. If not, her only chance of winning would be to ask another question, one that might make Falconi fold.

Nielsen and Vishal were drying their hands after finishing the dishes. The first officer walked over—her steps painfully slow in the high-g—and touched Falconi on the shoulder. “I’m going back to Control. I’ll keep an eye on things from there.”

He nodded. “Okay. I’ll relieve you in, say, an hour.”

She patted him and moved on. As she left the galley, she turned and said, “Don’t bet anything too valuable, Kira.”

“He’ll steal the tongue right out of your mouth,” Vishal added, following after.

And then it was just the two of them in the galley.

“Well?” said Kira.

Falconi turned over the third card. Nine.

Kira tried to keep her lips from moving as she did the sums. Keeping track of all the numbers wasn’t easy, and a few times she lost her place and had to start over again.

Thirty-five. That was the best she could come up with. Five sevens. A good sight better than what she’d had before. She started to feel as if there was a chance she might win the hand. Time to take some risks.

“I’m going to raise,” she said.

“Oh?” said Falconi.

“Yeah. How did you manage to buy the Wallfish?” The skin under his eyes tightened. She’d struck another nerve. Good. If she was going to tell him about the nightmares, Kira didn’t want to be the only one sharing secrets. When Falconi still hadn’t responded after a few seconds, she said, “What’s it going to be? Fold, call, or raise?”