Tarraquil was all ocean, and the cities either floated on it or perched on silver spiderwebs spun between monstrously large pillars. The sky had been uncanny, but the raft city had a give underfoot that was comforting and somehow reminiscent of being in space. She’d surprised her lover with the ease with which she took to life there, and they’d spent almost a month, eating and fishing and fucking and visiting with parents, cousins, siblings, aunts, uncles, and countless other degrees of relatives.

That lover died the following year in one of the interminable skirmishes that had made up the campaign for the Hive Mind to take Crispine, a tiny moon mainly notable for its rich supplies of deliriterium. Niko still had a holo of her.

The thing that had impressed Niko most about Tarraquil was the birds. They were like ships in the sky. They moved the way ships did—to a point, because wings moving was something most ships did not have. Birds seemed so free they’d made her heart ache watching.

She remembered a sunset on Tarraquil, birds gliding over the water, her lover’s fingers laced through hers, dreaming they’d escape the Holy Hive Mind, go back to the lives both had come from before tariffs and fees imposed by a Holy Hive Mind port had forced them to enlist. She and Dabry had told the crew they pursued discharge in the name of freedom, but it was just another step in her ultimate plan. How far away was that end now? Closer, but not half close enough.

She’d wanted to name the restaurant Halcyon, after one of those birds, but had given way to the majority.

Now, perhaps, Lolola Montaigne d’Arcy deBurgh would make the restaurant fly, and put Niko a step further along. A profitable restaurant—you could build on that, if you were savvy with business. You might even at some point be able to start investing, maybe in a ship or two. And then maybe you could put together a real plan for the thing Niko had been working toward for so long.

Her old Free Trader coat was still in a cupboard in her office, which also served as her bedchamber. Niko claimed she’d chosen it for security purposes, leaving the suite adjoining the restaurant to the rest, except for Milly, who roomed elsewhere. But economic pressures were more to blame—if satisfying the need for security also happened to save her on rent, so be it. All her money went toward building this endeavor, this fragile chain of financial resources that would let her achieve a goal over three decades old now.

If everything went right. But in Niko’s experience, that was something rare.

3

She stalked back through the kitchen and into the storeroom, where Thorn was vacuuming the floor tiles while Talon finished straightening crates of napkins. They both saluted.