She put her elbows on the table. “We could chase ingredients. Take on a big lot of them—the Thing has plenty of cargo space. Make each special ingredient the center of its own restaurant. Get a batch of oilpearls on Baal, for example, and serve Baalian potash at one. Then Nigelian fronds—remember when we got some of those, Dabry?—and use them to put together something with a Trokash feast day feel. You get the picture.”

Dabry looked thoughtful. “We could search out some things I’ve only heard of,” he said. His fingers flexed as though imagining stirring, measuring, spooning. Cooking.

Skidoo’s flesh brightened even further, happy stripes of purple and crimson. “Lots of travel, lots of new people to is being meeting,” she said.

Milly said, “Suits me well enough.”

Lassite nodded in silent approval.

Gio signed, “You know I plan on sticking around. Gotta keep an eye on that one.” He pointed a long finger at Talon, who looked surprised.

“Well?” Niko said to him.

“Well, what?” Talon said, looking puzzled.

“Is this a plan you’ll enlist with?”

“Oh! Of course! Of course, Captain. Why would we…?” He faltered, then started again. “Why would I go away from you? Where would I go?”

To make a home and family of your own, she thought. As your mother would have wanted, if she’d been able to raise you the way she had been raised. But that was a plan for another day. She looked to Lassite, who simply nodded at her, and then to Atlanta. “Princess?”

“You can all stop calling me that anytime you like,” Atlanta said.

The ship thought excitement. The ship thought anticipation. The ship thought hope.

Dabry drew Niko aside after they’d seen Takraven off the ship. “Sir? I’ve got something for you.”

She tilted her head. “Another crate containing an Imperial Heir that will send us off on a wild goose chase across the universe?”

“Nothing like that.”

She followed him to his chamber. He took a package wrapped in ordinary white plastic from the shelf, shoebox sized but a little wider and flatter. He handed it to her.

She turned it over, examining it and finding no label or other signs of its contents. She said, “What is this? It’s not my birthday. There’s no occasion that we are marking now.”

“Perhaps there will be in the future,” he said. “Open it.”

The fabric inside was purple. She held it up and the garment unfolded itself. The buttons were emblazoned with the Thing’s sigil. She swallowed hard against the lump that had grown in her throat. It seemed enormous, fist sized.

“Last tore your other one,” Dabry said, “and it was pretty threadbare to start with. I had this made on Montmurray. We almost didn’t have enough time for me to go pick it up.”

“Thank you,” she managed.

“Put it on.”