It was not that the Last Chance was the only restaurant aboard the station. Far from it. Almost every creature had to eat, in one form or another, and much of the station made its money pandering to that need on the part of both inhabitants and visitors. But TwiceFar, situated near three portals, had become more than a waypoint, more a city in itself, luring travelers who wanted to see the Midnight Stair and the food stalls that twisted around it, or visit the Edge, built of ships interwoven by tubes and walkways and conduits into its own strange structure, filled with the station’s artisans and entertainers, or simply to give themselves the experience of dozens of cultures and races without having to visit a single planet where, after all, things like climate or local fauna and flora were often uncontrolled.

An anonymous news tip had circulated on the station net two weeks ago, when the critic first booked travel here. Everyone had speculated whether she was coming to test the majority of the restaurants on the station, or a particular one. For a bestower of the Orb, the latter would be much more in keeping with their style, and Skidoo had zealously monitored both the efforts of their competition as well as the names on the reservation list.

When the reservation had been made, she hadn’t done what Niko would have expected, and told Niko. Instead, somewhat to Niko’s annoyance, she’d summoned the entire crew, announced the time of the meal, and suggested they had exactly ten days to refurbish the place. It had been freshly painted only a few months earlier, Niko pointed out, and that was when Gio had rolled out his plans for said redecoration, which were complete enough that it was clear he’d been thinking about them since the first rumors had appeared.

Niko didn’t mind humoring her crew, but she was worried that their expectations were unrealistic. There were better places aboard, she thought privately, or at least places that had longer, stronger traditions, like the Happy Neutron Pizza and Umpcha, which boasted that its teakettle had been in continuous operation for almost as long as Niko had been alive.

But Lolola had chosen this place. And here she was.

Lolola was in appearance human—and quite a memorable one, which surprised Niko, because several of the accounts Dabry had shown her identified the critic as someone who changed shape in order to be unseen and unobtrusive. Still, Niko reflected, perhaps it was a case of calling attention in such a way as to persuade anyone observing that this could not be an unobtrusive critic.