“Why do they fit there if they don’t fit elsewhere?”

“Because the Traders don’t give a damn what sort of life you practice, as long as it’s not hurting anyone else. Live and let live, that’s what they do. And they don’t go to battle. Threaten them and they simply move onward. They don’t have a home world. Every once in a while, some of the ships will join together and there’ll be a celebration. Once in a lifetime or so, or at least this is what Niko told me.”

He shook his head and set the bowl aside. He considered another bowl covered with paper, pulling it to him to sniff before he moved to wash his upper hands again. “You’ll always know a Free Trader when they come to port. They wear long coats, which button from the neck down to thigh, and look like pictures from some old pirate ship, but never the same color. Everyone is different. That’s what I remember from meeting Niko the first time, that ridiculous coat.”

“How did you and Niko meet?”

A wry face as he tasted a fingerpad’s worth of the gluey batter under the paper. “We were in training camp together. When they admit a batch of recruits, they go through a barrage of tests. They find the people capable of handling an entire unit when linked to them. Niko was one of those.”

“And you? You’re a sergeant, so you must be able to do that as well.”

Again, he shook his head. “Not for as many people, or as long, or even as closely. What I can do, though—the role that I was selected for—is to support her, give her energy. ‘Keep her from is being fearing failing,’ as Skidoo would put it, in her poetic way.”

His eyes were gentle. Atlanta thought with a touch of envy that she would have liked to have someone like that—always at her elbow, making sure she never failed. That she never doubted or was unsure of herself. And what did it take to be that sort of person, to put away your own well-being and sacrifice it to another being’s welfare? It must have been a deep relationship. There had to be something he got out of it in return, else when they retired, surely he and Niko would have parted ways.

She asked as he coaxed the batter into small white cups, “Will you always stick with her?”

He said, “That’s a very personal question, Princess.”

She faltered, abashed.

He relented while he waited for hot water to fill a pot. “Are you asking if there are circumstances under which I would leave her? Aye, and I am sure that she could say the same. For what it’s worth, though, I do not believe that there are many.” He smiled at her and she felt comforted.