For those planning a culinary tour through space, Kithari stations are a no-brainer place to start… provided you’re willing to forgo meat. As hard as it is for us omnivorous primates to believe, the Kithari’s fierce demeanors and large toothy mouths have nothing to do with a desire to eat us. While they’re mad for foods that grow – and also enjoy some animal foods such as dairy and honey – they’re uniformly uninterested in meat and tend to watch humans devouring the flesh of other beings with a kind of fascinated horror.

Meat can also be hard to come by on Ex-Earthen stations, though in this case it’s not due to ethical or biological reasons – it’s simple practicality, since producing meat takes more resources than growing beans or farming algae. Exies often resort to using meat more as a seasoning than a main course, making sausages with large amounts of vegetable-based filler or cooking soy patties or beans with a bit of lard for flavor.

So while Doner Kebab remains a popular food in space, most skewers are built out of a combination of imitation meats, thin layers of broad, frilly mushrooms grown specially for the purpose, and just enough real meat to give it the right flavor. The combination is surprisingly delicious, especially when caramelized in smoky Vacta butter and served with this tangy pinberry sauce.

-the Interstellar Love of Cooking, Volume One

* * *

“So there’s a problem?” I asked, and Dove gave me a mournful look and dropped her hand from my face as the door opened and a plump older woman with rosy cheeks bustled in carrying a blanket and yelling over her shoulder for someone named Majdi to hurry up. She tossed the blanket at me, then unbolted the side door and peeked outside.

“Wrap him up,” she told me. “Majdi will take him to the clinic, and then you have to leave. We’ll take care of the Elik, don’t worry about him.”

Emiliano had followed her in, and I saw the way his face fell at the woman’s words. “They’re with me, Faiza,” he told her as Dove helped me fold the Elik into the blanket.

I looked up, startled at his words, and caught him watching me with the strangest look. It was fear, hope, and exhilaration all wrapped up in one messy bundle. “We’re together,” he added, more firmly this time, “and I vouch for them. Won’t you let us stay till ISUF leaves?”

Faiza gave Emiliano a pitying glance and pointed a finger directly at me. “A protestor caught that one on video,” she told him. “You can stay, but she has to go. They’re looking for her, and you know we can’t afford that kind of attention.”

“I understand,” Emiliano agreed, sounding deflated. There was a knock at the outer door and a man with a fluffy beard and a broad smile stuck his face in and pointed over his shoulder. “Bike’s ready,” he told us. “Bring him.”

We loaded the Elik into the trailer of a delivery trike that sat outside, kebab king in bright orange script across the sides, barely fitting him inside by arranging him in a sort of fetal position. His huge golden eyes blinked open as I tucked the blanket around his head and he reached out to grip my wrist.

“Ku-loki,” he told me in a raspy voice. “Ku-loki denayen ni?”

I fumbled urgently with my combox, but our host was already trying to pull me away, hissing that someone might recognize me. All I could do was place my hand on the Elik’s chest and smile, hoping some things transcended language.

“They’ll take care of you,” I promised, praying I wasn’t wrong to trust these strangers. Faiza pried me away, then folded the blanket securely around him before closing the compartment.

“See you later,” Majdi bellowed cheerfully, waving as he walked the trike to the road.

Faiza hurried the rest of us inside, then giggled as she hastily made me over, slicking my hair back and pulling out a make-up pouch to give me heavy winged eye liner and pink lips. The final touch was a long floral gown – pulled on right over my jeans and t-shirt – and a headscarf. She held me out at arm’s length to inspect her work when she finished.

“You’re a new woman,” she told me with a smile, and waved away my offer of payment for the clothes with an almost offended look, saying that it was the least she could do for the Repentant. I glanced at Emiliano, wondering, but he simply held out his arm like an old-fashioned gentleman and asked if I was ready to go.

“Go on,” Dove told me as I took his arm, and she reached out to touch my shoulder with a fleeting press of her fingers. Even that slight touch sent a shiver through me, and I knew I was gazing at her with undisguised longing but couldn’t seem to stop. “I’ll scout ahead, and if either of us gets caught the other can go for help.”

I grimaced, hating the idea of splitting up. “You can’t get caught. Who would I go to for help?”

“Ahn,” Dove answered readily. “She’s smart, she likes you, and she knows people. And once you contact the guild, they’ll send someone to bail me out.”

“I know people too,” Emiliano reassured me, and he gestured at the door. “Faiza needs us out of here, now.”

I nodded and with an effort, gave Dove what I hoped was a reassuring smile before turning away. Emiliano and I walked right out of the front door like customers while she slipped out the side and scouted ahead, staying far enough away to avoid being tagged as part of our group. Emiliano carried the bag of sandwiches that Faiza had pressed on us, swinging it gently back and forth as we walked slowly along, trying our best to appear calm and unhurried despite the shrill sirens that filled the air.

“We’re just a brother and sister picking up breakfast,” he told me conversationally as I tensed at the sight of men in uniform, heavily armed and questioning a young woman who stood next to a coffee cart. They watched us pass without comment, eyes skating over me and hardly bothering to focus.

“Clothes are amazing,” I breathed in wonder, and sent a silent thank you to Faiza for saving my hide.

“They run a safehouse for debtors on the run, so they’ve got a stash of things to use as disguises,” Emiliano told me as we turned onto a side road that would bring us to the hotel by a different route than the one Dove and I had taken earlier. “I’ve sent people to them for years. That’s why they couldn’t let you stay – they’d have to shut down the whole operation if ISUF got suspicious,” he explained.

I shook my head and assured him they’d done more than enough. “You sent people to them?” I asked, something not quite adding up. According to his contract he’d been a debtor for the better part of two decades – if he had that much knowledge about how to escape, why hadn’t he?

He nodded. “I’ve helped over thirty debtors escape,” he told me, and when I turned to him he was smiling. “Majdi was one of the first, though that wasn’t his name then. He and Faiza are old friends.”

I stared at him as we entered the tunnel that would take us to the hotel quarter. I saw Dove at the far end, framed by the dome’s bright lights as she paused to look back for us. “I didn’t free you,” I whispered. “You could have freed yourself any time you pleased. So why –?”

Emiliano stopped abruptly and I turned to face him. His long face was serious as he met my gaze. “Why am I coming with you now?” he asked, “or why did I stay for so long?”

I nodded, because they were both good questions. “And why did you say you were there for revenge?”

“You did free me,” he answered. “You were my sign, remember? I might not feel ready, but you’re too obvious a message for me to ignore. My service is done, and it’s time to move on. And the revenge?” He sighed. “My father is Andrew Morgan.”

I shrugged. “My father is Samir Hariri,” I answered. “Am I supposed to know who Andrew Morgan is?”

Emiliano chuckled and patted my arm. “Such a tender Earthie,” he remarked obnoxiously. “Young and sweet as soft spring grass. Andrew Morgan is – was – the father of Exy slavery, Rose. He’s the banker who made debt-bondage into an institution. You’re not the only one with family skeletons.”

I gaped at him. How did the son of someone like that wind up as a debtor on the Diamond Kiss? The question must have been painted on my face, because he answered without being prompted.

“My father and I had a lot of problems, but slavery? That was the final straw. I learned what I could from the debtor underground, and then I sold myself,” he told me. “It was a game we played for years, to see how long I could stay out of his grasp before he’d find me, buy my contract, and bring me home. Until finally he died, and whoever took over the business – probably my little sister – decided they were better off without me. I’ve been on the Kiss ever since.”

“And now you’re coming with me?” I asked. He still hadn’t answered that question, but there was something in how he’d claimed us at Kebab King that made me think he’d come to a decision.

He tugged his arm out from mine, then held out a hand instead. “Earth sent you,” he told me as I, more than a little bemused, laid my hand in his. His fingers, warm and callused, curled gently around mine. Distantly I wondered if Dove was still waiting at the end of the tunnel, and what she would think of our cozy tête-à-tête if she could see us now. “And perhaps she sent me to you, too. I’d like to come with you, help you, get to know you. Maybe it’ll only be for a few weeks, or maybe –” he paused and looked down at our joined hands, and when he continued he sounded almost shy. “Maybe we’ll adopt each other for real.”

There was embarrassed hope in his eyes, and that familiar half-smile on his lips, and for a moment when I looked down reality blurred and his rough, brown hands became Michael’s pale, freckled ones. I blinked rapidly and he was Emiliano again, had always been Emiliano, because Michael was gone and I was an emotional mess who didn’t know how to move on or let myself make new friends.

“Dove, too?” I asked. “We’re a package deal.”

He nodded. “Of course. But she already made it clear I’m welcome, and I think she’ll agree that if you’re going up against Evelyn Rossi you need allies. I promise to do everything I can to help, and to keep the two of you safe.”

I clenched his hand, oddly touched, then grinned as inspiration struck. “And I promise that while we’re together, you won’t have to eat that rehydrated mush they called food on the Diamond Kiss. I’d like to promise to keep us safe, too, but we both know it’s more likely I’ll get us into trouble.”

Emiliano’s surprised laughter echoed through the tunnel as we continued on, and I added a private promise to the one I’d said aloud. I would, I decided, make him laugh so often that he’d no longer be startled by his own capacity for joy.

* * *

Dove and I didn’t have a chance to continue our conversation until late that night, and by the time Emiliano retired to his own room an unnamed fear was growing inside me, an uncertainty born of her sudden reticence to touch me even in passing and the blankness of her face as she watched me with our new companion.

“You said there was a problem,” I observed, skipping right past the preliminaries as she settled onto her bed and began rubbing lotion into her skin, a nightly ritual that I’d always found more than a little distracting since it made her look and smell amazing. “Will you tell me what it is?”

She blinked, and suddenly I knew what had changed. She’d put her wall back up, the one she’d begun to dismantle after I first told her about Michael.

“I can’t,” she told me, gazing fixedly at her hands. “I’m sorry, Rose, but I think we moved too far, too fast. We should stick to business for now. Can you do that?”

I stared at her, thinking of the ways she’d pushed at the edges of our relationship, all the chances she’d passed up to keep things businesslike. I hadn’t been this excited about someone in years – a decade, maybe – but here she was, coolly announcing that we’d made a mistake and should just turn back the clock. For the briefest of moments I hated her calm face, her steady voice, the wall she was so good at hiding behind, but then I saw the flicker of fear in her eyes and my anger faded away.

“Are you saying I shouldn’t have kissed you?” I asked, remembering her mouth opening for me, the fierceness of her hands in my hair, the way she’d fitted her body to mine. It didn’t add up, but if I’d read her wrong then I'd seriously screwed up. “I’m really sorry,” I stammered. “I should have asked first, I thought… you wanted to. It won’t happen again.”

She shivered, her eyes darting up to my face, and shook her head. “More,” she whispered, “Pretty sure I want you more. You have nothing to be sorry for, Rose – I’ve wanted to kiss you for ages.”

“So why?” I asked, and I slapped my hand over my mouth to keep myself from saying anything else because the desperation in my own voice was too embarrassing. I wasn’t some teenager, to be destroyed by a simple break-up. And this wasn’t even a break-up, because we hadn’t even truly started anything yet.

It felt like one, though. And marooned in space with no one to rely on except for Dove and a strange ex-debtor who I barely knew, I felt as vulnerable as any teenager.

“—I can’t, not yet,” I heard, and realized Dove was talking and I’d been so stuck in my head that I’d missed part of what she’d said. “It’s not that I don’t want to, but – can you give me some time? I don’t want to hurt you.”

You already have, I thought, and she must have seen it in my eyes because her face turned to stone. And that was all it took to send me to her side, to wrap her in my arms and tell her it was okay, we were still friends and we could forget everything else. She hugged me back, but it was the sort of hug you give when you’re saying goodbye.

I tore myself away as quickly as I could to hide under my covers and cry, a pillow stuffed over my mouth to muffle the sound. I hadn’t felt homesick for a long time, but that night I would have given anything to be back in my cozy loft bed in my tiny house, safe from adventure, romance, and my family.