“How else can I say it?” She glanced at the human, disgust mixed with a grudging respect. Harum-scarums had been flying between the stars before this creature jumped down from the trees. Yet humans were first to find the Great Ship. Humans claimed the artifact first and managed to hold it, and according to the chaotic but mostly honored legal codes of their galaxy—The Fire of Fires, they called the galaxy—the Great Ship would remain with the humans until the end of time.

“I was born on this vessel,” she reminded Osmium.

Except for the Submaster, all of the harum-scarums were born somewhere nearby.

“I grew up inside these avenues and rooms and caverns,” she continued.

“And you love the Great Ship,” Osmium offered.

“How can anyone not love her birthplace?”

The little human seemed to flinch. But she said nothing, those wide dark eyes endlessly absorbing her surroundings.

“I love this ship, and I treasure my life, and I have always believed that I would live my next trillion breaths here.”

“Of course,” Osmium growled.

“But this,” the woman rumbled. “This new direction of ours. This accidental, supremely pointless trajectory. How can I hold my enthusiasm for an endless voyage into the deepest, emptiest realms of Creation?”

Osmium said nothing.

Mere sat beside him, her chair tall enough to lift her eyes up to the level of their thick, heavily armored necks. She seemed to understand every word, and she noticed gestures and swift expressions that other species wouldn’t perceive, and in the midst of everything, she watched the carcass on the platter begin to move slowly, ligaments yanking at the black skeleton as the creature—a little river-bear—remembered that it was still alive.

Humans ate cultured meat or occasionally killed specially bred animals, pretending to be carnivores. But harum-scarums had more respect for life. Millions of years ago, they had infused their domesticated animals with the same life-prolonging technologies they used on themselves, and as they traveled through space, they took their treasured animals with them, eating them down to a minimal last morsel before reconjuring them inside special vats.

For an instant, Mere seemed disgusted by the sight of those flopping, bloodied bones. But her voice was calm when she pointed out, “There is a ban on emigration. And this man here is authorized to forcefully stop anyone who tests that ban.”

“Every soul makes its choices,” the woman countered.

Mere nodded, human fashion.

With a simple contempt, she said, “Kill yourself. Then you’ll be set free.”

Suicide was an unthinkable abomination, but the woman refused to take offense. Quietly, she pointed out, “My opinion is not only mine. But where I wield enough strength to accept disagreeable fates, there are lesser creatures on board who grow desperate. The farther they fall toward the Inkwell, the closer they are to panic.”

The cafe was in a bright avenue of white granite, wide but not so wide that the walls were lost with the distance. Above them, the gently arched ceiling was built from raw hyperfiber decorated with globes and gelatinous ribs filled with ultrathermic bacteria. The glow of the microbes supplied the steady blue-white light. Even when the avenue was less than crowded, it was a loud place. Today, thousands of creatures were strolling or rolling or sometimes drifting overhead on broad wings. Every form of mouth and speaking anus made a steady white chatter, and to an experienced ear, there was a persistent discord to the mayhem. Thousands of years of seamlessly pleasant travel had come to an end. During the last quick century, the wealthiest souls from a multitude of worlds found themselves unsure about the most secure of commodities—the future. If souls weren’t afraid, something would be wrong. Yet what they were feeling wasn’t just the tiny reasonable worries brought on by an unexpected change to the ship’s course. It was also the Wayward War. It was also the sudden discovery of an entire world hidden in the midst of what was supposed a fully explored ship. And it was the rumors of an ancient cargo, and an evil force or forces called the Bleak … and there was the pernicious fear that the Waywards would recover someday and attack once again. “What worth is there in a captain’s assurances?” the voices asked. Plainly, the humans didn’t know their vessel half as well as they had promised, and to souls who had thousands and millions of years left to live, this had become a daunting and endlessly sobering situation.

“I fought for the captains,” said the harum-scarum woman. With an honest, well-deserved boast, she said, “I was brave. I did important things. And I murdered a few of the Waywards, too.”

The human said nothing.

“All five of us helped in the fight, Osmium. We deserve the chance to construct our own ship—with our own moneys and time and tools. Why shouldn’t we be allowed to travel where we wish? Or if it is our choice, in the end, remain on board?”

“Where would you go?” Mere asked.

“Anywhere,” the woman replied.

The tiny woman shook her head, human fashion. “We’ve left your colonies behind. And mine, too. The orbital mechanics are pretty gruesome. A little starship with very few passengers won’t be able to turn around. And even if the ship could make the maneuver, then it very likely dies during the long voyage. Impacts and recyke failures are just two miserable possibilities. Which leaves you searching for an alien world and the hope of finding sanctuary there.” She paused, then said, “How about the Pak’kin?”

Everyone knew the story of the Calamus. The Submasters had let the truth slip free, most certainly as a warning to anyone who thought of making any wild leaps to freedom.

“What about the Inkwell?” the harum-scarum countered. “I have heard plenty of rumors, each one claiming there is life inside that cloud. Life and little worlds full of light and heat, and water, and perhaps other treasures, too.”

“You cannot,” Mere remarked. With what looked like genuine sorrow, she said, “Even if you could find the aliens, you don’t have the skills. The sense. The magic necessary to make those very strange organisms think of you as their friend. And even if you did have that rare magic, how happy would you be to live aeons among such strange souls … ?”

Then she gestured, sticklike arms reaching out, as if trying to embrace the multitude around them.

The harum-scarum had no worthwhile response. She sat motionless, her mind fixed on a series of equally disgusting images. Life among the humans was barely tolerable, and these baby apes were not nearly as awful as most of these other intelligent species. Perhaps for the first time, the woman appreciated just what kind of doom would hang upon her if she actually abandoned the ship, now or in any conceivable future.

Mere rose abruptly.

To Osmium she said a few quiet words, using the human tongue. Then with an expression of utter contrition, she reminded the others, “It is not any kind of weakness, of course. This need that you feel … this love of your own kind … a species-hunger telling you to sacrifice everything to keep close to your own little flavor of life …”

THE PECULIAR LITTLE human gave a two-stomp salute and left. Their table quickly absorbed its extra side, and after a few dismissive insults, everyone sat quietly, watching the carcass flinch and writhe.

Osmium conspicuously said nothing.

Finally one of the other men remarked, “I have never met a monkey woman quite like that one.”

Again, Osmium was silent.

The woman who had bluffed and lost now looked at the Submaster, and with a transparent frustration, she said, “All right, I will beg. Tell us about that little creature, if you would.”

For a long while, the old harum-scarum gazed across the avenue. Eventually he spotted a massive black sphere rolling in the distance. Inside that insulated contraption, safely entombed, was a creature rarely seen by passengers or crew. Jellyjells, humans had dubbed them. Organic crystals formed frail bones and a slow but relentless mind, and overlying both was a gelatinous body composed of complex fats dissolved in liquid methane. On the ship, the jellyjells lived in their own little sea, frigid and sluggish. They were ancient and rich, and on the fringes of half a thousand solar systems, they were rather common. But their customs and nature seemed extraordinarily strange to hot-blooded creatures like the harum-scarums. Watching the black sphere tumble out of sight, Osmium asked, “Why did the captains allow them on board?”