CARIAD SURVEYED THE offerings at the buffet for that evening’s dinner. Balls of yeast, flavored and colored to look like meatballs, floated in tomato sauce. Rolls of steamed rice were wrapped in layers of dried seaweed. Algae strips nestled among assorted fungi. Deep-fried crickets rested on a bed of taro mash. Cariad helped herself to some meatballs and salad and carried her tray to a table.
The remaining refectory in use aboard the Nova Fortuna was much quieter than it had been before most of the Gens had gone planetside. Though at the time she hadn’t much liked the noise and bustle they created, Cariad found that, now they were gone, she missed the crowds. Their absence had also made seating arrangements more noticeable and fraught. Now that only a hundred or so Woken were eating in a
