So, he said, the critters, Cael’s done with them.

Yeah, finished her tests.

Yes, said Sepha warily.

Why?

Because they’re sitting in a freezer, said Hamish, and it seems a shame to waste them.

Sepha put her face in her hands.

But it turned out that the station’s head chef, a cheerful many-armed Kadath named Brask, had been wondering the same thing.

He had been reading about human cuisine since the incident, he admitted, and had become fascinated by the human habit of eating creatures that were trying to kill them.

Fugu fish, rattlesnake, something called a crocodile, which apparently tasted of chicken.

He had also, it emerged, already asked Sepha’s nurses to run the Skithra meat through the analyzer, and the results showed that once the venom glands and the surrounding tissue were removed with great care, the flesh was entirely harmless.

It is perfectly safe, Brask announced to the medical bay, waving three of his arms.

Perfectly.

Also, the analyzer says it is very high in protein, and Mr. Doyle is right.

It does smell a bit like prawns.

So, 18 days after Hamish Doyle was bitten by the most venomous creature in the known galaxy, the commissary of Meridian Exchange held a dinner in his honor.

Half the station came.

Administrator Hravik sat at the head of the table, looking slightly ashamed of himself for ever suggesting isolation and making up for it with very loud toasts.

Tilo Varath sat beside Hamish, fully recovered, his head fins high and proud, and had told the story of the cargo bay so many times that his workmates now groaned whenever he started.

The two security officers who had squashed the first skithra with a cargo door were there and were treated as minor celebrities.

Pip and Tolo had come in their best clothes.

The Liran chaplain sat at the end of the table, and in front of him, at Hamish’s request, there was a paper lantern.

Brask carried the dish out himself, holding it high in four of his arms.

It was a long silver platter, piled with glistening, pale blue strips of skithra meat, seared and glazed and arranged on a bed of Liran greens, with a small dish of something bright and yellow beside it that Brask proudly identified as a human sauce made from a sour fruit called a lemon.

The room went quiet.

Hamish picked up a fork, took the first piece, dipped it in the sauce, and ate it.