Everyone watched him chew.
Sepha found she was holding her breath, which was absurd because she had checked the analyzer readings herself four times.
Hamish swallowed.
He considered.
Well, said Brask anxiously.
It’s all right, said Hamish.
Bit chewy, sort like prawn crossed with chicken.
Needs more salt, if I’m honest.
He reached for the platter and speared a much larger piece.
Mind if I have a second helping?
The commissary erupted.
Brask threw all six arms in the air.
Tilo laughed so hard he nearly fell off his chair.
Ravek pounded the table, and the old Liran chaplain, smiling for the first time since Sepha had known him, picked up the paper lantern and lit it.
When the noise had died down a little, Tilo reached over very cautiously and took a small piece from the platter.
The whole table went quiet again.
The young Liran looked at the pale blue strip on his fork for a long moment as if it might come back to life.
Then he squared his shoulders, raised his head fins, and ate it.
Well, said Hamish.
Tilo chewed slowly.
It is chewy, he admitted, and it needs more salt.
See, said Hamish, delighted.
Told you, stubborn bits already kicking in.
Then Brask turned to Sepha, holding out the platter in two of his hands with a hopeful expression, and the whole table turned to look at her.
Sepha Ilunvath, chief physician of Meridian Exchange, who had spent 22 years of her life telling patients to be careful about what they put in their bodies, looked at the glazed blue meat of the most venomous creature in the galaxy.
She looked at Hamish, who was grinning at her with his mouth full.
She took a piece.
It tasted, she had to admit, a little like the sea.
Needs more salt, she said, and the table roared.
On Lira, a farewell lantern was lit at the moment of a death to guide the departing spirit home.
But there was an older custom, rarely used, that Sepha had almost forgotten.
A lantern could also be lit for a being who had come back from the very edge of dying to tell the universe that they had been turned away at the door and were not ready yet.
It was called a lantern of return.
The chaplain set it in the center of the table, glowing warm and golden among the plates, and Hamish looked at it for a long moment, and then over at the chaplain and nodded his thanks.
