He continued volunteering with the public health transport network when his route brought him near isolated clinics.

The work was irregular and occasionally inconvenient, but he liked knowing that a small shipment could make a real difference.

He also visited Meridian whenever he could, partly to see his friends and partly because Brask had finally learned to make a decent lemon sauce.

On the second anniversary of the skithra dinner, the station held a smaller gathering in the commissary.

There were no cameras and no corporate banners.

Brask cooked a meal from several worlds and allowed Hamish to inspect the ingredient list before announcing that none of the dishes had tried to kill the guests.

Tilo Varath arrived with the security officers who had once crushed the first skithra in a cargo door.

They argued amiably about who had pressed the emergency control first.

The chaplain brought a paper lantern.

Vela came with Nerin, carrying a small box of sweets from their home world.

She had grown taller and no longer clutched a heavy case as though it were the only thing keeping her safe.

When she saw Hamish, she asked whether he still thought skithra tasted like prawns.

He said he remembered the first dinner fondly but had developed a strong preference for ordinary fish.

Brask protested that the original recipe had been a culinary achievement.

Sepha said the achievement had required more medical supervision than any dinner should need.

Everyone laughed.

Later, as the guests began to leave, Vela asked Sepha whether the doctor’s second paper had been as famous as the first.

Sepha thought about the detailed account of the contaminated shipments, the mistakes made by respected institutions, and the lives saved by people who had refused to ignore small inconsistencies.

The second paper had attracted far less excitement.

There were no dramatic photographs of an impossible survivor smiling from a hospital bed.

There were charts, witness statements, and recommendations that took patience to understand.

Yet clinics were using those recommendations every day.

Sepha told Vela that it might have been the more important paper.

The girl asked whether she had written about Nerin.

Sepha said she had, with permission, and had included the work of the technicians, nurses, witnesses, and rescuers whose names might otherwise have been forgotten.

Vela seemed satisfied.

She opened her box of sweets and offered Sepha one.

The doctor took it and asked what it contained.