Page 52 of Reaper Said Mine

“Professor Lorr is Kiphian.”

“She studies Reapers.”

“She studies dead Reapers and old songs. Living Reapers vary. Eye contact with the host is respectful if the host offers it. Holding a stare too long with a warrior at your side of the table may become challenge.”

I take the compad back and edit the note. “How long is too long?”

“If you wonder whether it is too long, it has become too long.”

“That is unhelpfully poetic.”

“That is Reaper etiquette.”

We spend the next hour in the alcove while traffic moves around us. Vesk corrects several points, adds practical notes, and refuses to explain three gestures because, according to him, “no sane outsider should attempt them without medical staff present.” He teaches me how to accept a shared blade without letting the handle turn wrong, how to decline a portion if my biology genuinely cannot tolerate it, and how to recognize when laughter means approval rather than mockery. The distinction seems subtle until he demonstrates three kinds of Reaper laughter, and then it becomes obvious in the way thunder, engines, and collapsing walls are technically all loud but not at all the same.

By the time we finish, my notes are messier and infinitely more useful.

“You should eat before attending,” he says.

“I thought arriving hungry might be better.”

“No. Arriving starving makes humans foolish. You will need judgment.”

“That is ominous.”

“It is dinner.”

“Your dinner requires strategy.”

“All important things do.”

A voice behind us says, “Oh, this is precious.”

I turn to find a cluster of visiting correspondents and junior diplomatic staff lingering near the parts stall. I recognize two of them from the press office: Cal Renner from LeagueWire, glossy-haired and professionally smug, and Niva Stane from Nebula Nine, whose last segment described Guyver Station as “a den of cultivated savagery” while standing in front of a visibly annoyed traffic controller.

Cal smiles at my compad. “Studying for supper, Ramone?”

“I like knowing where I am.”

“You are at a Reaper freak show with better docking control than expected.”

Vesk’s face goes very still.

I close my compad slowly. “That was stupid.”

Cal’s smile falters. “Excuse me?”

“You heard me.”

Niva folds her arms. “Come on, Ursa. Everyone knows what this feast is. They’re going to serve half-dead animals and watch the rest of us squirm. You don’t have to pretend it’s some sacred cultural exchange.”

“I’m not pretending anything.”

“Really? Because from here it looks like you’re trying to win points with station security by taking notes on which fork to use when something screams.”

A couple of the junior aides laugh. One looks toward Vesk and immediately regrets it.

I step away from the alcove wall. “Do you know why they serve live courses?”