Page 67 of Carousel

I say his name fairly loudly over the table.

He must have turned deaf since this morning, because he doesn’t react. At all.

Inside, I seethe.

Is he really going to keep this up until I Integrate?

At that moment, several people in red aprons enter the room from a side door, wheeling in a metal cart loaded with porcelain bowls.

Dezeeves turns to me.

“I hope you’ll find the first course to your liking,” he says – again, quite pleasantly. “A traditional Hevallan potato and onion soup. But it has been seasoned with some of the herbs we have been able to grow on the Sky Deck.”

I blink. “There’s a garden here?”

Bowls are being set down in front of us.

And Dezeeves is distracted. He’s looking straight ahead now.

With authority, he says, “Please. Serve the boy as well. Captain’s orders.”

I follow his line of sight. Cosmer, it seems, was about to be denied a bowl. The cook, very uncertainly, places it down in front of him.

“Would that be smart, Dezeeves?” Ephraine probes. “It could set a precedent.”

Dezeeves waves him off. “Tonight is a celebration, and Cosmer is a guest of honour.”

Cosmer doesn’t wait to be told twice. He tucks in with enthusiasm.

And I’m relieved. If the only good thing that happens at this meal is that he gets properly fed, I’ll be happy.

Once the cooks have moved on from our table, Dezeeves turns back to me.

“You asked about the garden. It’s in what was the old Crow’s Nest. Only a small one. I’ll admit it was one of my impulses, but it has taken rather well. Perhaps, one day, sky ships will be fully self-sufficient.” He sort of winks. “It would save me an inordinate amount of osimidite.”

I say, softly, “You are a man of innovation, Dezeeves.”

Dezeeves laughs throatily, exposing his bucked teeth.

“I thank you for thinking so.”

“Truly,” I insist. “Integrating prisoners of war into your crew. Creating gardens in the sky…”

Dezeeves catches the eye of one of the cooks and taps his empty tumbler. The cook rushes over to refill it with a cut glass decanter.

Attention back on me, Dezeeves says, “I find, the older I get, the more I believe that the only enemy to civilisation, is stagnation.”

The others around us have begun on their soup by bringing the bowls to their mouths and sipping from them. In Rhavna, this would be seen as vulgar.

But I have not been given a spoon.

Another test.

“A lovely line,” I say, taking my own bowl in my hands. “You have a knack for them.”

“They come quite easily, to educated minds.”

“Where were you educated, Dezeeves?” I ask. As nonchalantly as possible.