“You’re quiet,” Matti said, glancing at him without completely turning his head. “Stomach still bugging you?”

“Maybe we shouldn’t talk about my stomach.” Gregor sucked a shot of sakila from a bulb with a blue cactus logo. It was sold as tequila-flavored rice wine, but it tasted like water downstream from a paper mill. Some kind of mite was in all the agave and you couldn’t get even a blanco for less than $35 an ounce. He held the alcohol on his tongue ‘til his eyes watered, then reluctantly swallowed.

Matti said, “Luggage.” He’d kept going on through Gregor’s reverie.

“Don’t have any,” Gregor said, mostly to air out his mouth because the old-shoe taste of station air was better than the sakila.

Matti glared at him sideways. “You weren’t listening. I said we could go as luggage.”

“No way. My luck, soon as I’m frozen they’ll ship me to Europa for my corneas and kidneys.”

“They don’t want your kidneys. You’re an alcoholic.”

“But I have lovely eyes. No cryo.”

Matti shook his head and sucked on a bulb.