As Jin stepped back down, Lucky rose from the bedroll atop the mattress of shredded flimsies, stretched, and hopped toward him, meowing, then rose on her hind legs to place her one front paw imploringly on Jin’s knee, kneading her claws. Jin bent and scratched her fuzzy gray ears. “No dinner yet, Lucky.”

“That cat does have three legs, right?” asked the man. He sounded nervous. Jin hoped he wasn’t allergic to cats.

“Yah, she caught one in a door when she was a kitten. I didn’t name her. She was my mom’s cat.” Jin clenched his teeth. He didn’t need to have added that last. “She’s just a Felis domesticus.”

Gyre the Falcon gave one ear-splitting shriek from his perch, and the black-and-white rats rustled in their cages. Jin called greetings to them all. When food was not immediately forthcoming, they all settled back in a disgruntled way. “Do you like rats?” Jin eagerly asked his guest. “I’ll let you hold Jinni, if you want. She’s the friendliest.”

“Maybe later,” said the man faintly, seemed to take in Jin’s disappointed look, and after a squinting glance at the shelf of cages, added, “I like rats fine. I’m just afraid I’d drop her. I’m still a bit shaky. I was lost in the Cryocombs for rather a long time, today.” After another moment, he offered, “I used to know a spacer who kept hamsters.”

This was encouraging; Jin brightened. “Oh, your water!”

“Yes, please,” said the man. “This is a chair, right?” He was gripping the back of Jin’s late stepstool, leaning on it. The scratched round table beside it, discarded from some cafe and the prize of an alley scavenge, had been a bit wobbly, but Custodian Tenbury had showed Jin how to fix it with a few shims and tacks.

“Yah, sit! I’m sorry there’s only one, but usually I’m the only person who comes up here. You get it ’cause you’re the guest.” As the man dropped into the old plastic cafeteria chair, Jin rummaged on his shelves for his liter water bottle, uncapped it, and handed it over. “I’m sorry I don’t have a cup. You don’t mind drinking where my mouth was?”