"Good morning, Daughter." Kamele sounded as tired, or tireder, as Theo felt, so it probably wasn't the smartest thing she'd ever done to turn around and point at the poor kaf like it was disorderly or something, and demand, "Are we supposed to eat out of that?"

Kamele frowned.

"Don't roar at me, Theo."

She swallowed. "I'm sorry. I was just – expecting a kitchen."

Kamele's frown got deeper, and Theo felt her stomach clench.

"This is the kitchen that most people eat out of," she said sternly. "It amused Professor Kiladi to bypass the kaf and cook meals from base ingredients, and I saw no harm in allowing him to teach you something of the art, since you were interested. If I had foreseen that you would scorn plain, honest food out of the kaf – "

"I'm not," Theo interrupted. "Kamele, I'm sorry. I'm not – scorning – the kaf. It was just... a shock. I was looking forward to making a cup of tea, and – "

"The kaf will give you a cup of tea," her mother said, interrupting in her turn. "All you need to do is ask."

Tea from a kaf unit was not, in Theo's estimation, tea. It was a tepid, watery, tasteless beverage that happened, via some weird and as-yet-uncorrected universal typo, to be called tea. Real tea had body, and taste, and –

Her mumu thweeped the eighth of the hour.

"I suggest that you choose your breakfast quickly," Kamele said, and stalked past her to confront the kaf.

Two sharp jabs at the keypad, a flicker of lights across the face screen, a hiss when the dispenser door slid up. Kamele slid the tray out and carried it to the bar. Acrid steam rose from the extra large disposable cup.

Theo wondered if kaf coffee tasted any better than kaf tea, but it didn't seem like the time to ask. Instead, she stepped up to the machine, punched one button for juice and another for hot cereal, and very soon thereafter was sitting across from her mother at the bar.