The sanitizer pinged and she retrieved the top, wrinkling her nose in protest of the sweet, lingering antiseptic odor.

A rapid series of jingles greeted her as she opened the door to her room, but by the time she stepped inside, Coyster was sitting in the middle of the floor washing his face, his back to the ball.

Theo grinned, but pretended not to notice as she fit the lid onto the cube and crossed the room to her bag.

The Best in Five Worlds Kitty Pan had cost more than she'd expected – "Twenty creds!" she told Coyster as he inserted a supervisory nose into the assembly process. "I hope you're happy."

She pushed him gently out of the way while she finished programming the cycles, but he was inside almost before she'd gotten it into the corner.

While Coyster was inspecting his new facilities, Theo took the self-cleaning bowls out of their sanitary wrappings. She filled one with kibble from the sack she'd picked up – not, as it happened, the same kind that they fed the cats at home, but the only kind the co-op carried.

She stowed the resealed sack in the bottom drawer of the desk and went up the hall again to put water in the second bowl, coming back just as Coyster pushed his head through the crack between the door and the jamb. Theo frowned.

"Thought I'd closed that," she muttered, toeing him out of the way. She made sure the door was latched behind her before putting the water next to the food bowl, and sitting down on the cold, smooth floor.

The bowls were blue. In the co-op, they'd looked bright and cheerful; here, they looked – faded, and more than a little forlorn.

"It wouldn't be so bad," Theo told Coyster, who'd wandered over to sniff at the kibble. "If we could dial up a mosaic. All this white is... boring."

Coyster looked at her over his shoulder – accusingly, she thought.