Squeezing much too hard, Tilly popped the thin polymer bag of tibicos, the foul cocktail immediately dispersing into a pinkish cloud. Jule, floating right next to it, was caught in the expanding air stain and started heaving from the smell. "Party foul! Party foul!" jubilantly Phirre exclaimed, kicking off from the booth to escape. Myle and Jule followed, the three of them settling into the empty neighbour. Within a minute arrived the server with the airvac, and the cloud was mostly gone. Tilly had stayed. Wallowing in the embarrassment, considering waiting there alone for the buzz to wear off, then heading home. But eventually it rejoined the crew.

"No more of that shit for Tilly until it can learn to drink it right," Phirre signed, punctuating Tilly's name with a dismissive gesture.

"You're a shithead," Tilly shot back.

"Indeed I am. Shithead extraordinaire." It made a point to sip some more of its own tibicos.

"Can we not argue for once in our goddamn lives?" Myle pleaded. From across the bar, a bug slowly turned its head away from the group, trying not to betray the fact it had been watching.

"You can't make partners without arguing."

Jule, holding a handkerchief to its nose, signed with its free arm. "This isn't *making partners.* Daydrinking buddies isn't *making partners.*"

"How else are we supposed to be making partners then."

"If I knew I wouldn't fucking be *here.*"

Tilly nodded at that. "Nobody wants to make partners with you, Phirre."

"Plenty already have. I'd just been ousted for reasons completely outside of my control. It's all politics these days."

"I guess leaking private letters *is* politics..."

Myle pleaded again, "Just leave it, Tilly," with tiny single-handed motions, just for Tilly to see. Left unsaid: "It's the one paying for our drinks, after all."

Tilly sighed and crossed its arms, its mind returning to a well-worn daydream of moving to a more civilized station, one without archaic social temperance laws. One where any junction store you pass is stocked full-to-bursting with all manner of liqueur pouch. It could stock up, go home, get high in peace, rinse, repeat. It's a miserable daydream. It wouldn't even work, anyway. Tilly had no money.

The server came by again, "Would the party like any more drinks?" Phirre ordered a cheap tisane for Tilly just to keep it drinking. This one was odorless, not much more intoxicating than air itself. Its pouch was a plain silver with black utilitarian labelling. "Epoch Shade," it called itself, "Drasil's Finest Recipe." Nothing irritated Tilly more than off-world branding, especially the cheap kind. But Tilly drank it all the same.

Phirre had scored a lot of money doing hewala for off-world trendhunters, and was now living the high life, daydrinking with miserable idiots who hate its guts. Over the last half-century all sorts of Phirre-alikes had come together to create some semblance of an interplanetary economy. This was all in spite of the fact that nobody could possibly confirm that either person upheld their end of the deal. For all anyone knew Drasil's inter-firmament telegram office was making everything up. No market spire, no logo wars. All the imagination of a group of genius forgers. A couple of off-world con-men with shutter lamps, spinning the yarn of the century.

But the conspiracy didn't have any legs. You'd need hundreds of thousands of people to explain the sheer quantity of data flowing between the firmaments, and at that point you might as well accept the concept of an interplanetary society. That's normally how the thought process went. Your political position on Arrokoth was generally all predicated on one belief: that Drasil can indeed see and contact five other planets. If you don't believe that, you overcorrect into the "genius forgers" conspiracy--and all the unsavory connotations that entails. If you do believe it, then you're in the majority, and therefore probably accept all of Drasil's propaganda too.

Tilly had been trying to maintain a centrist position on the topic. Belief in Borasisi, Pabu, Cradle, Deucalion, Yoko, Pluto, and The Bowelands. Belief, but with a critical eye to everything Drasil has to say about them. There's a few rules of thumb for refining one's "critical eye." Firstly, any document that refers to Drasil as the "brain of the universe" can be easily discarded. Any document critical of Drasil gets a bonus in believability, and any document from Yoko critical of Deucalion can be completely taken as truth.

By the time Tilly finished its tisane the other three had finished their tibicosi and were now accordingly delirious. Myle's hands messily drew a pitiful "I need a job" into the stale bar air.

Phirre chuckled, “Become a computer, then. Drasil certainly needs them.”

“Can’t math.”

“Well too bad I suppose. More drinks. More drinks!” The part-time hawaldar gestured for the server.

Tilly ran a finger from its wrist to its longest fingertip, and gently tapped three times. A slo-mo sign for “Want to go home.” More for itself than anyone else, Tilly repeated the gesture a few times. Unfortunately Jule noticed and leaned close, long gaps between its signs. “You know… If you take… An upper… It will… Uh… Cancel out… The drink. The morality police won’t… Notice. I’ve done it…! A few times. Works every time! Except for one time, they… Noticed. Oh, goodness it’s… It’s…”

And then it was time for Jule to produce its own air stain. Phirre laughed. “Party foul! Party—Fucking shit!”

Tilly, more in control of its faculties thanks to the weak tisane, had the presence of mind to cover up its nose. The other two weren’t so lucky, and got a deep whiff of Jule’s tibicos. They started heaving too, and in an instant the woebegone party was nothing but a fog of acrid pink. But Tilly was gone, with a swift kick it was headed on a straight-line trajectory to the other end of the bar, passing the airvac-holding server going in the opposite direction.

In a move it couldn’t have pulled off if it tried, Tilly came to a perfect stop in front of someone it had never seen before, alone in an otherwise empty booth.

“Uh, Hello.” It signed like a dancer.

“Hi.” Tilly waved, “I’m Tilly.”

“I saw. Your group isn’t exactly subtle.”

“They’re…” Tilly curled apologetically. “They’re not really my *group*.”

“But you drink with them.”

“For free.”

“For free…”

“Yeah. Phirre’s the one who pays. The one with the bangles who signs my name like it’s shooing away a fart.”

“I saw that. Why would it pay your way if it hates you.” It wasn’t even phrased like a question. Just a curious fact it was mulling.

“Hates drinking alone. And there aren’t many drinkers who care to keep it company on this station. Not many drinkers on the station anyway, nor people who would care to keep it company, so…” Tilly brought its fingers together in an overlapping gesture.

“A subset of two already tiny sets.”

“Exactly.”

“And you’re in that set.”

“I like to drink. And I’m broke. Sue me.”

“I’ll drink to that.”

The bug across from Tilly looked about five income levels above the average. Not by the dress, the dress was a simple grey-green to go with its teal chitin. Tilly was wearing a similar cut and colour scheme, it was all standard fashion. Those rich vibes were coming from its demeanor. Not quiet drinking to escape a negative culture balance. It was the active listening. The interviewer energy. A flashcode show host? Here to see how the other half live? Tilly could dig it.

“You’re not from around here?” A fact phrased as a question.

“No. No, I'm far-lightside. Ascesis, nice to meet you.”

“Ascesis. Never heard that one.”

“Yes. Abstention. Temperance. Withholding.”

“Oh. A virtue name… Odd.”

A peculiar expression flickered across Ascesis’s face at the word “Odd,” but then it nodded and gestured with its drink. “An ironic name.”

“Because you drink.”

“And do other things.”

“You drink and do other things. You’re just describing me, now.”

“So what do you do, Tilly?”

“Drink. I mean. Not much else, I’m out of a job.”

“Just drink?”

“Not if there’s something more interesting to do.”

“Like what.”

Tilly inhaled deeply. The buzz that had been lubricating this conversation suddenly evaporated. There must’ve been a way to keep playing the coy game here, but Tilly missed it.

“I model.”

“You look like a model.”

“Sorry, I mean I clay model.”

“Like for someone’s sculpture?”

“No it’s—Sorry it’s stupid.”

“I don’t think it’s stupid. What are you modelling.”

“A model of the universe.”

“A model of the universe…” It repeated Tilly’s motions slowly, as if intrigued by the turn of phrase. Going through the signs as a way to get fully acquainted. “How’s that going?”

“Bad. I mean. It’s mostly done. It’s basically finished.”

“Wait so—”

“It’s done, I just don’t really believe the surveys. Stuff is in the wrong place and it doesn’t make sense.”

“Huh. What’s wrong about it.”

“Arrokoth’s declination, ascension, and parallax from Drasil would put its needle, from Cradle’s vantage point, right in the way of the red stars.”

“No idea what that means.”

“It’s easier to explain with the actual model.”

“You could show me.”

“I could. My studio is right here. Just a zigzag down a few corridors. We’d have to wait to sober up.”

“That’s no fun.”

“It isn’t. But you’re a lightsider. You don’t know these morality police freaks. I don’t fuck with them.”