Koldin found an empty stool.
 
The owner spotted him while carrying plates.

“Back again.”

“Yeah.”

“Long day?”

“Normal.”

“That bad?”

Koldin rested his forearms on the counter.

“What've you got?”

“Tiplod stew.”

“Anyzhing else?”

“Tiplod stew with mushroom.”

“Zhat's still tiplod stew.”

“With mushroom.”

Koldin thought about it.

“I’ll take zhat. Mushroom strips too. Pendelbeer.”

“One?”

“Bring two.”

The owner nodded.

“Two now. More when you pretend you don't want more.”

Koldin ignored this.

The stew arrived in a broad ceramic bowl with a chipped rim. Tiplod meat had been cooked until it separated under the fork, immersed in dark broth with roots and thick cuts of vegetable. Fried ziphl mushroom strips came on a small plate beside it.

Two pendelbeer bottles followed.

The glass was cold enough to sweat.

Koldin picked up one. No opener sat within reach.

He looked toward his pistol, then toward the crowded room, then toward the edge of the counter.

He hooked the bottle cap carefully against the worn timber and struck upward with the heel of his palm.

The cap came free with a metallic snap.

The owner looked over from three customers away.

Koldin lifted the opened bottle, the man nodded approval.

Better. 

He drank.

The pendelbeer was cold, mildly sweet, and tasted faintly of overripe fruit and something medicinal. It was not good beer. It was, however, beer that was cold after a day spent walking through Lenkerk, which placed it above criticism.

Koldin ate. The first few spoonfuls demanded nothing of him except chewing.

This was useful.

Hot broth. Salt. Fat.

The slow surrender of hunger.

He tore mushroom strips with his teeth and washed them down with beer. Around him the room performed its evening rituals. Workers lied about what they had accomplished. Someone laughed hard enough to cough. The owner shouted toward the kitchen. Glass struck wood.

Food made the day smaller. Alcohol reduced it further. Not vanished, just moved a little farther away from the center of his thoughts.

Halfway through the bowl, somebody took the stool two places down.

Koldin recognized the hat first. Wide brim.

Then gray fur beneath it. Orange eyes.

The same yinglet from the bus shelter, the same yinglet from the airport freight apron.

He looked worse now than he had in either place. His work shirt had acquired additional grease and one sleeve was torn near the shoulder. Dust had dried into the fur of his forearms. He smelled faintly of aircraft exhaust, sweat, tabak, and freight.

He sat. The owner approached.

“Usual?”

The gray yinglet nodded.

“Strong.”

The owner produced a squat bottle of amber fruit spirit and poured a small glass.

The worker put several coins on the counter before the bottle had been returned to the shelf, then he picked up the glass.

One swallow.

Gone.

He placed it down. His expression changed very little. One ear flicked.

Koldin ate another spoonful of stew.

The gray yinglet noticed him. For the third time that day they looked at one another.

This had become enough of a coincidence to require speech.

Koldin wiped his mouth with the back of one hand.

“What part of zhe Heart are you from?”

The other yinglet looked at him for a moment.

“Dinnlan.”

One word.

Enough.

Koldin knew Dinnlan chiefly as everyone in the Heart knew it: through things.

Motors. Switchgear. Televox components. Pumps. Iron. Steel. Coal. Metallurgy. Refining. Power generation. Industrial tools. Electrical relays. Home appliances. Weapons. Motorized carriage parts. Cheap radios and expensive machine tools.

There were entire objects in Lenkerk composed of Dinnish labor whose owners would never think about Dinnlan itself.

Centuries ago it had nearly ceased to exist.

Beletam had conquered it during the Ten Seasons War. Dinnlan had cast the conquerors out. Val Salia had gathered what remained into its political gravity. There had been revolts and settlements, concessions and new arrangements, attempts to restore old names to institutions now operating according to new rules.

Eventually, Dinnlan became indispensable. This was one of the more reliable ways for a conquered place to survive.

The Heart needed what it made.

Factories accumulated along old rivers. Towns became industrial districts. Technical institutes grew from military workshops. Everything became productive.

The people remained Dinnish, mostly. The distinction eventually transcended species, but Dinnlan was still one of Val Salia's vassals.

Koldin glanced at the empty spirit glass.

“Long way.”

The other yinglet shrugged.