Everyone picked their base alien from the tub. Xhaka grabbed a human. The little wrigglers. Choori would love it.

He would whisper succulent loving words in her ear that spoke of the ambrosial night to come. She pictured the scrape of the hair on his chin as he nuzzled her haunches and she trembled. Soon.

Harvey flickered a sigh. He should never have tried to comfort Maude after the accident.

“I promised her on our wedding day,” he said, watching the tremor in her hand as she dabbed cream on a papery cheek, “that we’d never spend a night apart.”

He was being silly and he knew it. Agonising over clothes for a tea party where he might be poisoned. Ridiculous.

Then Sue discovered the armrest between their seats moved. That might work. The lights would be dimmed soon, yeah? David asked the steward for an extra blanket.