The room was dim, full of shadows. He couldn’t see her eyes as he approached nervously along the bar. There were only cups of darkness where they should be.

She was clad in something black, maybe leather, maybe not. She was alone, but maybe that was because you could hardly see her. He paused, half behind a gigantic, stooping figure who’d maybe imbibed a bit too much judging by the groans, unsure what to do. There was a bulge in the pocket of her leggings that might be a gun.

Then, she leaned forward to put down her glass on the plastic counter, and her face came into the cold blue light.

There were only two bipedal species in this solar system that could look so miserable at midnight, in a drinking station, on the first night of the Workless Week, and she only had one mouth, so she wasn’t a murle. That was the really nasty one, or at least in his experience. Her glass was empty too. Maybe this would be a good idea.

It was, after all, a long time since he’d spoken to another human.

He waited for the brief gap where the jangly guitar-thing in the back faded into the jangly banjo-thing, and took his chance.

“Happy Christmas!” he called, and taking a bold step forward he offered one of his beakers of vile-coloured liquid out before him.

For a moment, the woman was completely taken aback. Then, she regained her long-perfected expression halfway between distaste and constipation. She looked from the glass to its bearer, then back again. Then, the expression changed. There was definitely disgust mixed in there now, beneath those alarmingly furrowed brows.

“I have a boyfriend,” she snapped, and she turned away to one of the bartender’s neural ganglia as it bobbed by.

The man’s hand did not waver. He looked earnestly into the dark eyes, searching for a spark of kinship, here in a crowded bar on an alien cliffside so far from home. If he didn’t find that kinship, he decided, he’d dig it out.

“I’m not... I didn’t mean that. It’s just nice to see a friendly face.” He beheld the frown he had elicited for a moment, and chose to ignore it. “I don’t think anyone knows it’s Christmas at all here. Just like that old song.”

Another change. It was half scowl now too. A frowl. Or perhaps a scown. He’d figure it out later.

“It’s nowhere near Christmas,” said another woman, drawing up on the other side of her friend. She shouted it actually; slidecore jagstep was all the rage still in this system, and it was loud.

“No?” the man shouted back, ordering another drink. He had money to spare, and nothing else to spend it on.

“More like Easter, actually,” the original woman said icily. “Don’t be so quick to think we all use Universal Standard. There are other cultures about, you know. And I really do have a boyfriend.”

“But I-” said the man.

“You talk about other cultures?” said a deep growl in his ear. He turned, straight into the bearded, grizzled face of another man. Crazy to think there were four humans in one little bar here in this unpronounceable moonling town, in the rear-end of nowhere. That was his first thought anyway. Then he took in the jeering half-smile and realised he was in trouble. “You dare talk of culture?” the trader wheezed out on stale breath. He was wearing a hawkskin cap like those favoured in Andromeda, and he also had three eyes, so maybe it was safe to say he might know something beyond beer and baseball after all. “Before your little ‘mining excursion’ into our sector, we had other names for this time of year. It’s Craterfest today, you ignorant excuse for an ape. There should be lights, and drone races, and lily wine! You blueskins wouldn’t understand.”

He looked like he was going to spit then, but someone interjected from behind. There was obviously some mining ship docked somewhere nearby that had gone through the Milky Way recently. There hadn’t been this many humans in one room since the finale of Sex Among the Stars last century.

“If you were really celebrating Craterfest, three-eyes, you wouldn’t be having alcohol at all!” The new man, dressed in a pretty snazzy spotty blouse and matching wellies, stabbed an accusing finger out towards the trader’s glass. “So fuck off with that all that whining, you dickhead!”

“Oi!” cried the second girl, whirling away from the bar with wild anger in her eyes. “Don’t use the ‘D’ word! That’s just sub-speciesist. I met one of those folk on my last trip out to Happyland and he was the best- I mean, he was very friendly, is all. So show some respect.” She glanced anxiously at the first man, frozen in place by the Grizen with two drinks still extended out in front of him, and added, “And by the way, seriously mate, she has a boyfriend.”

“But-” said the man.

“We still have democracy over ours,” roared the trader. “With our government, which we elected with our own honest hacking gadgets, it’s illegal not to drink on bank holidays, so shove your judgements up your arse!”

“Oh, look at Mr. Capitalism!” hissed the first woman, rousing from her sulk. “You have banks, buddy? I’ve heard about you greedy scum, still stuck in the twenty-second century-”

“You can’t talk!” cried the man in the blouse. “What’s that on your left pocket? How the hell can you support Andromeda Rockets? They’re shit! Have some pride in your home galaxy, we’re going up next season-”

The second woman was in the middle of raking the trader’s cheek with fastidium nails. “How dare you look at my ears, you dirty bastard! They just slipped out a second, and trust me, it wasn’t at you!”

“Water-drinker!”

“Cow-gobbler!”

“Seed-planter!”

The man with the two drinks stood dumbfounded. He would have stepped back to stop the trader’s blood dripping on his shoes, but the drunk Grizen had rolled over onto his leg, and everyone knows never to wake a drunk Grizen. He watched as they shoved, and pushed, and roared, and finally, as the woman with the empty glass shattered said glass up the trader’s dilated nostril, he saw his opportunity. He didn’t just hold out the drink. He practically forced it into her flailing fist. “Just... happy whatever-you-want, man,” he called over the racket. They calmed down a moment, looked at him, dropped knives mid-gouge. “Just chill. We’re young, we’re human, we’re alive, and this entire sector’s at our fingertips. So just-”

“I have a boyfriend,” said the woman he’d given the brew to.

“But-” he said. But then, a heavy hand fell on the shoulder of his jacket. Spun him round like he was a piece of fibreglass. His beaker went clattering off into the grass that lined the dancefloor.

He looked up into another human face.

“Yeah, she really does,” said the boyfriend. He had a bulge in his pocket too. It was definitely a gun.

The patrons cleared a little space as the shot rang out over the jagstep. In twos and threes, they turned and watched as the head rolled over the top of the bar. The knives came back up. Fastidium nails flashed. Blood spattered. The Grizen woke up. It was a lot more entertaining than the tentacle-ball. The Rockets were getting hammered again.

By the time the bouncers came, there was nothing left to see. Not with the rats around. Have you ever seen the size of those things, out there on Dzukuty 9?

“What were those little things again?” said a moonling in the corner, sipping on something blue and musical.

“Humans,” its companion sighed. It looked away as the head was retrieved from the honey cauldron. “You don’t see them about much these days.”

“I wonder why,” said the first, glugging down another glass. It was the start of the Workless Week, and it was starting to feel that tonight would be a good night. It drew closer to the other. “Do they have a home planet?”

“They did,” the moonling said. It hiccuped, fought through the haze of memory. “It’s a Sarby’s convenience warehouse now. You know, the blue and green one in Sector 134?”

“Oh,” its partner said. “It’s probably for the best, I think.”

“Yeah.” It turned to face the bar, then glanced back when it thought its companion wasn’t looking. It’d never seen a green one before. Nor one so tall, or with so many gills. It was beautiful.

Tonight was going to be a good night.