He eats as much of it as he can, but cannot, in fact, finish the entire thing. He looks around worried, scared of the possible consequences.

A small, hexagonal robot standing on a whirring, floating cylinder comes into the room. It waves and holds up a tube attached to the bottom of the device for Nova. He can feel air being gently pulled into the tube.

He holds the end of the food out to it, not...entirely sure this is what was being asked for but not sure what else would be.

The tube sucks the remainder of the dinner pill into the machine, and then the hexagon and machine float back out of the room.

He watches, a little startled, and then looks over to Shay to see if that's something that's normal.

"That was a hexipal. That one vacuums up leftover food and garbage and things, to recycle."

"Oh." Nova frowns thoughtfully. "Useful!"

"Yeah! Hexipals like doing useful things!"

"Now that you've eaten, you need to brush your teeth, and then you can play for an hour until bed-time!"

Something in those instructions is confusing Nova - probably all of it to be honest - but he nods obediently, and looks to Shay for directions on what they're actually doing.

"You rub your teeth with chemicals to clean them, so germs can't eat food stuck to them and grow in your mouth," Shay explains, leading him down a hall to a room, one wall of which is just a window looking out onto stars. There's a wide blue cylinder of fabric against the wall, and some hexipal robots are assembling another.

Two metal arms, each covered in knitted yellow yarn, descend from the ceiling, carrying toothbrushes. Shay opens his mouth to let the arm brush his teeth, but the arm in front of Nova stops, so he could either take the brush himself or let the arm do it.

After a moment of hesitation, he opens his mouth as well.

The brush gently applies lemony-flavored foam all over his teeth and gums, then wipes it away.

-It's strange, but not in a bad way. (It's...almost pleasant in fact?)

The arms retract back into the ceiling.

Shay bounces. "It's too late to do missions, but we could play with stuffed animals or yarn?"

"-You don't have chores?"

"I go on missions to help people, but the computers and robots take care of maintaining the ship! And it's bad to do missions too close to bedtime because it's harder to sleep if you're excited."

"-Oh. I. That's- different. I- whatever you think best?"

"I guess... maybe there's not enough time for learning knitting, so animals?"

"O-okay!" Nova agrees.

Shay leads him down the hall, to a large pair of sliding doors painted with blue and green leafy trees. Through the doors is a circular room covered in colorful beanbags. There's a shelf of fuzzy and colorful knitted animals built into the wall.

"They're like yarn pals," Shay explains, wrapping a stripy snake around his shoulders, "but with only a little bit of ability to move, and without being people."

Nova looks at the shelf, curious. "And you just...play? With them?"

"Yeah! You can make up stories for them to be doing, or just cuddle with them, or something else I guess?"

"Oh. I've- never. Had a chance? Before?"

He frowns. "Oh. That's sad, I think. But now you can!"