All the Rattus Faber who died building Britain's new home in the High Wilderness. Abernathy has a rat-engineer, you know, but she likes to keep to herself.

A good thing to commemorate, certainly. Are they usually reclusive? He hasn't met any yet, though maybe he's just not looking in the right places.

"We tall folk don't know what it's like to be a rat, but they had a hard time of things for a while, and everything is much bigger than them so Rattus Faber do tend to stay out of the way as much as they can. Geniuses with machines, though."

"Some of the species I'm used to have trouble like that, trying to use things made for human-size people," he nods. "It's usually not that hard to work around, but they're also closer in size. And don't have the history. I'd be interested in meeting yours, if you get a chance to mention it to her."

"I'll definitely mention it!"

Eventually it is evening. Dinner isn't quite as good as the nice picnic lunch the other day was. The galley has a reasonably-sized window, at least. Off-duty crew play cards and one picks at a guitar amateurishly.

He'll sit with the card-players, if they seem amenable to the company, and see if he can't pick up the rules of the game. And the makeup of the deck, for that matter - he's used to one with an additional suit, as it turns out.

Rats, Bats, Cats, and Hats are the suits. Two through ten, Jack Queen King Ace. It's a four-player game that involves drawing and discarding and passing cards left or right by a fairly complicated set of rules, and trying to assemble straights of the same suit. It doesn't involve much bluffing, it depends a lot on tracking what cards the others probably have and probably want. They're betting chores and snacks, as opposed to money.

Fun to watch, if a little too complicated for him to ask to be dealt in.

Eventually it starts to seem like bedtime - quite a good sign - and he turns in for the evening.

Perhaps half an hour later, there's a rattling at the heating vent in one corner of the wall, and a squeaky voice says, "Knock, knock!"

Raafi's dozing, but not solidly asleep. "Mrrgf... yeah?"

"Oh, you were asleep. Sorry! I'll just go..." Squeaks the top right corner of his cabin wall.

"Oh! No, it's fine, you can come in."

"Ah- I'd rather stay up here actually."

Skitter skitter noises from the vent.

"I just heard you wanted to meet me."

"Of course, wherever you're comfortable. What have you heard about me? I'm not sure how much I should explain."

"You're Mr. Abernathy's passenger, you're foreign, and you have some sort of weird ability."

"That's pretty close. I'm from another world, I was pulled here in an accident a week or so ago, and I have magic. Healing, and some other things. I've been selling it, but so far only to the humans, and I don't mean to be doing that, if your species could use it too."

"Rats don't tend to have human amounts o' money and most of us'd prefer you forget we exist. Out of sight, out of mind. Safe and sound, the cat won't find."

"Reasonable enough. Is there a way to let them know to come find me in an emergency? I don't always charge; depending on the type of emergency I might not even be allowed to."

"Well, going 'this means Rattus Faber too!' won't get everyone to trust you but it can't hurt. You can bet we're listening here and there. I don't suppose you can do anything about old age? Or a lost forepaw? The prosthetic takes so much damned maintenance and it isn't sensitive, it's kind of awful."

"I can do limbs, yeah - tomorrow, I'll need to prepare the spell for it. Old age not so much - a few of my spells help for a few minutes, but you'd really need a magic item."

"I'd certainly appreciate it. Need anything fixed, maintained, or made? And, figured as much. I'm thirty-three and it's catching up to me. Almost makes me miss the Neath. Almost."

"I don't need anything. You can pay it forward, if you get the chance - my magic comes from the god of travel, anything that helps out a traveler in need will do. What was the Neath like?"

"The dangers were different. And there were more of them. It was more chaotic, you couldn't be as sure about whatever weird stuff you find, like mandrakes, or Parabola - dreamland, or Rubbery Men, or... Stuff. I don't think it was much more or less dangerous. But the big thing is it's harder to truly, properly die in the Neath, 'cause of the Mountain of Light. It was faint as far north as London, but it was a thing. If you don't lose your limbs or your head you just... Don't get old. If you drown and someone fishes you out of the river you'll wake up the next day feeling like death, if you bleed out or get half-eaten by something, you spend a stint in the Tomb Colonies and come back when you've got all your limbs and your color back. Now, you could really die down there of some things, especially us rats, being littler, but it was hard."

"Huh. It's possible to get things like that, at home, but nothing nearly on that scale. Must've had some interesting effects on things."

"The way I heard it, the Mountain is a bastard child of the higher beings, and would be killed if they knew she still existed. So she has sympathy for fearing death."