Hope Roxanna Mills, nee Tam, stood at the back of the gallery and breathed a sigh of relief. It all seemed to be going well, and she’d heard more than one order for the red dot to be lit next to one of her paintings. It looked as if she was going to be able to eat again. The soft murmur of conversation washed over her from the crowd, but she was just happy people had turned up at all.

“Told you they’d come,” a voice said next to her ear, and an arm snaked around her waist.

She didn’t look up, didn’t need to. Her husband, Ben Mills, had been at her side all evening, even when the podcasts had tried to inveigle him away for interviews to get dirt on the newest art sensation to hit the Core. He’d smiled politely but declined, knowing she needed him more.

“I wasn’t sure. I mean, they’re just doodles.”

“Doodles that are making an obscene amount of money,” Ben corrected.

“You know that’s not why I’m doing it, don’t you?”

He pulled her closer. “Of course. You have to let that talent out or your head will explode.”

She elbowed him in the ribs. “I told you that in confidence.”

“And I ain’t told no-one else.”

She shook her blonde head at his turn of phrase, but would never try and stop him. For all the high praise from the critics, she was still a Rim girl, born and bred on a ship out in the black, and if her husband said ‘ain’t’, or swore in Chinese, then so be it. “You do know half the people here are family, don’t you?”

Ben laughed. “So?”

“I mean it’s not quite the massive turnout you were predicting.”

“’Course it is. And it ain’t the family buying the pictures.”

She had to concede his point and looked up into his grey eyes, beaming at her from his coffee-coloured face. “I’m glad they’re here.”

“Hope, honey, they wouldn’t have missed this for the world.” He nodded towards where Uncle Mal and Aunt Freya were standing in front of one of the large landscapes. Since the discovery of the Kugelman Hoard, none of the crew had ever needed to work again, but it didn’t sto