The cycle was late, stretching long into the hours where all reasonable folk would be asleep. Yet heat rose from the station's industrial heart, humming through rusted metal corridors like a rising tide, pushing residents still caught awake towards the farthest modules for succor.

A radiator vane had failed, and maintenance was currently awaiting parts. Or so they had said for the previous 8 cycles. From the administration to the dock hands, they knew that Kothar-7 was a relic of a past frontier, producing less gadolinium every annum, and crewed only by those of no other recourse. It was being taken by the inevitable entropy of space, dying so slowly one might imagine a recovery. Unfortunately, the idealists had left on the next ship after the engineers.

It was there, in a section at the station's edge along the outermost ring, that the gears of history once more were put into motion. A bulbous extension of the bulkhead alongside the station's pier, sprawling corridors from iterations of unregulated construction burrowed into the standardized corporate architecture like a tick. The inside thrummed and churned, as the collective humanity passed the time with any manner of debauchery their time on leave might require. It was bar, brothel, concert hall all in one, and a million just like it were spread across the stars. Latched onto every port lax enough to allow their growth. Yet even of that dubious myriad, The Opener as it was called, was particularly mediocre.

As bodies covered in neon plasts and sparking holos jostled and gyrated, a young man wearing a suit only describable as antiquated cut through the crowd with a hard edge. An acrostic sharpness set in both his face and tread.

Behind him streamed a number wearing outfits of a littany of styles from other places and times. Many of those as youthful as he fanned out, mingling and flirting with the fervor that only those stuck seeing the same faces overlong ever had. Yet even those only somewhat older steered well clear, keeping their own company and quickly occupying a set of adjacent booths.

Ignorant of the expanding scene his arrival caused, or at least insensate towards it, he strode to the barside kiosk and began to wait. The whole run of the bar was covered in dirt, sweat, grime, spilled spirits and all manner of other questionable substance. Cracks ran through the kiosk's surface terminal projecting an optimistically sputtering hologram, fritzing as it attempted to display some sort of user preset.

The individual behind the bar, nearly as old and worn down as the facility they tended, raised an inquisitive eyebrow at the kiosk display. The Opener had stopped making new user presets before she had even started sweeping the floors as a child. Something about a faulty software change that they could never get the licenses to update. A similar story told half a thousand times elsewhere on the station.

So it was a curious thing to see menu flairs winking in and out for the first time since old Dan passed 80 annum back. Particularly at the fingers of someone who by all accounts seemed a rich tourist playing dress up far beyond their own transit arc.

The man let out a long sigh, like winds on calm air which ruffle the sails yet refuse to fill them. It was unforced, effortless in content, unlike the loud sighs of those attempting to express their dissatisfaction with the speed of service, or the taste of their drink. This was reflexive, a response only honed from countless instances of similar frustrations, capturing an exasperation with a life of annoyances both grand and petty. Almost cursory, the tired response to situations one had long since stopped particularly caring about. It smoothly transitioned with practiced ease to a muttered curse even more perfunctory than the sigh.

"What will you be having?" the bartender asked, looking him over with a quizzical intensity, eyes lingering on the shoulder seams of his coat.

"That depends" he said, "what do you have that actually tasted soil?"

That caused her to pause for a moment, looking him over for a long moment before saying "Look, I'm not one to stop paying credits, but isn't that taking your act a bit far? I doubt someone your age can even taste the difference between nat and synth."

Another sigh, one slightly more expectant and closer to the familiar pitch of an irritated customer, yet still with the same weary, practiced tones. A definite cousin of the first. No curse however, simply a long silent pause as he stared at her, choosing his next words.

In a slow quiet tone that carried surprisingly clear in the thrumming room, he reiterated. "Spare me the comments and certainly the questions. Just tell me what you have."

"Fine." She tapped out a few uneven clicks on the console behind the bar, one of the keys having burned out most of the FSR years ago and now requiring a particularly enthusiastic actuation. "As far as nat goes, we got whiskey, and we got gin."

A few images of bottles popped up on the kiosk. Not the plastiglass which beverages too nice for corrugated biomatt usually came in, but actual glass bottles stoppered with genuine cork, or so the advert claimed.

He looked them over slowly, inspecting the place of origin and slightly widening his pupils after reading through the information presented. The telling bright flashes of commnet access passed across his verdant irises, before ceasing a fraction later.

"Maybe the luck holds." He muttered to himself. "I'll take the Islay, and pay double if you tell me how you got it."

The bartender returned, bearing a steel case riveted together on each end and holding a temperature display on the side. She tapped a few times at the console again, revealing a few more stuck keys as she checked the balance. A quick glance towards the waiting man, then she checked again.

Laying down the tube, she entered a number on the surface, this terminal having seen far less use than any of the others so far. A pneumatic hiss sounded as the latches slipped free, releasing a gust of cool dry air in the hot dampness of the building. Laying on a bed of crash foam, a long dark bottle boasting origin from Scotland, aged 78 years, bottled nearly a century ago. Nestled above it, a commemorative glass tumbler etched with images of the first anti-rockets and the stars they tamed. Upon spotting the imagery, hints of a wry smile crossed his features before fading into melancholy and then memory soon thereafter.

He pulled the bottle out, setting the hand blown crystal on something which squished upon the bar in the way only that which claimed to be edible in a previous life can. Still very edible if one cared to ask the bacteria currently inhabiting.

The bartender reached under and pulled out a tungsten hex nut, coated in a fine hoary sheath of rime.

"Sorry" she responded to his inquisitive eyebrow after giving the fastener a look. "The water reclaimer hasn't worked properly in as long as I can remember." Seeing his continued stare, she hesitated before then elaborating, "It's safe enough, and not much else to be done, but I refuse to let a spirit like that get spoiled with some frozen block of watered down piss. I use these for my own drinks."

"Fetch a second and a glass." he replied, holding forth his cup for her to deposit the frigid metal into. "Then tell me about this bottle."