The crew of the Ravager ship Eclector didn't know what was wrong with their captain, but not one of them was brave enough to ask him. Yondu Udonta was a man of many moods, and they ranged from homicidal glee to murderous rage. Right now he was somewhere close to the "rage" end of the spectrum.

No one spoke to him unless they had to, with the exception of his first mate, Kraglin, and the Terran boy Peter. Peter had been brought aboard some eight months ago, as part of a business deal which had never been completed. No one knew why, but that was another thing the crew weren't brave enough to ask about.

There was one other who dared to speak frankly to the captain, and that was the ship's doctor, Corfla Ka'a. Corfla got away with it because his skills were legendary, and because he had saved many Ravager lives during attacks, outbreaks of disease, and following accidents and other disasters. He took care not to push his luck too far, but he said things to the captain that any other man would have been shot for.

When Yondu stopped by the med bay for the monthly inventory report, Corfla asked him, "Are you all right, sir?"

"Wha?" The question seemed to have taken the Centaurian by surprise.

"You seem . . . preoccupied these last few days. Is there something going on that I should know about?"

"Nah. Nothin'."

"Is it the anniversary of . . . an important day, perhaps?"

Yondu wouldn't answer at first. Then he looked away and muttered, "It's m' birthday next week."

"Ah. Well, happy birthday in advance."

"Ya don't get it, do ya? It's a special birthday."

Corfla, who knew the captain's age from his file, nodded. "And you don't feel special enough to celebrate?"

Yondu sighed. "Fiftieth birthday on Alpha Centauri's a time to look back. Back on all the good things you done. Back on the friends you made, and the family you call yer own."

"Well, I don't see the problem. Surely you've done good things. And the crew is your family. Nearly every man here would die for you. Isn't that what a family is?"

Another sigh. "What've I done? Stolen a bunch o' shit. Killed some sonsa bitches who deserved it. An' . . . Ah killed six kids."

Corfla looked at him in surprise. He'd known that the boy currently aboard wasn't the first, but he hadn't dared to ask what had happened to the others. As far as he or any of the crew knew, the children had been delivered to their parents, and that was that.

"Oh, Ah din't really kill 'em. Might as well've. Turned 'em over ta that jackass and took 'is money and never once asked what he wanted 'em fer. Ah'm jes' as guilty 's he is. Looked th' other way and took th' money!"

"You're drunk right now, aren't you?"

The captain gave him a glare that would have sent any other man running for cover. "S'whot 'f Ah am?"

"Perhaps we should talk this over again when your head is clearer. I have something to say to you, and I want you to be able to remember it later. Go and sleep it off, and I'll talk to you again soon."

"W'tev'r."

Yondu shuffled out, and Corfla shook his head sadly. People got so worked up about birthdays. Fifty years was nothing; he himself was seventy-six, although for his race this was barely middle-aged. Where did any being get the idea that there was a list of things that had to be accomplished before he/she/nonbinary gender reached a certain age? The numbers were purely arbitrary. Everyone was different, and no one could expect every being to have the same life goals.

Captain Yondu had so much to be proud of. There hadn't been a mutiny attempt in almost six months. They hadn't lost a crew member in nearly the same span of time. Their last job had netted them enough units to completely fill the ship's larder and, more importantly to Corfla, restock some badly depleted medical supplies. Their enemies were keeping their distance, and their friends were more than generous. Really, life was good right now. What could the man possibly find fault with?

Some people could look into a mirror and see only their flaws, magnified to a thousand power. Strong drink tended to bring this tendency out even in those who were not normally prone to it. Birthdays were a time of reflection, and it was time to change Yondu's reflection to something closer to the truth.

Peter was usually told to stay out of the engine room, since there was a lot of dangerous stuff in there, but he had to deliver a message to the engineer, Sobac. He found the man underneath a piece of machinery, working on it with a wrench and a steady stream of swear words. Peter had always been taught not to interrupt someone in the middle of their work, but the message was rather urgent, and he couldn't hang around here all day. "Excuse me, Mr. Sobac?"

"What is it?" Sobac slid out from under the contraption and wiped oil from his face. "Yer not s'posed to get this close to anythin' mechanical, boy. Back up a smidge an' let me out, and we'll talk."

Peter obligingly took a few steps backward, giving the man room to stand and move away from the uncooperative machine. "Sorry, sir, but the captain said it was important."

"Why can't he just call me down 'ere?"

"I don't know, sir. He didn't seem too happy with me asking questions."

"Yeah, he ain't been in a good mood all week. Y'know what's with that?"

"No, sir."

"Well, gimme the damn message, and then go find out! Maybe it's somethin' we can fix."

Peter handed it over. It was written on a piece of paper, in symbols he hadn't been taught to read yet. Paper was rare on shipboard, and reserved for the most secret of secret messages, when the risk of interception and decryption was too great.

"There. You've done yer job, now go. See if you can catch the bug that crawled up the cap'n's exhaust port."

"Bug?" Peter shook his head; it had to be a glitch in his translator.

"Jus' go!"

The boy went.

It wasn't until dinner time that Peter had a chance to ask someone what was wrong with the captain. It couldn't be a real bug up his . . . whatever. Had to be some sort of alien expression he hadn't learned yet.

He took his usual seat next to Kraglin. The seat on the other side was still vacant.

"Go 'head and start," the teen told him. "Cap'n ain't comin' tonight. Got calls t'make, settin' up our next job."

"He's been kinda . . . grumpy lately. I mean worse than usual. You know what's up with that?"

While the mess hall didn't go completely silent (it never did), there was a considerable lowering of the volume of sound as everyone tried to listen for an answer while trying not to act like they were listening.

"Well," Kraglin said, leaning in close to the boy, "I heard . . . it's his birthday comin' up."

"Birthday?" Peter was confused. "But . . . why would he be bummed about his birthday?"

"Dunno. Always been touchy 'bout it."

"Well, that's not right! Birthdays should be happy! I know what-let's throw him a party! A surprise party!"

There were several murmurs of agreement from men who supposedly hadn't been listening.

"We ain't got the money f'r a party," Kraglin pointed out.

There was a polite cough from off to his left. "I, um, might hae sum money saved up," Tullk said. "F'r me own ship. I can wait a bit longer furrit, I reckon."

"I've got a'most a hunnert units saved up f'r Madame Winx's," Horuz confessed.

"What's Madame Winx's?" asked Peter.

Kraglin snapped, "Never you mind! Okay, private crew meetin' t'morrow night, at change o' shift. An' not a word to the cap'n!"

Yondu had been avoiding the med bay for the last few days. When he saw Corfla approaching, he debated whether he should pretend to have urgent business in the other end of the ship, but in the end, he knew the persistent medic would wear him down. Best to get this over with right now.

"What you want, Doc?" he asked, leaning against the bulkhead casually.

"I'm concerned about your state of mind."

"Huh?"

"Can we talk someplace more . . . private?"

"Oh, sure." The captain's office was nearby, so the two of them ducked inside and took a seat. "What's up?"

"I don't know if you've noticed, but the crew seems to be . . . up to something."

"How so? Mutiny brewin', ya think?"

"Not unless Kraglin and Peter are in on it. I've noticed them conspiring with some of the other crew when they think no one is watching. I doubt that the boy would be allowed to participate in something as violent as a mutiny, and as for Kraglin . . . I believe he worships the deck on which you walk. No, something else is afoot. Something beneficent, I believe."

"That good or bad?"

"Good. Perhaps you're familiar with the ancient Xandarian tradition known as the surprise party?"

"Party?" The Centaurian's face darkened. "I don't want no damn party! Don't deserve any!"

"The men seem to think otherwise. While it's not unknown for the surprisee to find out, whether purposely or accidentally, about the planned party, it's considered bad manners to let on that you know about it. Act normally until the day you're called upon to a part of the ship that's normally less-travelled. At which point the surprise will be revealed. My advice? Let them have their fun. Act surprised. Be grateful. Say thank you."

"Where'd they get the money f'r a party, anyway? We ain't had a job in weeks! That's why I been workin' so hard on this deal. 'F it pays off, we're set fer a good long while. But only if we can pull it off."

"I'm not sure what their arrangements are or how they've been made. All I know is that the men who serve you are willing to die for you. Not many Ravager captains are that fortunate. Most take what they can get. You've handpicked most of your crew, and the terms of your service are more than fair. No wonder they love you so much."

Yondu seemed to be thinking about this. He stared at the far wall as if the secrets of the universe were written across it. Finally he looked back at Corfla. "I don't deserve it," he said softly. "I broke the code. We don't deal in kids. Stakar was willin' to forgive me buyin' up slave boys to free 'em, cause they wasn't little kids. None of 'em under thirteen. But this other business . . . never shoulda taken that jackass's money."

"You put an end to it, did you not?"

"Yeah, I did. No more dead kids on mah watch. I shoulda known sooner, though. I shoulda never done it in th' first place."

Corfla shifted in his chair. "Eight years ago," he said, "I made a decision concerning a patient. The man's life was in my hands. He was a genocidal despot who had eliminated the entire native populations of several worlds just to give more room to his own people. One of them was my own. I stood there and looked down at the tyrant who had given the order to have my people . . . erased, just completely eradicated like keystrokes on a document that's deleted. And I decided that I would not let another race suffer at this man's hands. That night, I made a small but fatal adjustment to his treatment. He was dead by morning.

"I was fortunate in that the hospital authorities believed I had made an error, rather than a deliberate and calculated act, and instead of facing criminal charges, I was merely stripped of my medical license and asked to remove myself from the planet. I did so, eventually ending up in a back alley medical clinic on Knowhere. And there we met."

"I 'member." Yondu smiled for the first time since this conversation had begun. "You saved m'life."

"And I have devoted every day since then to preserving life rather than ending it. Would I make that same decision again? No. Do I regret having made it then? No, I do not. I thought of the millions of lives potentially at risk, versus one life sacrificed to save them all. I rest easily knowing that I did the only thing that I could. It was not revenge; it was justice."

"An' yer point is?"

Corfla sat up straight. "You could not save those six children," he said bluntly. "But you did save Peter. You put a stop to your part in the bad business. Perhaps the jackass, as you call him, will find someone else to do his dirty work for him. But I doubt it. If he refuses to scrape the bottom of the barrel, trust those who should not be trusted . . . then you will have saved the rest of those children who would have been next on the list. We cannot change the past. But we can move forward with the knowledge that we will learn from our mistakes and not repeat them. Instead of looking back on the last fifty years, look to the next fifty. Make them glorious. Do great and wonderful things."

"I don't even know if I'm celebratin' on the right day," Yondu confessed. "I was sold into slav'ry when I was a baby. They tol' me the day I was born, but I ain't got no proof. Could be months off in either direction."

"You don't have your original birth certificate?"

"Nope. Long gone."

"I don't believe that. It must be on file somewhere. If I find it for you, will you agree to go along with the party the men have planned for you, even if it's on the wrong day?"

"I guess," Yondu muttered.

"Very well, then. I'll get right on that. It's a bit quiet here at the moment anyway. I'll let you know what I find as soon as I find it." He stood, but didn't immediately head for the door.

Yondu waved a hand at him. "Dismissed."

He didn't have any wrapping paper.

Peter had found the perfect present for Captain Yondu in the Terran shop, but he hadn't been able to find anything to wrap it in. And there wasn't time to go get some!

"Whatcha got there?" Kraglin came in and found the boy struggling. "Aw, that's cute. He'll love that."

"Yeah, but I got nothin' to wrap it in!"

"Wrap it?"

"Don't they wrap presents in space?"

"Don' worry 'bout that. Jus' give it to 'im. It'll be fine."

"You sure?"

"Yeah."

"What'd you get him?"

"The rest of us all went in on somethin' together. You'll see it. 'S not as nice as that, though. What's this do?" He reached out for it, but Peter yanked it away.

"Don't! You'll run down the battery 'fore he even gets it!"

"Sorry." Kraglin pulled his hand back. "You know the plan, right?"

"Why do I gotta be the bait?"

"Cause he'd do anythin' fer you. Okay, I'm gonna go finish decoratin'. You stay here an' wait for 'im. An' get that thing outta sight!"

"But he's not even on the ship right now!"

"He could come back any time! Hide it!"

"Fine." Peter shoved the gift under his pillow, where it would be safer than in his storage cubby.

Where was everybody?

Yondu stepped off his personal M-ship and looked around. The hangar, which should have been bustling with activity, was empty. It was never empty, not even in the middle of the night.

"Well," he muttered to himself, "here goes. They'll be callin' me any minute now."

But when the summons came, it was not to the bridge or the mess hall, as he had expected, but to the med bay. What was up with that?

When he got there, Corfla had something for him.

"As promised," he said, "your original birth certificate."

"Where'd ya get this from?"

"Central Records on Alpha Centauri. It seems that anyone born there is still considered a citizen, regardless of what happens to them in the meantime. If you'll read it, you'll see two things: first of all, you have indeed been celebrating on the correct day."

Yondu glanced down and found it so. "Yeah, and?"

"And, you're only forty-nine."

"What?"

"Look at the year. I assume you can do basic subtraction. Current year minus date of birth year equals forty-nine."

"Son of a bitch." A huge grin spread across the Centaurian's blue mug. "I got another year!"

"That you do, Captain. That you do indeed."

There came the sound of running footsteps. Small running footsteps. The boy Peter came running in, stopping before the captain and trying to catch his breath. "Been lookin' . . . all over . . . for you, sir. They need you . . . down in . . . Aux Engineering."

There it was, then. Yondu looked over at Corfla, who nodded encouragingly.

"Fine," the captain said. "Let's go."

"What's that you got there?"

"Nothin'. Come on."

The lights were off when they entered the Auxiliary Engineering bay. "You guys blow a fuse or what?"

All of a sudden, the lights came on, and there was a huge shout of "SURPRISE!" followed by an off-key rendition of the birthday song the boy had taught everyone. It sounded awful, and normally Yondu would have ordered them to quit it after a few bars, but he had promised Doc that he'd go along with it, so go along he did.

They were all looking at him now, and finally it occurred to him that they were waiting for him to say something. So he did.

"Aw, hell. Who told ya it was my birthday? Never mind, it's okay. Thanks."

"I think Peter's got somethin' for ya, Cap'n," said Kraglin, nudging the boy forward. The kid was holding something behind his back.

"Well, lessee it, then."

Peter held out something about a foot high, brown at the bottom and green on the top. It looked like . . . a fan? "Saw this in th' Terran shop and thought you might like it. Sir."

"What is it?"

"Here, lemme show ya." Peter pressed the button. The thing came to life, revolving like a spinning top, and played music. Something about wasting away in Mugoridavell, or whatever.

Yondu chuckled. "Thass cute, that is. That all it does?"

"If you set it like this," he said, turning the thing over and showing Yondu the switch on the bottom, "it'll dance to your music. It's a palm tree. That's somethin' they have on Earth-not where you picked me up. Further south. Places like Florida and Hawaii and stuff. California, too, I think."

"They all dance like this?" Yondu pressed the button again and heard the little song. "Heh heh! I love this li'l thing!"

"We've got somethin' fer ya too, Cap'n." Kraglin reached behind him and held out something red. "Thought ya could use it, since ya ain't never had one like this before."

Yondu took it from him. "It's a replacement fin! One o' them fancy ones! But . . . they're a lotta money."

"We kinda all went in on it t'gether."

"Yer friend Karrlo at Madame Winx's get it fer ya?"

"He picked it out, we paid."

"What's Madame Winx's?" Peter asked.

"You'll find out when yer older," said Kraglin. "C'mon, Cap, try it on. Lessee it in action."

"Fine." Yondu reached up and detached the strip of metal and plastic he wore on the top of his head, set it aside, and snapped the new fin down into the socket. Then he opened his coat and gave a whistle.

His yaka arrow practically jumped from its holster, did a quick 360 of the room, and then tucked itself away again.

"Nice. Li'l too nice, though. I'll save this one fer best. Thank ya, alla ya. An' now I got somethin' ta say."

He looked out at all his lost boys, the ones he'd rescued from a life of slavery, and for once those six other children were far from his mind.

"Ah'm proud o' you, alla you. Next year, when I turn fifty-yeah, fer some reason I was a year off-we'll do somethin' really special. Till then, we'll keep movin' forward, doin' great an' glorious things. Even you," he said, ruffling Peter's hair. "An' now," he said, spreading his arms wide, "let's party!"

It was a truly epic party, even if there wasn't much drinking. (The present and the decorations had eaten up the major part of the party funds.) Yondu kept pressing the button on his little palm tree till he wore out the batteries. Luckily they took the same kind as Peter's Walkman; Yondu promised to buy him some more just as soon as he could.

And the best part of all was that they had another year to plan the fiftieth birthday party. Another year of great and glorious things.