Baby Heepunui arrived to a ship full of people, and one being, who loved her. She was delivered by Sue and Ruth in the ship's med bay. Between the variety of shifts everyone worked Amataya was never short of help. Heepunui was a cheerful baby and slotted in to the rhythms of life on the Albatross. She was happy bouncing around in different arms and slung to different fronts. Her giggles lit up the ship and gave everyone a new focus away from thoughts of earth and their families there.

The ship’s savings towards a new plasma drive slowed down without Amataya’s income but no one seemed to mind. The rent they put in was equal to their previous accommodation, it more than covered the repayments to MacGyver. They pooled resources and made things work with what was left over. Breakfast and lunch were usually tubes of miso paste as Shige called them. Dinner was whatever food they could find cheap. Earth food was about 4 times the price on the station or 10 times the price to order from earth. That was the same for most things.

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Loads of food was produced on the planet. One of the main sources of protein was ants' eggs. Giant ants were farmed like chickens. The queens were prolific layers and didn’t need or want space to run around, just a warm dry place and pheromone program to encourage them to produce. The ones on Borgon were fed on cactus pulp which they thrived on. Worker ants were grown and sold too, but only the octopus aliens like Dr Tshene liked to eat them. Many ant farmers grew oyster mushrooms on the ant's waste mixed with cactus leftovers from the pulp processing.