"Yes, I'm quite familiar with that sort of thing." He'd lost count of the number of mornings spent entrenched in research while eating donuts. And the number of times he'd complained about whoever had eaten the last of the jellies.

"Well, for a time, I was a school librarian...later, I was a shop owner of sorts." This was rather delicate. He couldn't just say what he really did, obviously. "There were other things, but I'm not totally at liberty to speak too much. It's rather complicated, but suffice to say my colleagues and I battled evil." That was likely safe, there seemed to be many on this ship who were warriors or fighters of evil in one form or another It was one of the things many of them had in common.