As starship Thirteen passed the orbit of Pluto, a meeting was held, since this could be considered the beginning of interstellar space.
The ship was reasonably large—ten small private cabins, a bridge that would only be used for planetfalls, large storage areas, and a big common room, where the crew had gathered.
They were sitting in All-Purpose Lounges, arranged in a circle. A few had their Lounges at full recline, but most preferred the upright position.
Oliver Brunei, the nominal captain, had just opened the first case of Omnidrene, and taken out a bottle of the tiny pills.
"This, fellow inmates," he said, "is Omnidrene. The time has come for us to indulge. The automatics are all set, we won't have to do a thing we don't want to for the next eight years."
He poured ten of the tiny blue pills into the palm of his right hand. "On Earth, they used to have some kind of traditional ceremony when a person crossed the equator for the first time. Since we are crossing a far more important equator, I thought we should have some kind of ceremony."
The crew squirmed irritably.
I do tend to be verbose, Brunei thought.
"Well ... anyway, I just thought we all oughta take the first pills together," he said, somewhat defensively.