More of the hungry entered the room. They walked, slithered, scuttled in, and the Turrneds seated them, purring gentle words, filling the room with stifling warmth.
A scent caught in L’inarx’s nose. He must have made a face, for the missionary beside him whispered, “Is it the Gentek? They take getting used to, I’ll admit.”
“That smell,” he said. “The wine.” What were they called again? “Flimberries?”
The veteran’s eyes darted to the saucer of dark red on the altar. “Ah,” he said. “Impressive nose you have there, flickering Star.”
“But—”
The Turrned nodded with empathy. “I know. It isn’t the same. Not even close. But it’s too hard to source the right ingredients so far from the homeworld.”
“But doesn’t Plexis have everything? If You Want It, It’s Here?” The script outside the giant station had shouted as much.
“I’m sure there’s a seller somewhere onboard. But the price would be beyond our means. Not much demand for our homeworld goods, it seems. Our only export is the truth.”
And a free lunch, thought L’inarx, but he didn’t say it. It sounded possibly heretical, and certainly rude.
At least they should have fermented the flimberries with a dash of crane vinegar. That would have dampened the fishiness of it.
It didn’t matter now. The Mission was in service, and the leader nodded his head for it to begin. “Good luck, Hoch,” the veteran purred.
L’inarx reached for the decanter and poured wine for the spacers at the first table. He concentrated on exuding empathetic warmth. He could feel waves of it radiating from the others, and he knew he was the only one who struggled to produce it. But as long as there was so much kindness emanating, it didn’t matter if so little was coming from him.
He poured for the Gentek, the sulfurous smell of him flooding his nose. The veteran had been right; it took getting used to. But the Gentek nodded warmly, the attractive dappling along its neck lighting with pleasant colors. L’inarx wondered if other humanoid species found them adorable, too.
He shuffled to the next table and poured just a sip for a small child, who tugged on her caretaker’s arm and said, “Gram, why’s that one have weird eyes?” She shushed her, but L’inarx didn’t mind. It was truth without malice, and truth was the fabric of the universe; whether you believed in it or not, the entire structure was entangled in absolutes.
“You look weary,” he said to them. “We will pray for you.”
He moved to the next table. He poured for a harried-looking shopkeeper, and for a spacer complaining about his unfair contract with a trade ship. He poured for a Tolian, who reminded him of First Mate W’harton and the way he’d gobbled down the stew. I’ve had a great deal worse.
It was that rusty salt, he thought. He should’ve added the nyx tears. A bit sweet, yes, but the aftertaste would have combined more smoothly with the lingering rubber texture of the fungi . . .
“Hey! Watch it!”
The Tolian rose to his feet, his chair pushing back with an awful screech. The alien towered over him, red wine dripping off the quills of his emerald feathers and pooling on the floor beneath.
The whole room was looking now, the service disrupted. The Turrneds blinked in unison, staring at L’inarx.
His heart pounded. “I . . . I’m so sorry. Let me get you a towel.” He turned, but as he limped away, his robe snagged on the edge of the table and sent him tumbling, paws over eyes. The rest of the decanter splashed all over the next table before shattering on the floor.
The veteran Turrned hurried over, a towel draped over his arm. “You are troubled,” he said smoothly. “Let us help you.”
“Of course I’m troubled!” the Tolian’s com squawked. “This runt poured wine all over me! I smell like rotting creteng!” But his angry voice lost its edge as the veteran missionary blinked his warm eyes.
“Let us help you,” he said.
The Tolian lowered slowly, conversation resuming. L’inarx unhooked his robe from the table as his ears folded tight with embarrassment. The missionaries moved like cogs in a vintage watch, whirling around each other in perfect synchronization as they resumed service.
Only one other Turrned didn’t move with them—the Mission leader, standing with a bundle of prayer vistapes clutched to his chest. He was looking at L’inarx with excessive kindness and sympathy, which only meant one thing.
L’inarx was in big trouble.
* * *
• • •
“A free lunch for the weary-hearted,” L’inarx said, passing a visbrochure to a nearby spacer. “We will pray for you.”
This was what it had come to. He had feared he’d be scrubbing every last inch of the altar for the next three years, scouring the sleeping quarters, and mending the scruffy robes. He’d be doing all of those, too, the leader had assured him, but he’d start by handing out the stacks of thousands of visbrochures. “A chance for one-on-one service,” he’d purred. L’inarx had shuddered.
How long had he stood here? Half a station day? More? This particular corner of Plexis had quickly lost its novelty—nothing but a blur of potential converts, and L’inarx without the warmth to even charm them into taking a digital leaflet.
Perhaps if he changed locations.
He rode the ramp up to the next level, limping under the weight of the visbrochures. The bench? Not enough traffic. Beside the ramp? Too easy for his targets to get away.
A cacophony of spices and seasonings flooded the air around him.
Was that . . . clipwings? And sour dolm leaves? He turned the corner and saw the booth—small compared to those selling refurbished ship parts, but stocked to every corner with barrels and boxes and tubs. Spices in every color imaginable burst out of the tops of them, pyramids of azure and gold and luminescent green, each a different and intoxicating scent. L’inarx stared.
“Looking for something in particular?”
A Human sat among the spices—or some type of humanoid. Swirling patterns had been tattooed over every visible stretch of skin.
“You’re one of them Turrneds, aren’t you?”
L’inarx blinked his gray disks down at his robe, his hands full of prayer leaflets. “What gave you that idea?”
He shouldn’t have said that. It was bordering on rude.
But the shopkeeper laughed. He hooked a thumb behind him. “I’ve got some flimberries in the back.”
L’inarx shuddered. “Only if you have enough crane vinegar to drown a clipwing nest.”
The shopkeeper looked at him carefully. “Crane vinegar, you say?”
“Gets rid of the fishy—”
“—the fishy aftertaste,” the patterned Human finished for him. “Hmph. First Turrned worth your salt. Why’d they wait so long to send you?”
L’inarx ran his hand along the rim of a barrel of bright blue seroling. It was so fresh he could smell the citrus tones from here. “I’m a new arrival.”
“’bout damn time,” the shopkeeper said. “Er. Sorry. Interested in that seroling? Nice and sour. It’ll curl your eye disks right inward.”
He wanted to try it—and everything else. He stumbled for words. “How much?”
“Two credits a pound.”
If Turrned cursed, now would be the time. His ears drooped. “Two credits?”
“Didn’t the Mission give you enough?”
The shopkeeper thought he was an envoy, even with an armful of visbrochures and no shopping list. He didn’t even have a grav cart. Turrneds didn’t carry credits; there was no need. The Mission provided your robe, your quarters, your food. L’inarx had blurred the lines of truth a little in the past when buying ingredients for his recipes. At least cooking was a service for others, but so luxurious a dish? Time after time, it was explained away as enhanced Hoch abilities.
“Ah,” th
e Human said. “This isn’t for them, is it?”
L’inarx felt as transparent as that obnoxious altar candle. “How can you tell? Are you an empath?”
The shopkeeper laughed. “I’m a salesbeing on Plexis. I’ve seen it all. Here.” He reached into his pocket and flicked a small crystal into the air. L’inarx nearly dropped the visbrochures as he caught it. “That’s a five-credit cluster,” the Human nodded. “You take the next two ramps up, hang a right, walk down the hallway until you hit the biggest sign you’ve ever seen. Go see how flimberries and seroling should be handled, hmm?”
L’inarx stared at the credit cluster. It caught the light, gleaming as it magnified the visbrochures underneath. “You are very kind,” he said. “I will pray for you.”
“Just make sure the Mission buys their flimberries here, okay?” The shopkeeper grinned. “And crane vinegar, if you can convince them. Half a credit a flask.”
L’inarx knew how vast the universe was, how slowly everything had burned and cooled and drifted to become what it was. He knew how slowly the Prelude had composed and decomposed, how many billions of years stretched behind and ahead until the first gleam of the collapse would finally appear on the universe’s multifaceted rim. And yet no moment had ever felt so long as passing out those visbrochures while the credits weighed heavily in the pocket of his robe.
When a spacer finally took the last one, L’inarx hobbled toward the ramp, nearly tripping over his hem. The buzz of conversation was everywhere, coms crackling and aliens manipulating all types of mandibles into the fricatives and affricates of the communal Comspeak. The Mission always necessitated hushed, reverent exchanges. How loud Plexis was in comparison. It bubbled like an overcooked stew, a bit of this and a dash of that, an intoxicating blend that filled the Hoch with newfound hope that there was more to the universe than his disappointing missionary post.
At the end of the alleyway, he found the promised sign. It hung high above a set of doors, opening constantly with the flow of customers. Claws & Jaws: Complete Interspecies Cuisine. The waft of delicious smells curled around L’inarx’s nostrils.
Interspecies cuisine? His heart pounded. The most exotic thing he’d ever eaten was the gruel on the shuttle from the homeworld. He limped into line, ignoring the strange looks from the others. After a moment’s thought he turned and bowed politely, sending as much warmth their way as he could.
Imagining the delights within, it was an easy feat to manage.
At last he made it through the doors and to the counter. The server looked to be a humanoid of some type, though pale lavender, and she smiled warmly at him. She must think him cute.
“Table for one?” He nodded, reaching a paw into his pocket to curl around the credit cluster.
It was strange not to be the server for once. The Fem led him to a table next to an indoor fountain and a handful of fake bushes, arranged to amuse customers into thinking they were at an outdoor plaza. Some marine species had apparently allowed their children to splash around in the fountain. They swam laps and leaped with shimmering fins, to the aggressive eye-rolling of the other patrons.
L’inarx didn’t mind. He liked children, and all the activity only added to the buzz of his excitement. No one ever splashed around in a fountain at the Mission.
“Welcome to Claws & Jaws,” a voice said, and it took L’inarx a moment to see who was talking. It was a shelled alien, about the same height as a Turrned. Only the eyes on the ends of his antennae wobbled above the edge of the table, a digital ordering device poised in his claw. He lifted it to the table and used his eyeball to push it toward L’inarx. “May I take your order?”
L’inarx clicked on his chosen script. There were a variety of ways to order—by species, by quadrant, by digestive system, by ingredient type. The world was his prawly—but looking at his waiter, he decided it might be rude to order shellfish. “What would you recommend?”
The alien blinked its eye antennae one at a time. “Well, to be honest, we don’t get many Turrneds in here.”
“Oh?”
“In fact, just you. Ever.”
“Oh.”
“But we do pride ourselves on the completeness of our interspecies cuisine. I’m sure we can find something that tastes like home.”
“Oh, no,” L’inarx purred. “I don’t want anything that tastes like home. I want . . . anything else.”
The eyes blinked again, individually. “Ah,” he said. “A gourmet. We do get lots of those. I’d recommend the Sunset Bisque from the beaches of Abalania V. Very nice flavor; seaweed a touch bitter, but with a bite you won’t soon forget.”
“Great,” L’inarx said. “And maybe some . . . Mixed Forest Fungi Stew, Suitable for All Manner of Gastrointestinal Systems?”
“Certainly,” the waiter said, looping his antenna around the device. “You’ll find the Tork mushrooms are particularly smoky today.”
L’inarx stared around the room as he waited. There were arguments at some tables, laughter at others. Everything was alive and vibrant. He’d always been taught to move purposefully, that the pace of the stars and the expanding galaxy was to be modeled in every way. But this burst of lifespans, eons shorter than star lives . . . his mentors had never told him what kind of energy they held, what kind of excitement he could find in all the hustle and bustle of life.
They hadn’t told him how brightly dreams could shine.
No one was staring at his small, gray eyes in here. In his differences, he was the same as the rest. For once, L’inarx didn’t wish he was one of many, orbiting. He was pleased to be his own star.
The return of his server was signaled by the clunk of a tray onto the table, antennae straining as they pushed it toward him. L’inarx said his thanks, prayed over the food, and took a bite of the soup. The blend of flavors burst on his tongue—the spice of the seaweed, evolved over millions of years on a distant planet, suddenly fizzing against his taste buds while he twirled around the universe on a repurposed asteroid refinery.
It felt like the end of his own prelude, like the melody had finally begun.
He took another taste of soup, then tried the stew, then called his server back and ordered a side of mellowroot fries. His world broke open, the possibilities for his own dishes swirling in his mind. If only that shuttle kitchen was still his to explore. He had so many new ideas, so many tastes to combine.
“Anything else?” the waiter asked, but L’inarx was so stuffed he could barely tilt his head no. He passed the credit cluster to the waiter.
“May I greet the chef?” he said. “It’s rude in our culture to accept service without reciprocation.”
The waiter’s antennae nodded up and down like reeds in a marsh wind. “We are familiar with a few species that have such requirements. This way.”
The kitchen offered even more intoxicating aromas than the restaurant. Unlike the quiet, orderly Mission, every station here whirred with action. Stew pots bubbled, pans flared with fire and oils and sautéed delicacies. Something was burning in an oven, and L’inarx fought the urge to grab a towel and pull the dish out.
“He’s in there, somewhere,” the waiter said. “Not sure exactly which one to thank, but . . . please, don’t take long. This is our busiest night of the week.”
“Of course,” L’inarx said. He bowed to the waiter and began to pray, but when he looked up, the alien was already rushing out the door, his antennae wrapped tightly around four different dishes.
L’inarx observed the chaos and rhythm of the kitchen—the boiling, the braising, the cooling, the freezing. A microcosm of everything the Turrned believed, he thought. Maybe his longing never had been at odds with his missionary inheritance.
“Are you the one?” said a gruff, tentacled chef, not even looking up from his stewpot.
“Um,” said L’inarx. “Yes. I’m here to offer up my vow of returned service.”
&
nbsp; “Yes, fine, just get me the mellowroot, would you?”
“The . . .” L’inarx hadn’t even started his prayer of gratitude yet. But Turrneds served, first of all. “Of course.” He scanned the room, noticing a large stasis unit through a flap next to the sinks. He shuffled in, eyeing all sorts of sacks and boxes and bins. Mellowroot. There were a lot of root vegetables, but he remembered the yellow tone. How many to take? He loaded up the pockets of his robe and returned to the chef.
The chef harrumphed, studied the roots sticking out of L’inarx’s pockets. “These’ll do.”
L’inarx nodded. “I wish to offer up my gratitude. May the Prelude forever rest your—”
“Now peel them.”
“P . . . peel them?”
The chef turned, his eyebrows knit over his glistening, tired face. “I haven’t got all night, missionary. You stay and cook, or you get out those doors and they’ll send me someone who can. Can you do it or not?”
L’inarx peeled the mellowroot.
And after they were peeled, he took a paring knife and chopped them into fries, and then he sliced ten Tork mushrooms for a stew, careful not to touch his paws to his eyes. The rest of his night passed in a flurry of ingredients, rushing back and forth to the dry pantry and the stasis unit, slicing and peeling and occasionally rescuing a burning hank of shorlam from the ovens. He knew there must have been some misunderstanding—the chef had been expecting a new recruit, he was certain—but he lost himself in the joy, in the stress and the effort and the meaning of it all. This was the type of service he was meant for. This was the giving of himself to the universe. The kitchen flooded with warmth, whether from stews or roasts or from L’inarx himself as he finally delighted in the genetic gifts of a Hoch.
“What’s this Turrned doing in my kitchen?” boomed a voice that snapped L’inarx out of his haze. A massive alien shuffled toward L’inarx on a flurry of bulbous pads, its four arms dodging around the constantly moving chefs. Its metallic head separated in a swarm of eyes that put L’inarx’s waiter to shame.
“He’s the new assistant, Hom Huido,” the chef informed him, never looking up from his sizzling saucepan.
The Clan Chronicles--Tales from Plexis Page 3
