Soup Night on Union Station

by E. M. Foner

  “It’s as much about the fixings as the falafel balls,” Samuel told her. “I’ve seen Drazens smother theirs with zhug, which is some kind of hot sauce. If the server asks whether you want zhug or harif, just say no,” he added for Vivian’s benefit.

  “What do you suggest?” Marilla asked the Horten behind the counter.

  “The falafel plate, with hummus and olive oil,” the server replied immediately, and then added in a lower voice, “I can’t vouch for the pita bread because it comes from a Human subcontractor and you know their hygiene isn’t up to par.”

  “Give me a falafel in a pita,” Marilla declared loyally. “I work for Humans and there’s nothing wrong with their hygiene, if you don’t mind a little dog hair. I’ll add my own fixings.”

  The Horten server turned bright red, but she slit open a pita, added a smear of hummus and six balls of falafel, and placed it in a sort of envelope before passing it across the counter. “I hope you haven’t forgotten how to use utensils,” she added snidely as Marilla stepped towards the salad bar. “Next.”

  “The plate,” Wrylenth said. “And give me those dark-colored balls in the basket to the side. They look crunchier.”

  “Those are overcooked,” the server told him. “I forgot them in the deep fryer while I was dicing cucumbers and tomatoes. We weren’t quite prepared for the demand.”

  “I like overcooked,” the Verlock said. “And don’t give me any of the hummus stuff, it looks creamy.”

  “Next,” the Horten called, after handing the Verlock a plate with ten rock-hard balls of falafel.

  “I’m on a diet,” Aabina said. “Could I get a single ball with just enough of the hummus to keep it from rolling around?”

  “No olive oil?”

  “What’s the fat content?”

  “I don’t have the numbers handy but the Humans say it’s the good kind.”

  “Just a dollop then.”

  “Next,” the server said, handing Aabina her lunch on a small dessert plate.

  “In a pita, with hummus and harif,” Samuel said.

  “Chips?” the server inquired, indicating another basket with her tongs.

  “Do you mean French fries? Sure, stuff them in there.”

  “Didn’t you just say not to order harif?” Vivian asked.

  “For you, not me,” Samuel said, accepting his stuffed pita pocket. “I’m going to have trouble getting any salad in here.”

  “I’ll have the hummus plate,” Vivian told the server. “Without any hot stuff.”

  The Horten spooned a giant dollop of hummus onto a plate and spread it around with an outward spiraling movement using the bottom of the serving spoon. Then she grabbed a bottle of olive oil with a top that was reminiscent of the kind used in bars that poured measured shots and added an artistic dash, moving the bottle around as the stream of oil flowed out. Finally, she placed three balls of falafel in a triangle at the center of the plate, sprinkled little green leaves over the top, and handed it over.

  “Are you sure this is all Horten-safe?” Marilla asked the Frunge tending the salad bar. “I’ve never seen so many fixings.”

  “You might want to go easy on the purple stuff and the green olives, but all of it is technically edible,” the cafeteria worker replied. “Hey, what are you doing?” he shouted at Wrylenth.

  “Adding salad to my falafel dish,” the Verlock replied imperturbably. “Isn’t it included in the price?”

  “But it’s only what you can fit on the plate, and you’re taking all of the radish slices.”

  “Try cutting them into a different shape next time so they don’t stack so well,” Wrylenth advised him. “Do these olives have pits?”

  “Yes,”’ the Frunge replied. “Great big ones.”

  “Excellent,” the Verlock said, expertly wielding the tongs to place olives in the few gaps left on his plate between stacks of radish slices. “Love pits. Very crunchy.”

  “This is perfect,” Aabina said to Samuel, loading her small plate with Mediterranean salad. “I’ve suggested to the ambassador that you market cucumbers and tomatoes to Vergallian women who are watching their weight.”

  “That would be all of them,” Vivian muttered in his other ear. “You’re eating standing in line?”

  Samuel swallowed. “Making room,” he said, and then transferred several more French fries to his mouth. He quickly filled up the newly available space in his overstuffed pita with salad.

  The five friends got their drinks and proceeded to the register where a bored-looking Grenouthian was waiting to ring them up. “Will that be together?”

  “The admin said we could all get a free lunch,” Marilla said. “There’s five of us.”

  “Don’t play games,” the bunny replied. “Two of you already came through and they took lunches for the other three.”

  “Let it go, Sam,” Vivian said, knowing that if he started to argue their falafels would all be cold by the time they sat down to eat. “I’ll just pay,” she added, handing over a programmable cred.

  “I wonder who it was,” Samuel grumbled, looking around the cafeteria with a scowl. It didn’t take long to spot Grynlan and his Grenouthian co-conspirator feasting on falafel in wraps that were at least twice as large as a pita pocket. “I didn’t know we could order in a flatbread!”

  Four

  “So the last editors of the cookbook before the Hortens were the Drazens?” Kelly asked Bork.

  “That’s right,” the Drazen ambassador replied grimly. “We’re talking about over a hundred thousand years ago, but our historians have demonstrated again and again that we didn’t mean anything by it.”

  “Mean anything by what?”

  “You don’t know about the Great Falling Out?”

  “Between the Drazens and the Hortens? I thought that was all because of an argument over some planet that you both claimed.”

  “Do you think we’d really let something like a little real estate dispute fester all these years? You know that the Hortens were once our greatest allies and we fought together in the Battle of Scort Woods. Did I ever tell you—”

  “Yes, you would have been great in the part,” Kelly interrupted Bork before he could change the subject to his amateur acting career. “I’m meeting Ortha in fifteen minutes and I really need to know the scoop about the All Species Cookbook.”

  “There’s really nothing to know,” Bork said, spreading his hands and letting his tentacle droop. “When the current editors decide to move on, the Stryx put the rights up for bid, and whoever wins brings out the next edition. The cookbook is always published in a different indecipherable version of Universal, and nobody but an AI would dream of actually making any of the recipes. It’s more of a diplomatic statement.”

  “How can a cookbook be a diplomatic statement?”

  “It’s a symbol of unity. Editing the cookbook means that you’re willing to look for points of commonality connecting the species rather than dwelling on our differences. It should have been a walk in the park for us since we can eat pretty much anything, but we invited the Hortens to give their input on the draft version and it all went sideways.”

  “You’re telling me that the details of editing a cookbook over a hundred thousand years ago are still fresh in the collective memory of Drazens even though all of the records were lost in a fire?”

  “It was a flood,” Bork objected. “Completely unexpected on a desert world.”

  “Flood, fire, asteroid impact, what does it matter?”

  “It wouldn’t have mattered if the Hortens hadn’t ended up boycotting the publication and not buying a single copy, the first time in tunnel network history that a species ever went that far.”

  Kelly began to ask another question and then thought better of it, instead forcing herself to count to ten while letting her eyes wander over the familiar display of medieval weapons mounted on the walls of Bork’s office. “Was there something in particular that set the Hortens off?” she finally asked.

>   “They claimed we used the cookbook to make fun of them for being germophobes,” the ambassador said. “Just because the recipe for Gamer’s Goulash went through washing the vegetables six times and disinfecting all of the cookware and preparation surfaces with a high dose of radiation. A leading Drazen historian proved beyond a doubt that the recipe was adapted from the bestselling Horten cookbook of that period.”

  “The Hortens wash their vegetables six times? Marilla might be a little picky, but she eats with us at least once a week.”

  “All of the individuals living on Stryx stations are more cosmopolitan than the populations of their species living on closed worlds,” Bork reminded her. “But it’s not even about the recipes we published, it’s about what the Hortens did when they took over the editorship from us.”

  “Don’t tell me,” Kelly said, guessing what was coming. “They put out a revenge cookbook?”

  “They insulted us to our faces!” Bork exclaimed, and then continued on in an unnatural voice that sounded not unlike a Horten speaking. “Save the peelings for a Drazen friend. If it falls on the floor, don’t throw it out—somebody with a tentacle is sure to appreciate it. If you get called away while the soup is cooking, an acquaintance with extra thumbs will enjoy those pot scrapings.” He went back to his regular voice. “It went on and on, every recipe had a line like that. If it wasn’t for the Stryx rules we would have declared war.”

  “But it’s just words,” Kelly said. “Surely nobody goes to war over—forget I said that.”

  “We invoked the Cultural Attack clause of the tunnel network treaty and requested a Stryx investigation of the editorial process. The Hortens claimed they had moved all of the records into space for safekeeping where they were obliterated by a rogue comet.”

  “That’s original.”

  “The Stryx must have thought so too because they refused to get involved. Did you know that the Cultural Attack clause has an exemption for satire?”

  “I didn’t even know there was a Cultural Attack clause. Could we use it to stop the Grenouthians from making all of those insulting documentaries about us?”

  “You would have to prove that they’re lying with the intent to cause harm,” Bork said doubtfully.

  “Never mind. Do you know how much the Hortens bid to take over the cookbook from the Drazens?”

  “The Stryx conduct the auction and they don’t publish the bid information, they just announce a winner. Some people believe that they’re picking tunnel network species in order of when they joined.”

  “That sounds easy enough to prove.”

  “Correlation doesn’t imply causality,” Bork replied with a shrug. “It could just as easily be coincidence. Besides, once a species wins, they’re disqualified from bidding again.”

  “But you and the Hortens were the last two oxygen-breathing species to join the tunnel network before us. If I add up all of the previous species,” Kelly said, doing the mental math, “is there even anybody left to bid against us?”

  “You know that not all of the tunnel network species maintain a diplomatic presence on Union Station, and EarthCent only opens embassies on the Stryx stations where you have a large population. Your intelligence people probably have all the oxygen-breathing species sorted by now if you’re curious.”

  “So you don’t have any advice about the bid amount at all?”

  “Not beyond what’s written in the bid document,” the Drazen ambassador said.

  “Didn’t read it,” Kelly admitted without hesitation. “I had Donna send it to her daughters since Blythe and Chastity will be the ones paying and the Galactic Free Press will be the publisher if we win. I also submitted a request to our president for a special budget to produce the cookbook and got back a reply that he’s out of the office until after the auction.”

  “An effective diplomatic tactic,” Bork said, nodding his head in approval. “Listen. The Stryx methodology for auctioning tunnel network monopolies is rather unique, so it’s worth giving the bid document a read just for the flavor of the thing. To summarize, the Stryx deliver the funds from the winning bid to the head of the newly formed authority, which in the case of the All Species Cookbook, would be the managing editor.”

  “You mean the species that wins any of these monopolies gets to keep the money?”

  “These aren’t business monopolies that are expected to earn a profit, they’re more like public works projects. Most new tunnel network members overbid for their first monopoly because they see it as a matter of prestige for their species.”

  “So you’re saying that if Chastity wins the cookbook monopoly for the Galactic Free Press she’ll actually be paying herself?”

  “That’s pretty much the way it works, but the Stryx require that the publisher spend the bid money producing the cookbook. I would guess that the most expensive parts are hiring the linguists to create a new language for plausible deniability and arranging for whatever natural disaster is required to destroy any legal evidence.”

  “I certainly hope it doesn’t come down to that,” Kelly said, rising from her chair. “I have to get to the Horten embassy, but thank you for your time, Bork, and I’ll see you at our regular meeting.”

  “Give my best to Donna’s girls when you see them,” the Drazen ambassador called after her, pointedly ignoring the opportunity to send his greetings to Ortha.

  When Kelly entered the lift tube, she was surprised to find the Frunge ambassador waiting in the capsule. It was rare for a lift tube trip to be broken up by stops, and she wondered if Czeros was on his way to see Bork, but had failed to notice the capsule’s arrival because he was crouched down studying the dense text near the bottom of a display ad.

  “Ambassador?” she asked uncertainly. “We’re on the Drazen deck.”

  “Yes, I asked the station librarian to help me intercept you,” the Frunge diplomat said, straightening up with a frown. “You can’t trust anything you read these days. I thought that two hundred creds was a suspiciously low price for a five-day ship rental with no restriction on destinations, but it turns out that the cost doesn’t cover consumables.”

  “Joe’s never mentioned anything about consumables for the Tunnel Trips rental business.”

  “And hopefully he never does, but the Sharf charge for everything from fuel to air. Do you see the little comet-shaped symbol next to the two hundred?” Czeros asked, pointing towards the alien script, which meant nothing to Kelly. “Whenever there’s a superscript near a price, you have to check the fine print at the bottom to see what you’re really getting for your money.”

  “Thank you for bringing it to my attention. Do you mind if I tell the capsule to get started? I have a meeting with Ortha in a few minutes.”

  “That’s why I intercepted you,” Czeros said. “It’s about the All Species Cookbook. We can talk on the way.”

  “Horten deck, ambassador’s residence,” Kelly instructed the lift tube. “Do the Frunge have a stake in this, Czeros?”

  “Was that an attempt at a pun?” the Frunge demanded indignantly. “If so, I’m very disappointed in you, Ambassador.”

  “What? No, not steak, stake. Oh, I can see how the context could be confusing given that we’re talking about a cookbook.”

  “And did Bork tell you about their cookbook regrets?”

  “He said that the Horten recipes they offered were taken from—”

  “Regrets about us,” Czeros clarified, tapping his own chest. “He didn’t tell you about the special section on our famous barbeque techniques?”

  “But the Frunge prefer their meat raw,” Kelly said. “Why would—oh.”

  “Exactly. Somebody thought it would be funny to tease a new section about barbeque in the advance advertising, but when the cookbook was published, it only offered a single sentence on Frunge meat preparation.”

  “What was it?”

  “Cut into bite-sized pieces,” Czeros said. “We couldn’t even complain under the Cultural Attack clause since tech
nically, it’s true, but they were obviously making fun of us.”

  “So you were pleased when the Hortens took over the editorship?”

  “Pleased?” Czeros snorted. “Their version of the All Species Cookbook is subtitled, ‘In praise of grains.’ They did it specifically to get on our nerves.”

  “Doesn’t anybody publish the cookbook to share recipes that everybody can eat?”

  “The last few editions included a Vergallian vegan section, but those recipes are a last resort, even for Vergallians.”

  The lift tube capsule came to a halt on the Horten deck and the doors opened, but Kelly said, “Hold, please,” and put her hand on the Frunge ambassador’s forearm. “What are you trying to tell me, Czeros?”

  “If you can win the auction and never bring out another edition it would be a coup for galactic diplomacy,” he told her. “We Frunge have an excellent sense of humor, so we got past the insults with little more than a few trade wars, but some species have thinner skins than us, and Humans really aren’t in a position to make enemies.”

  “We weren’t planning to make enemies,” Kelly reassured Czeros. “I’m sure Donna will come up with recipes that everybody can enjoy together. We’ve even talked about asking the ambassadors on the station if they have any Earth-derived favorites.”

  Kelly thought the Frunge ambassador looked a bit taken aback as the doors closed between them, but checking the replacement for her ornamental wristwatch, she realized that she would have to hurry if she didn’t want to be late for her meeting with Ortha. To her surprise, the Horten ambassador was waiting outside his embassy.

  “Right on time,” he pronounced, implying that the EarthCent ambassador had arrived too late for good manners. “I’ve made a reservation for us at a coffee shop down the corridor that welcomes clean aliens.”

  “Are you doing renovations or something?” Kelly asked, inclining her head towards the embassy’s doors.

  “Not at all. To tell you the truth, I’ve begun to wonder if you might take our decontamination procedures the wrong way, but our union for embassy employees is too powerful to buck.”