The Sol Majestic

by Ferrett Steinmetz

  Scrimshaw lowers her horn-rimmed glasses, eyes woeful, stilling Paulius with a draconic glance. “Would it kill you,” she whispers, “to thank me for funding your dreams? Just once?”

  “Fine.” Each word is strained, as though stepping through a minefield. “I … am … welcoming of … your … money.”

  Scrimshaw actually hisses, whirling around as though she intends to summon a storm of hypodermic needles from the docbot’s walls and plunge them deep into Paulius’s heart.

  “The point is,” Montgomery says, her voice cleaving through the tension, “Ol’ Walkabout here’s getting worse. His spasms are speeding up. He travels farther with each warp. Putting his broken ass into the Escargone is asking for ruin.”

  “I can control it.” Kenna has heard that unrepentant begging in Paulius’s voice from rich children, wheedling their parents to buy them an exotic pet they can’t possibly take care of in a transport ship’s cramped confines.

  Scrimshaw taps Kenna’s shoulder, then grimaces with satisfaction as she sees Kenna understanding the infeasibility of Paulius’s plan.

  “Hello!” Montgomery rattles an IV hooked into Paulius’s arm; Paulius cringes, grasping his needle tight to protect it.

  A brief regret flashes over Montgomery’s face before she bellies up to the bed.

  “You couldn’t control your space-hop when you were well, you glorious egomaniac! Shoving you into the Escargone when you’re hopped up on pain pills? In full bed rest, sleeping all the time? That’s asking for another discharge while you’re in the time-fields, and look what happened then!”

  Paulius’s panic changes pitch. “Putting me into the Escargone is the only way to get this boy his meal! I can’t work like this.” He palpates his hip, hyperventilating as he traces the extent of his injuries, then lies back on the thin pillow, spent. “Please don’t fight me, Montgomery. You need to shove me inside that capsule, turn it up so months pass over minutes, and let me heal this ruinous injury before tonight’s service.”

  “You will teleport inside that time-capsule, Paulius. And we’ve already seen how the Escargone’s time-enhancing effects don’t play nicely with your dimensional splitting.”

  “I’ll stay still this time! I panicked, and, I…” He huffs, furious, embarrassed. “Walked into things. At … great speed.”

  “And if you’d teleported into the oven instead of next to it?”

  Paulius extends his arms to Kenna, imploring him, begging to come stand on the bed’s other side to face off against Montgomery. Kenna feels the gravitic pull to comfort Paulius—

  —but an almost subliminal squeeze from Scrimshaw’s spidery fingers tells him: Not yet.

  Paulius’s mouth draws into a fearful frown when Kenna does not come at his beckoning. He reaches back to draw his long white hair over his shoulder, braiding and unbraiding it like a man plucking at a violin. And like a violin, his edginess resonates through Kenna’s body, making them both nervous at the same pitch.

  “He needs the meal.” Paulius’s voice is a soft monotone, but his fingers yank his hair into agitated knots.

  “You’ve made hundreds of meals,” Montgomery says.

  “Those merely make money. This meal makes kings. It—”

  His voice quavers, and as it cracks he tugs his hair out into a messy gray feather-spread. He spreads the hair out with an irritated flick, looking down at it as though he hopes to find a speech written in it.

  “The boy’s been here for three days, yet already he’s found his Philosophy. That’s just from a bowl of broth. Yet what would we be if we stopped? He needs our nourishment to feed not just him, but his Philosophies. To make him not only wise, but great. I will not send him off to rule millions before I connect him with his ancestors’ strength, because—because if we abandon his Wisdom Ceremony, we … abandon Kenna.”

  His voice cracks again as he speaks Kenna’s name.

  Kenna shivers: Paulius believes in him.

  Paulius believes in him so thoroughly, he’s willing to risk his life in the Escargone to deliver Kenna’s meal. Paulius reassembles his silver strands back into a braid, hiding behind his hair, humiliated by his revelation: Yes, I am a monster, that shivering gesture says. I break men to create great art.

  But I break myself to create great men.

  Paulius scrubs away snuffled tears with his palm; Kenna recognizes the gesture as a reluctant confession. Yes, Kenna is but one of Paulius’s pet projects. But those projects are how Paulius atones for the necessary cruelty of destroying men to create perfect meals. He needs projects overwhelming enough to incinerate his mortal fears, subsuming himself as he extracts flawness cuisine from a fallible world—

  Yet he also spends precious hours sifting through pretentious speeches made in the confession booth, fast-forwarding past greedy thrill seekers in the hopes of finding someone worthy of love, of grace, of salvation.

  In this way he does his best to bend his merciless culinary arts toward compassion.

  Warm, surprising tears spill down Kenna’s cheeks like a burst dam. Paulius plucked Kenna from an endless stream of pretentious confessional booth monologues because yes, he saw something worthy in Kenna.

  Kenna thought he’d worn his heart on his sleeve, yet now he realizes how much adoration he’s been holding back. Kenna is special, Kenna is beloved, all this affection given to Paulius has been returned to him … If only Paulius knew what a filthy liar Kenna is.

  Then Kenna realizes Paulius wouldn’t care about the lie.

  Of this, Kenna has never been more certain of anything. Unlike Mother and Father, Paulius couldn’t care less about the Inevitable Philosophies: he just wants Kenna to be happy. And brave. And wise. If Kenna managed that working at The Sol Majestic, or hitchhiking through space, Paulius would be equally thrilled.

  If he admits his Inevitable Philosophy is a lie, he can stop Paulius from continuing with this damned-fool Escargone plan.

  “Paulius.” Kenna clutches Paulius’s bed rails, feeling like a penitent shriving himself at an altar. “The comestibles you’ve prepared. It’s—it’s not—”

  “How are those robe sales coming along, Scrimshaw?” Montgomery’s voice is as cutting as a blowtorch.

  Scrimshaw snaps her smartpaper open, scrutinizes it ostentatiously. “Hardly a single buyer.”

  “Oh, for pity’s sake, you human abacus!” Paulius snaps. “The boy’s trying to reveal something, and you’re bothering us with a balance sheet?”

  But the damage is done. The bed rail gripped in Kenna’s palms no longer feels like an altar; it has the cold feel of expensive technology, a reminder of the bills piling up at The Sol Majestic. He could tell Paulius about the ceremony, but Paulius would refuse to condemn Kenna to a lifetime of lies. Paulius wouldn’t care about the robes, or the money, or the damage to the Majestic’s prestige; he would shut it down in a fit of righteous anger, just the same as he’d tossed that gravity-bowl aside in the orchard.

  “I didn’t taste the duck.” He lies quickly, before he can regret it.

  Paulius goes so pale, the docbot’s monitors flare. Tranquilizing needles curl outward from the wall.

  “… you didn’t taste the duck?”

  “I needed to be there.” Kenna is surprised to find this true. “To see it made. You can’t just hand me the food, Paulius. I … I have to watch it happen. The creation, it … it inspires me. Without viewing the entirety of the process, anything you give me might as well be—a nutricracker.”

  Paulius swallows, a choking gesture; Kenna’s knees hit the floor as he grasps Paulius’s hand, begging forgiveness. Paulius squeezes back, but turns away from Kenna to stare haggardly past the walls, across the station, toward The Sol Majestic.

  “… Are you saying you need to see how it’s done?” he asks. “How it’s all done? Concept to finish?”

  He’d say anything to stop Paulius from throwing his life away in the Escargone. “Yes.”

  “Then this is … unthinkable.” Paulius does no
t fight as Scrimshaw waves a sedative-needle into his arm. “It’ll take months of Escargone-time to perfect the dishes. We can’t cram a boy into the time-ship to watch that. Not when he’s growing. It’d be like … a bonsai tree stuffed in a cube. That hellhole’s suffocated my best cooks—how can I rob Kenna of his best years? We can’t…”

  His chin thumps against his chest as the monitors turn a cool blue. “I don’t know how, Scrimshaw. I can’t make him a meal—the meal—in five uncompressed weeks…”

  The beeps tracking Paulius’s heart rate slow as Paulius nods into a troubled sleep, his face lined with despair.

  Montgomery sets the cask on the floor; Kenna hadn’t noticed how she’d hugged it to her chest like a frightened woman clutching her baby. She slumps to sit on the cask, digging elbows into lanky knees, massaging her pallid cheeks to bring blood back into them.

  “Well, that was easier than I’d thought,” she mutters.

  Where Montgomery looks exhausted, Scrimshaw looks grim. “I’ll start the paperwork.”

  “The paperwork?”

  Scrimshaw sucks in air through her teeth, examining Paulius’s prone body.

  “To shut it down.” She rolls her shoulders as if preparing to lift heavy weights—and charges out the door.

  13

  Halting State

  To shut it down.

  Kenna can’t fit that sentence into his brain. What’s she want to shut down? It sounds like she’s discussing The Sol Majestic, but … Scrimshaw couldn’t destroy all that beauty with no ceremony, could she? If you’re going to condemn a space station to economic ruin, you should hold a moment of silence, prepare people for this collapse with speeches, give them the space they’d need to mourn …

  But this is Scrimshaw.

  “Kid!” Montgomery yells, grabbing at him as he bolts after Scrimshaw; this time Mother’s training kicks in and he squirms out of her grasp. Scrimshaw barrels past, already out of the waiting room and striding past the police station’s steel slats, her black robe fluttering in her wake. A few drunks lined up outside the police station report stolen smartphones, muttering into the flatscreen reporting stations as voice interpreters struggle to transcribe slurred complaints.

  “Hey!” Kenna yells, all his studied politeness boiled away.

  Without so much as glancing back, Scrimshaw flicks up a single index finger, an imperial command of not now, never slowing as she glides past the drunks.

  Kenna tries to match her stride, but her legs are too long, and within seconds he breaks out in a run. “Hey!” When she doesn’t stop he grabs a double-fistful of her woolen robe to haul her to an angry stop. “Don’t you dare—”

  Her head snaps around.

  Kenna’s heart turns to gelatin. He knows the fear a rabbit feels when the hawk’s cool shadow crosses its back; there is no mercy in Scrimshaw’s dinosaur gaze, just a cruelty accreted from firing a thousand men. Scrimshaw has killed hundreds, and never regretted it—not with a knife, no, but she’s stared straight into the rheumy eyes of alcoholics who won’t survive without her help, and kicked those sad bastards out the door.

  Without Paulius, The Sol Majestic has ceased to function. She will sell its corpse for parts.

  Rough fabric slides through his fingers.

  Scrimshaw gives a satisfied little nod—then sweeps away, smooth as death.

  Kenna trots along beside her, a humiliating compromise between a flat-out run and a stride, hearing the drunks snigger. “How can you shutter The Sol Majestic?”

  She glares straight ahead, as if looking away from The Sol Majestic would cause her to weaken. “It was doomed the moment his hip shattered. At least I stopped the old fraud from throwing his life away in some vain attempt at recovery.” She grinds her teeth. “Not that he’ll thank me for it…”

  “But … the Wisdom Ceremony…”

  “Managing that kitchen is like herding cats. Without Paulius, the meal will fail. Given that more people would be watching this meal than ever before, even a mediocre review would destroy our reputation.”

  “We should at least try.” Anger clenches his stomach.

  “Between the robes’ financial ruin and the impending Wisdom Ceremony disaster, The Sol Majestic is scrap metal. Yet we have a graceful excuse to close the kitchen: Paulius hovers between life and death. We can’t keep up our level of service, not without our head chef. No one will blame us if we shut down before we tarnish our reputation—which means we can open further restaurants down the line. Far superior to serving deteriorating meals, watching the critics take our Firewar Stars back, following the sagging arc of our credit rating…”

  “Fuck your reputation.”

  Scrimshaw flinches.

  Kenna comes to a stop so abrupt that Scrimshaw is yanked to a halt by his denial. This anger is as cold as a comet’s ice, encrusting him in armor so thick that Scrimshaw’s expertise cannot touch him.

  She stands stiffly, clenching and unclenching her bony fists. Her eyes dart from side to side, seeking escape.

  “You asked me to risk it all.” Kenna’s hoarse whisper cuts through the air. “You asked me to live a lie so massive I’d carry its toxicity to my grave. You asked me to mislead the starving millions. You asked me to sell out the philosophy of my ancestors to keep your tattered corpse alive, and by all the Gods wheeling in the heavens, I agreed.”

  He takes a step forward; the dragon retreats.

  “So when you tell me you’ve a reputation to protect? No. You don’t get to keep a reputation. You manacled me to this sinking ship, Scrimshaw—and if I had to auction off my future to try to save this bedamned locale, then so do you.”

  Kenna walks up, aims one index finger at her as though it were a sword-tip digging into her wattled throat:

  “You owe me a chance to keep it alive.”

  In the days to come, Kenna wonders what would have happened had Scrimshaw disagreed with him. After all, she had absolutely no obligation to risk her financial empire on Kenna’s uncertain talents.

  Yet as Kenna speaks, there is no uncertainty. The universe has lined up behind him, every planet at his back to amplify this inevitable morality that I deserve a shot, and Scrimshaw can no more escape that judgment than she could squirm out of a black hole’s event horizon.

  Scrimshaw crooks her own finger, as if preparing to riposte Kenna’s audacity—but regret steals across her face. The stiff haughtiness melts away to reveal a sad old woman who’s worn a dragon mask for so long, she’s no longer certain how to abandon it.

  She curls her hands around his index finger, formally requesting his absolution.

  “I cry your pardon, Master Kenna.” She bows. “If I asked you to risk your dream for mine, then yes. It is only fitting I bet my dream upon yours.” She swallows convulsively. “If The Sol Majestic must die a slow death by incompetence, then so be it.”

  “It will not die by incompetence.” Kenna’s voice booms like an announcer, but the Inevitability he felt trickles away word by word; the decision’s weight settles on his shoulders. “The Sol Majestic is more than Paulius. It is the people who make it.”

  Though as Kenna says this, he wonders who else he knows in the kitchen. Benzo? Montgomery? The … fromager? Someone gave him a joint, but he can’t remember her name …

  “Then go choose his successor,” Scrimshaw tells him. “They’re finishing up the night’s service.”

  And Kenna realizes the trap of defying the dragon: he has informed her that he—a spacebound hobo who’s yet to eat a salad—knows better than a woman who’s devoted her life to funding restaurants. If Kenna will challenge her authority, then he must take up the mantle of proving her wrong.

  He scours her face for any kind of malice, but there is only a grave sadness—that sense that The Sol Majestic is so utterly doomed that what harm can it do to take a risk like Kenna?

  Kenna recognizes what he must do.

  To save The Sol Majestic, he must learn its trade.

  Scrimshaw releases he
r grip upon his finger, her hands floating away from his like two ships drifting away from a docking bay. Her grip settles into a position halfway between a welcoming embrace and a what-can-you-do shrug, as if asking: Are you sure you want to do this?

  “No,” Kenna says. “The kitchen’s spent. We’ll discuss the challenges with the staff come the morning.”

  “Very well, Master Kenna.”

  14

  Five Weeks Until the Wisdom Ceremony

  Kenna’s spent most of his days curled up in rusted crevices, clutching his possessions against his chest, seeking out hiding spaces from bullies.

  Yet now, as his fingers hover over the sapphire keypad to his parents’ hotel room, Kenna realizes poverty lent him freedom. Nobody in charge cared where he was, and his parents couldn’t afford implant-trackers, so Kenna could disappear so long as he found a space to squeeze into.

  When he types in his hotel passcode, a signal will alert his parents to Kenna’s return. There is no sneaking, not at this pay level.

  Kenna tugs experimentally on the engraved titanium bars, seeing if he might somehow bypass them; a security camera stirs, its red eye flaring into a hooded wakefulness. It’s security theater, of course—there are much better cameras inset where no one could disable them. This camera’s the guard-AI’s way of telling Kenna Don’t think I didn’t see that.

  Kenna’s hopes of escaping an argument die. Mother and Father will not be pleased to hear that instead of meditating in the room as they intended, Kenna will return tomorrow morning to lead The Sol Majestic’s kitchen.

  He maps out the arguments in his head. But this will come down to screaming.

  He’s not good at screaming.

  Before he can ponder retreating, Kenna punches in his code. His best bet is to surprise Mother and Father, so he’ll storm in to inform them that he will not stay here.

  The corridor’s just long enough to make him regret not fighting more with Scrimshaw. She’d insisted Kenna sleep with his parents tonight, saying his arrival would rouse the kitchen, cause them to pester him with questions about Paulius. If Kenna won’t make his decision tonight, Scrimshaw told him, give them all the rest they can gather. They’ll need it.