The Sol Majestic

by Ferrett Steinmetz

  And just as Kenna channeled Scrimshaw a few moments ago, Benzo adopts Paulius’s theatrical tones. It is heartening to hear enthusiasm from Benzo, even artificial enthusiasm, as Benzo arranges the wingtips, the legs, the neck in a ghastly mosaic around the chicken heart.

  He grabs the cleaver from his waist, chops off the chicken’s legs. Then he flips over the cleaver, uses the blunt side to smash its webbed feet.

  “Collagen,” he says, taunting to demonstrate how little Kenna knows. “For the soup.”

  Even though the olive oil and salt are in tiny alcoves a mere step away, Benzo demands that Kenna hand them over. He drizzles the meat in olive oil, sprinkles it with salt, instructs Kenna to shove the pan into another oven he’s set to 400 degrees.

  Runnels of sweat gather in Kenna’s cornrowed hair. He can feel the heat, the air in the Escargone heating up from the flame—and they have not yet begun to cook. He knows from the kitchen gossip that the Escargone’s ventilators are inadequate, the temperature will rise dish by dish until the room swelters like a sauna …

  Benzo snaps his fingers, leaning back against the stove like a sultan. “We clean as we go.”

  Kenna scrubs the boiled feathers out of the stewpot, hearing the hollow gurgling as the cramped sink’s drain empties back into the nanofiltered reclamation tanks. He digs out the cleaning flakes and disinfects the copper table.

  When Kenna is done, it’s time to haul out the browned chicken bits. Benzo hunches over the pan, not flinching as popping chicken fat sizzles onto his cheeks. He moves his head in tiny circles, swooping over it like a military satellite analyzing enemy territory.

  He glares at Kenna, furious this is something he cannot order Kenna to do, and then tilts the pan over the sink so a hair-thin trickle of fat seeps out. Benzo is as tense as a man defusing a bomb; it is as if the slightest wobble will cause all the flavor to spill out.

  That fatty chicken taste infiltrates the Escargone’s every crevice. Against that simple backdrop, the other buried scents come alive like a spotlight has been shone upon them; the stale odors of mummified dishes, dead herbs rising from the grave one last time to breathe their memories into Kenna’s nostrils. Kenna feels surrounded by wrecked meals, feels the decades that have passed within this confinement, wonders whether their broth will leave its mark in the complex weave of Escargone-scents …

  Your biggest contribution will be your rotting bodies, Kenna thinks.

  Satisfied, Benzo scoops the roasted chicken bits into the stewpot, not trusting it to Kenna. He fills the stockpot with fresh water, holding up three fingers to demonstrate what depth to cover the bird in. Glittering jewels of fat swirl around the inside; Benzo scowls them down.

  He instructs Kenna to bring the pot to a boil—and the moment bubbles break the surface, he gargles terror and swipes the stewpot down to “steam.” He rests a pot lid askew on top of it, like a rakish hat.

  Benzo fences off an area around the stove with his hands. “Do not,” he says, “come near. Do not stir the broth. Do not jostle it with your footsteps. Do not look at it.”

  Kenna isn’t clear why Benzo feels better imitating Paulius, but whatever gets his friend functioning. “What now?”

  Benzo pulls his chef’s cap out of his pocket, then puts it over his face, leaning back as if to doze. “We wait.”

  “For how long?”

  “Overnight.”

  Kenna opens his mouth, preparing to ask, So what do we do to kill time? But Benzo’s reproachful silence cuts his words: You made me do this. I won’t do more.

  And Kenna realizes: by using Her as a scourge, he had inadvertently become Her enforcer. Now Benzo treats Kenna with the sluggish responsivity any slave owes his master—he’ll do the job, might even pass the time with Kenna if ordered, but no amount of goading could compel Benzo to enjoy enforced labor.

  Kenna had threatened Benzo’s family.

  He hadn’t. Not really. He was trying to get Benzo moving, to save himself, and that was … well, maybe it was selfish, as Kenna was saving Kenna, though there’s a bolus of fury lodged in Kenna’s throat he cannot swallow.

  So Kenna watches the steam waft off the broth, watches the rise and fall of Benzo’s chest, watches the cameras twitching.

  When the time is up, Benzo dips a spoon into the amber broth. Kenna has been with Benzo long enough to read the stages of tasting on his friend’s face: first he dribbles it to the back of his throat to check for silky mouthfeel, then to the sides to check for salinity, then rubs his tongue along the roof of his mouth to ensure the proper density.

  All the while, his lips are pursed tight, as though he holds the broth prisoner.

  When Benzo has sprinkled salt and tasted and simmered it down, Kenna stifles a groan as Benzo demonstrates how to chop the onions, curling his fingers back over the onion slices protectively—his blade moving in an assembly-line blur that Kenna is certain will draw blood.

  Somehow, this isn’t done yet.

  Benzo crushes juniper berries with the side of the knife, scoops the remains into the pot. He takes out leaves with an herbalist’s reverence, lays them in the soup like he was tucking in a lover. He swirls in the mashed chicken feet.

  More time passes. Still Benzo says nothing.

  At some point, Kenna feels he must be forgiven, but no remorse crosses Benzo’s beautiful face.

  He instructs Kenna to haul out a plastic tub, which they line with a strainer and a linen. Kenna ladles the chicken mixture through the filter one precious bowlful at a time, moving at snaillike speeds lest he stir up the sedimentary layers at the bottom of the pot.

  “That’s broth,” Benzo says. But he rests his fists on his hips; despite himself, he is pleased.

  They chill the broth in mason jars.

  They separate out egg whites, the yolk’s brilliant yellow nearly blinding Kenna. They fetch a leftover chicken breast from the fridge, cut it into finger-sized strips. They chop tomatoes, more herbs. Benzo obsessively tastes, trying to get the balance right.

  They pour the broth into another, colder, stewpot. They blend the egg whites and the tomatoes and the herbs and the meat into what Benzo calls a raft, and then they pour that mixture into the broth and Kenna has learned how to set the stockpot on medium, and Benzo yells at him to stir, stir, stir, these graceful sweeping motions around the broth as it heats up with the egg whites, the egg whites trailing through the broth and catching the suspended solids like a great trawling net, stirring and stirring and stirring until the raft is a layer of detritus hovering over the perfection of the clear consommé like a garbage storm cloud.

  He sags, flicking his fingers toward the strainer. Except now, he’s not ordering Kenna around; he is paralyzed by fear.

  “We strain it through another linen.” He enunciates each word, as if they might stampede, panicked, out of his mouth. “Then we’ll know.”

  Kenna stares down into the broth—no, into the consommé. He’s devoted their last eighteen hours to assembling this monstrosity, which left him no time to contemplate whether it was any good. It’s like running a marathon, yet being judged as a ballet dancer; simply finishing this should be enough, and yet subtle errors they made half a day ago could have destroyed this consommé’s chances to set them free.

  Kenna realizes: The consommé’s clearness is designed to leave them no place to hide. The consommé is a single note struck with no chords to camouflage it.

  It’s like shooting a bullet at a star light-years away. You can’t get lucky; your only hope is precision.

  At last, he understands why Benzo despairs.

  “That’s a middenheap of work.” Kenna’s words his attempt to let Benzo know he comprehends the pressure Benzo is under …

  The bleary gaze that Benzo shoots back speaks of years dissolved in drowned chickens, his family dying broth by broth.

  He shakes his head: No. You don’t understand. Then his chin dips, his floppy curls dropping down to hide his wide eyes: I never wanted you to understand.
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  He grips the handles, peering down into the pot like a fortune teller auguring madness.

  “You don’t know how much work.” His voice is tender—but as Kenna reaches out for him, he deposits a ladle into Kenna’s hand. “But you will.”

  24

  Zero Seconds to Disappointment

  Of course the consommé is cloudy.

  25

  Six Weeks in the Escargone

  Six weeks in, and everything is boiling over.

  Benzo starts a new consommé every eight hours—so three of the four cooktops are simmering broth, turning the Escargone into a chicken soup sauna. The ventilators fight mighty battles, but thyme-scented droplets collect on the roof, wet their necks with weak broth.

  They breathe in clouds of rosemary, their movements stir wispy billows of stale chicken. Sweat prickles Kenna’s skin, the temperature inside the Escargone always rising thanks to the banked stove-fire rings—and when he wipes the perspiration away, his wrinkled fingertips come away flecked with browned chicken particles. It is as though he is sweating soup …

  Yet his mind remains his own. He is learning a trade, and yet while Mother and Father would have him believe the work demeans him, the truth is, the work barely touches him. If anything, he has more time to ponder Philosophies, his contemplation twisting into spirals—

  If only he could think about anything but Benzo.

  They scrub the surfaces with disinfectant, wiping away mold. They clean towels in the tiny washer, yanking them out as soon as they’re done, pressing the dryer-warm terry cloth against their cheeks to remember what dry feels like. They check off the datapad’s daily maintenance tasks, ensuring the antiquated machinery that can function inside a time-sped field keeps functioning.

  The work is hard, made harder by Benzo’s fumblings. There is but one pathway in the Escargone, a cramped loop around the copper preparatory table. Simple courtesy would dictate Benzo keep his elbows close to his sides, keep his workspace tight, flatten himself against the freezer doors whenever Kenna moves near so he might slide by.

  Yet Benzo ambles about the ship slack-limbed, backing up in a panicked scurry whenever Kenna moves in his direction. He is forever misplacing his tools, forcing them to hunt behind every freezer for wherever Benzo left the spare hexagonal bolts.

  The last time Kenna misplaced something, he starved for three days.

  He could forgive Benzo’s carelessness if Benzo would stop treating this operation like it was a military procedure. The cooking itself is like war: violent bursts of activity followed by soul-sucking dullness. There are things they could do, while the stocks simmer; the smartpads have a slim selection of old-style flatfilms. Kenna has found a deck of cards scrawled with GOOD LUCK, KID stashed behind the detergent.

  Yet Benzo spends his spare time cross-legged on the countertops, scrutinizing the steaming pots with a faint frown—as though he could somehow expunge impurities through willpower alone.

  Kenna too sits cross-legged on the floor at the Escargone’s far end, linked to Benzo’s motions; he cannot get up unless Benzo does. He wills Benzo to embrace him, to tell him a joke, to do anything that’s not cooking-related.

  He grasps Benzo by the shoulder after another failed consommé. He feels Benzo’s momentum carrying him away before he jerks to a stop.

  Benzo reaches back, patting Kenna’s fingers uncertainly. More moisture prickles on Kenna’s cheeks; it takes him a moment to realize these are tears, not lukewarm soup.

  This touch is a lost man trying to find his way home.

  Benzo turns, blinking too rapidly—then his eyes slide off Kenna to stare at the floor, as though he doesn’t know how to talk to Kenna when not barking orders. “Yeah,” he says, a hushed whisper vaguely inflected as a question.

  This sudden softness startles Kenna. “I … perhaps we could…”

  “No.”

  Benzo nearly swallows that single syllable of denial, but it’s unassailable.

  “… I just want to do something, Benzo … A game … we have cards…”

  Benzo’s lush lips twitch into an unhappy frown before solidifying into a sour denial. “I can’t.”

  “But why?”

  A spatter of brown condensation dampens Benzo’s blond curls. “If I look at the consommé, I think about consommé. If I play cards with you, the world opens back up again, and I think about my mother, and my brothers, and my family, and Her…”

  He reaches up to squeeze the soup from his hair, then wraps his fingers around the roots and pulls until Kenna hears a thick tearing noise like carpet being pulled up. Blood dribbles down Benzo’s forehead; Kenna grabs his friend’s wrist before he can do more damage.

  “I’ve got one shot to save everyone,” Benzo whispers. “That’s why I didn’t want you here. Distractions unman me. I don’t need a friend now; I need a kitchen to save my family.”

  I need a kitchen to save my family tells Kenna where Benzo’s priorities lie.

  Those priorities do not include Kenna.

  Stunned, Kenna sits back down. He tries to meditate, but all his thoughts involve Benzo’s body; the feel of Benzo’s muscular midriff, the scars on Benzo’s fingertips, the taste of Benzo’s drenched hair.

  He meditates for hours, trying to clear away these carnal thoughts—yet when he opens his eyes, minutes have passed.

  How can he feel so achingly lonely? Didn’t he spend his life trapped alone in small places?

  But he never had anyone he wanted to be with before.

  And Benzo only wants to be with the soup.

  The silent minutes pass like sandpaper, rubbing at Kenna. Eroding his love for Benzo.

  * * *

  A few weeks later, Kenna sits down, feeling the cardboard box of cards pressing into his hip. He gets the box out and turns it over and over in his hands, wiping moisture across the cellophane covering.

  He could play cards.

  He’s been imagining playing cards for days. He’d crack the seal on this thumb-worn box, then lay out the cards on towels—the waxed cards would stick to the soup-dampened countertops. He’d sweep Benzo’s stray knives off the table, clearing a space in Benzo’s gods-damned clutter.

  Playing cards would be so much better than this bubbling silence.

  And every time his thumbnail slips underneath the little red wire stub that would open the cards, he freezes—hoping Benzo will see how lonely he is, grab the cards from his hands to pull him tight against his chest—

  Yet Benzo is lost in souply meditations. Cross-legged, as always. Peering into steam, as always.

  Insensate to Kenna, as always.

  Kenna puts the cards away, again, for the hundredth time. Benzo’s misery has tainted Kenna’s mood; Benzo’s silence has stilled Kenna’s voice. The Escargone’s slow grind has compressed their feelings into the same diamond-hot anguish—but at least that’s something they have shared.

  Playing cards would decouple his mood from Benzo’s.

  Kenna clambers up, the black mat oozing wetness beneath him, and walks back to the scratched glass circle looking out into The Sol Majestic’s kitchen.

  Even though Kenna knows the kitchen is well-lit, viewed through the hatchway it is penumbral, shadowy, a maze of statues. The light from outside moves slower, robbing the kitchen of luminescence, color, motion—but if he looks out in the gloom until his eyes ache, he can make out Scrimshaw and Montgomery’s gaunt silhouettes, hands flung high in the air, frozen in midair as they leap toward the kitchen entrance.

  Away from the Escargone.

  “Everything is so still out there,” Kenna had once marveled to Benzo.

  “Well, yeah.” Benzo had focused on the chicken, bracing for another argument. “We need to be dead within an hour. Or they’ll have time to fix it.”

  And as Kenna brushes his fingertips across the ice-glazed window, he wonders if Montgomery and Scrimshaw are running because they have discovered Kenna’s sabotage—but that can’t be. It’s been weeks for Kenna, mayb
e months, yet minutes have passed in that free-roaming kitchen.

  You made a vow, Kenna thinks. You vowed to die in here to protect Benzo’s family.

  Another thought fights that one: You could walk out.

  He’s watched Benzo maintain the freezers, swapping out motors; Benzo is no mechanical genius. Kenna’s certain he could undo Benzo’s sabotage, shut down the time-field, run out into the kitchen’s cool air, his legs pumping as he runs through Savor Station’s beautifully wide corridors …

  The cards are in his hand again. He doesn’t remember taking them out.

  But if he plays cards without Benzo, then he might as well watch flatfilms without Benzo. And if he watches flatfilms without Benzo, he might as well form a life in here that’s independent of Benzo—

  —and Kenna knows that path leads to not giving a fuck about Benzo and walking out of the ship.

  Already, he grows to loathe Benzo. Benzo and the way he leaves his tools everywhere and Benzo who leaves nutricracker leftovers on the table until they go fuzzy with mold and Benzo who, when Kenna damn near chopped his thumb off dicing the stupid carrots, tossed him a blue bandage and said, “Congrats. You’re a real chef.”

  He didn’t even look at Kenna’s wound. He went back to mashing berries with his knife.

  Paulius, he was sure, would have been more thoughtful.

  He misses Paulius. Paulius explained himself as though he were narrating his own movie. When Paulius broke down, he exploded outward; Benzo’s implosion feels like punishment.

  Yet the worst thing—the thing that drives Kenna to this cool window to contemplate escape—is Benzo’s incessant, prissy slurping.

  Every eight hours, they try another consommé, each flawed: tiny shot glasses glimmering with fat, dark as maple syrup, light as machine oil. Benzo runs each through the machinery of his tasting factory, tossing the consommé into his mouth for a steady gurgle.