The Galactic Gourmet

CHAPTER 20

Early on the following morning, when only the east-facing upper slopes of the valley were lit by the rising sun and the mine entrance was still in twilight, Tawsar presented itself beyond the shimmering curtain of the meteor shield. Several groups of twenty to thirty young Wem, each with an adult in charge, had already left the mine and were dispersing to their various places of work or learning on the valley floor and lower slopes.

It had been decided that the function of the Wem settlement fell somewhere between a teaching establishment and a safe refuge for children whose hunter parents were either absent for long periods or dead. The decision was provisional and, following the coming meeting with Tawsar, would no doubt be subject to major modification.

Remembering Tawsar’s slow and obviously painful progress down to the meteor shield, it came as no surprise to Gurronsevas when Prilicla ordered out the anti-gravity litter. The equipment carried by the medical team was light and portable enough to make the vehicle redundant, but it was obvious that it was hoping that Tawsar could be persuaded to ride in comfort instead of subjecting itself to the self-inflicted pain of walking, a suffering which the empath would not be anxious to share.

Prilicla was first to exit the lock, and hovered above them as Murchison, Naydrad, Danalta and Gurronsevas followed it down the telescoping ramp to the ground and through the meteor shield, which offered no resistance to objects moving away from the ship. Gurronsevas had not been invited to accompany the medical team, but neither had he been forbidden, and he needed exercise more vigorous than was possible within the confines of the casualty deck.

Tawsar stared at them one by one without speaking as they approached and gathered around it in a semicircle which, according to Prilicla’s reading of the Wem’s emotional radiation, was wide enough not to cause unease and reassuring in that it left open the other’s line of retreat to the mine. Prilicla’s iridescent wings beat slowly in a stable hover, Naydrad’s fur rippled like waves on a silver sea, Murchison smiled and Gurronsevas stood motionless. Danalta changed its shape in turn from that of a furless Kelgian to a not very complimentary copy of Pathologist Murchison before returning to a shapeless green lump topped by a single eye, ear and mouth. Finally Tawsar broke the silence.

“I see you and I still do not believe you exist,” it said, its eyes on Danalta. Then it looked up at Prilicla and went on, “I do not like insects, whether they crawl or fly, but, but you are beautiful!”

“Why thank you, friend Tawsar,” said Prilicla with a gentle shiver of pleasure. “You have reacted well to your first sight of off-worlders, and I have the feeling that you yourself are not afraid of us. But what of the other adults and the children?”

Tawsar made a short, untranslatable sound and said, “They were told about your strange and horrendous or puny and ridiculous appearance. They already know that your friends wanted to interfere with our customs and beliefs, and tried to tell us what we should eat, and what we should do about the Light That Rots All Things. They even asked to look inside our living bodies and do things that only a life-mate is allowed to do. Prilicla you, perhaps not you personally but your people who have come uninvited to our world, do not frighten us. They shock and repel and infuriate us. More than anything else we want them to go away quickly, but we know that it is not your wish deliberately to harm us.

“Having told you how we feel,” it added, “do you still wish to call me friend?”

“Yes,” said Prilicla. “But you need not call me friend until you yourself wish it.”

Tawsar made a wheezing sound and said, “I do not expect to live that long. But we have much to see and many questions and answers for each other. Would you like to begin with the valley or the mine?”

“The mine is closer,” said Prilicla, “and will involve less walking for you. And if you were to mount this litter, there would be no effort required at all.”

“It, it doesn’t rest on the ground,” said Tawsar in an uncertain voice. Plainly there was a battle going on in the Wem’s mind between the submission to a totally new and perhaps dangerous activity and the pain of its age-stiffened limbs. “Yet it feels solid enough and strongly supported …”

They had to wait for a few minutes while Tawsar talked itself into boarding the litter, then Naydrad angled the repulsion units to set the vehicle moving towards the mine entrance at the medical team’s walking pace.

“I–I’m flying!” said Tawsar.

At an altitude, Gurronsevas estimated, of a few inches.

On their headsets Fletcher was reporting continuously on its observations of the widely-scattered groups of young Wem in the valley. Under the direction of a single adult, several parties were tilling the soil and gathering what seemed to be wild-growing vegetation from the lower slopes. But there were three groups of the larger children whose activities gave cause for concern because there could be no doubt that they were practicing with slingshots, crossbows and weighted nets used in conjunction with spears. The spears were blunt, crudely formed from wood, with roughened hand-grips at the middle and blunt end so that they could be used either for throwing or as two-handed stabbing weapons, and they were slightly large for the hands and muscles of the users.

“They are not playing with wooden swords and spears as many children do,” the Captain insisted, “because neither they nor their instructor are treating the exercise as a game. It is much too serious. They are the oldest of the children and they might have real, metal-tipped weapons among the farming implements out there. At this range my sensors can’t tell the difference. But if anything goes sour with the Tawsar contact your retreat to the ship could be cut off.”

Prilicla did not reply until they were within a few minutes of reaching the mine entrance, and when it spoke Gurronsevas had the feeling that its words were aimed at reassuring the medical team as well as the Captain. It said, “The emotional radiation of the adults and children who surrounded us yesterday bore no trace of hostility, especially the concealed hostility of beings who are pretending to be friendly. Although they are decidedly not our friends, their feelings towards us are not antagonistic enough to make them want to commit acts of physical violence. Tawsar is controlling or at least trying to ignore its dislike for us, but it is feeling much more than a simple curiosity regarding strangers. I cannot be more precise, but I have the feeling that it wants something from us and, until we discover what it is, we are quite safe here.

“Besides,” the empath went on, “we have friends Danalta and Gurronsevas with us. Our shape-changer can take many forms that would discourage an attack by unruly children, and the Chief Dietitian has a near-impervious skin and the body mass and muscles to do the same.”

“Doctor Prilicla,” said Fletcher, “this is a first contact situation so far as the medical team is concerned. One of you could do or say something that could change Tawsar’s feelings about you, suddenly and drastically. So why not talk in the open where I can keep you under observation and pull you out with tractors if there is any trouble? I am worried about you going inside their mine.”

At that moment the party came to a halt outside the dark mouth of the entrance tunnel and the litter drifted gently to the ground. Tawsar looked up suddenly at Prilicla and said, “I am worried about you going into our mine.”

Danalta’s body twitched and it said, “In a steep valley like this one, echoes are not uncommon.”

Prilicla ignored it and asked, “Why, friend Tawsar?”

The Wem looked at each one of team in turn before returning its attention to the empath. It said, “I know nothing about you people, your life habits, your feelings about strange places or people, the food you eat, nothing. Suddenly I have realized that you might not want to visit our home. The connecting tunnels are narrow and low-ceilinged, and only our places of gathering are adequately lit, and then only for a limited period each day. Even among the Wem there are those who become distressed in enclosed spaces, or at the thought of the great weight of rock that is pressing down on them.

“But you in particular,” Tawsar went on, “are a free-flying creature of the air. I fear that your fragile body and wide-spreading wings are unsuited to crawling about inside a mountain.”

“I am grateful for your feeling of concern, friend Tawsar,” said Prilicla, “but it is unnecessary. All of us are used to working in a structure that is like a metal mountain, filled with tunnels of different sizes connecting its rooms. All are well-lit but, if yours are too dark for us, we carry our own sources of illumination. If anyone should feel distressed, it will be free to return to the outside. But I do not think that anyone will have such feelings …”

There was nobody better at reading feelings than Prilicla, Gurronsevas knew, but he was not as sure as the empath was about his own. He hated dark, cramped spaces but, after being named as one of the team’s protectors in case of trouble, he could not act like a coward by refusing to enter the mine before first finding out what it was like inside.“… As for myself,” Prilicla went on, “I sleep in a coccoon-like room without light. My wings and over-long limbs fold so that, if you have no objections, I will be able to ride on the litter with you. How restricted is the space in your tunnels? Will they allow free passage for everyone here?”

“Yes,” said Tawsar. It looked at Gurronsevas and added, “Just barely.”

A few minutes later Naydrad guided the litter with Tawsar and Prilicla on board into the entrance, preceded by Danalta and followed by Naydrad and Murchison with Gurronsevas forming what the Captain so worryingly referred to as the rear guard and the pathologist as a mobile, organic thrombosis.

But the plug, he was pleased to discover, was a loose fit because the tunnel was wider, than he had expected and better lit so that he had no need of his image enhancer. Perhaps Wem vision was less sensitive than that of a Tralthan, for it had been apologizing in advance for the shortcomings of its technology. Prilicla and Tawsar were talking together quietly, but the constant pattering of Naydrad’s many feet kept him from hearing what they were saying, and the Captain was filling the gaps in their conversation by worrying aloud.“… The deep sensor indications,” Fletcher was saying, “are of an exhausted and long-abandoned copper mine. It could be centuries old, judging by the condition of the tunnel support structure, but shows signs of recent repair. Many of the deeper galleries have been sealed off by rock-falls, and even if the Wem don’t mean you any harm, you can’t talk your way out of a collapsed tunnel. Please reconsider and ask Tawsar to do the talking outside.”

“No, friend Fletcher,” Prilicla replied on the ship frequency. “Tawsar wants to talk inside the mine. It has strong feelings of embarrassment which suggest that it prefers our conversation to be private. It is not feeling the anxiety characteristic of impending tunnel collapse.”

“Very well, Doctor,” said the Captain. “Are you having any difficulty with breathing? Is anyone aware of smells that might indicate the presence of flammable gas?”

“No, friend Fletcher,” said Prilicla. “The air is cool and fresh.”

“You don’t surprise me,” said Fletcher. “Only the upper galleries are occupied and the Wem have drilled themselves a neat system of natural ventilation tunnels which require no power. They have a small electricity generator which produces enough current for lighting, powered by a subterranean river which exits at the base of the other side of the mountain. We have also detected a few hot spots that are probably cooking fires or ovens, and associated combustion byproducts, but the pollution level is not life-threatening. Be careful anyway.”

“Thank you, we will,” said Prilicla, and resumed its conversation with Tawsar.

They passed the openings into many side-tunnels and small, unlighted chambers, and in several places Gurronsevas’ head and flanks scraped against the tunnel walls and roof, but the air that blew gently past him was cool and fresh and polluted only slightly with an odor which Murchison identified as a combination of wood smoke with trace odors of the kind associated with food preparation. A few minutes later they moved past the entrance to a kitchen.

“Friend Gurronsevas,” said Prilicla, using voice amplification so that its words would carry back to him, “I feel your intense curiosity and I think I understand the reason for it, but at present it would be better for the team to stay together.”

As the odor grew fainter with distance, Gurronsevas used the olfactory sense that had been sharpened by a lifetime of experience in the culinary arts in an attempt to isolate and identify the constituents of a smell that was totally beyond his previous experience. Or was it?

Carried on a fine mist of water vapor containing trace quantities of dissolved salt there was the unmistakable odor of vegetation, several different varieties, that were being boiled or stewed together. One of them had a sharp, heavy smell that reminded him of the cooked somrath plant or the Earth cabbage leaf favored by some Kelgians, but the other odors were too bland for him to make off-world comparisons. These included a faint, hot smell of what was almost certainly coarse flour baking in an oven. But the most surprising part of this Wem olfactory cocktail was the things that were not in it.

Charitably, Gurronsevas reminded himself that there were several member species of the Federation who had developed high technology and an artistically enlightened culture while remaining in a culinary wilderness.