The Galactic Gourmet

CHAPTER 22

I’ve been monitoring your conversation, Doctor,” said Fletcher on the ship frequency, “and I do not like what I’m hearing. About seventy young Wem and four instructors have come into sight heading for the mine entrance, and at the present rate of progress they should be there in forty-plus minutes. The other working parties have downed tools and are moving to join them, probably for lunch. Judging by what I’ve just heard, your people probably are lunch. I strongly advise you to break off contact and return to the ship at once.”

“A moment, Captain,” said Prilicla. “Friend Murchison, how long do you need to finish here?”

“No more than fifteen minutes,” the pathologist replied. “The patient is being very cooperative and I don’t feel like stopping—”

“And I share your feelings,” the empath broke in. “Captain, we will complete our investigation, excuse ourselves politely and then take your advice. The revelation that the Wem are cannibals is disturbing. But please do not concern yourself; neither Tawsar nor any of the other Wem within my emotive range are radiating feelings of hostility. In fact, the opposite holds true because I feel Tawsar beginning to like us.”

“Doctor,” said the Captain, “when I am very hungry, as these people are all the time, I like thinking about my lunch very much. But I do not have feelings of hostility towards it.”

“Friend Fletcher,” Prilicla began, “you are oversimplifying …”

Gurronsevas had to switch to the Wem translation channel at that point because, while he was capable of looking in four directions at once, he could conduct only one conversation at a time. It appeared that there was no immediate danger from the returning work parties, and certainly not from the aged Wem left in the mine, so that he, too, had a chance to satisfy his own professional curiosity while Murchison completed its medical investigation. Besides, while he had been listening to Prilicla and Fletcher, the Wem standing before him had been speaking, and common politeness demanded that he reply.

“My apologies,” he said, indicating his translator pack and telling a small diplomatic lie. “This device was not tuned to you. I heard but did not understand your earlier words. Would you oblige me by repeating them?”

“They were not of great importance,” the Wem replied. “Merely an observation that I have often wished that I had four hands. They would be especially useful in this place. I am the healer and chief cook here.”

“I occupy a similar position in a somewhat larger establishment. But there the functions of healing and food preparation are separate, and performed by different people. How do I address you, as doctor or …?”

“My full title is verbally cumbersome and unnecessary,” the Wem broke in. “It is used only during the Coming of Age ceremonies and by pupils who have misbehaved and are hoping, vainly, to avoid just chastisement. Call me Remrath.”

“I am Gurronsevas,” he replied, and added, “I am only a cook.”

As the Galactic Federation’s foremost exponent of the highly-specialized art of multi-species food preparation, Gurronsevas thought, I do not believe I said that.

“Compared with the high culinary standards said to have been achieved by our own people in the good old days,” said Remrath in a voice in which anger and apology were mixed, “that is, in the centuries before the sun itself turned against us, my kitchen is primitive. To you it must appear no more than a cooking-place for savages. But if you are interested you are welcome to look around.”

His reply was silenced by the voice of Fletcher speaking directly to him on the ship frequency. “Chief Dietitian, you are not trained in First Contact procedures. So far you have not said anything wrong, but please listen carefully. Do not react adversely to anything you may see or hear, no matter how repugnant it may seem to you. Try to show an interest in their equipment and processes, no matter how primitive they seem, and praise rather than criticize. Try to be agreeable, and diplomatic.”

Gurronsevas did not reply. The interval between Ramrath’s invitation and his answer had already stretched longer than politeness allowed.

“I am most interested,” said Gurronsevas, truthfully, “and will want to ask many and possibly irritating questions. But the sounds of activity I hear, and the complex odors of food well-advanced in preparation and perhaps ready for serving, lead me to think that you are simply asking out of politeness. From long personal experience I know that, at a time like this, visitors are not welcome in the kitchen.”

“That is true,” said Remrath, backing through the swinging doors and holding one open while it used the other hand to beckon Gurronsevas to follow it inside. He could see that its legs and tail were too stiff in their movements to enable it to turn inside the wide entrance. It went on, “But I can see that in enclosed spaces you are more agile than I am in spite of your enormous body, and you should know enough not to get in the way at the wrong times. As you have already guessed, very soon we shall be serving the main meal of the day. Perhaps I want you to see us working under pressure when we are at our best …” It made a short, untranslatable sound “…or our worst.”

He found himself in another cavern that was a continuation of the one he had just left. Facing him was a large, vertical wall of small, irregular stone blocks built around four open ovens that were burning wood or a similar form of dense, combustible vegetation. There must have been natural ventilation behind the wall because there was no smoke in the kitchen and the steam from the cooking pots that had been moved from the ovens to a long, central table, was being drawn in that direction as well. To the right of the table, which ran from the oven area almost to within a few yards of the entrance, the upper two-thirds of the rock wall was concealed by open cabinets and shelves containing cooking utensils, platters and small drinking vessels, the majority of which had been made by people whose craft had not been pottery. Although crudely made and cracked or with drinking handles missing, he noted with approval, they all appeared to be scrupulously clean.

Below the shelving there was a long trough that was supported on heavy trestles and lined with some form of ceramic filled with continually running water. A few cups and platters were visible under the surface. The wide inlet pipe at one end had no tap, so he guessed that it was fed by a natural spring rather than a storage tank, and at the other end a system of paddle-wheels fed a small generator which was, presumably, responsible for the overhead lighting.

Against the opposite wall were more shelves and open cabinets, wider spaced and more crudely built, containing what Gurronsevas guessed were the stores of Wem-edible vegetation and fuel for the ovens. Neither were in plentiful supply.

Gurronsevas followed Remrath around the kitchen, content to allow the Wem cook-healer to do all the talking, especially as the purpose of the very basic equipment was already clear and he had no need to ask questions. He was silent even when Remrath paused before a long, low cabinet positioned below the trough of running water beside the paddle-wheels and splashed by them.

There was a wide flange around the outward-facing edges of the cabinet which prevented water from seeping into its double doors, which hung open to reveal an empty interior. A simple but effective method of cooling by evaporation, he thought. Nowhere else was there anything that resembled a cold storage facility that would have indicated the presence of fresh meat.

In the light of his knowledge that the Wem were cannibals, Gurronsevas did not know whether to feel relieved or worried.

The tour of the kitchen ended with a return to the oven area where the contents of several cooking pots were simmering gently and others were on the side table, covered by thick cloths to keep them warm. Remrath said suddenly, “You have said very little, Gurronsevas, and asked no questions. Is the sight of our primitive methods of food preparation abhorrent to you?”

“To the contrary, Remrath,” he replied firmly. “In essence, kitchens have been very much the same on every world I’ve visited, but it is the small differences that I find of greatest interest. I have many questions for you …” He reached for a large wooden spoon that lay beside a simmering pot that had not yet been covered. “…and the first one is, may I be permitted to taste this? Please excuse me for a moment. My colleagues are talking to me.”

It would have been truer to say, Gurronsevas thought angrily, that they were talking about him.“… Whether through ignorance or stupidity or both!” Captain Fletcher was saying. “Doctor Prilicla, talk to it! Make it see sense, dammit. You don’t land on a strange planet and start sampling the local fast food outlet—”

“Friend Gurronsevas,” Prilicla broke in. “Is this true? Are you about to eat Wem food?”

“No, Doctor,” he replied, bypassing the translator. “I am about to taste the smallest possible portion of a Wem dish. With respect, I would remind everyone that I have a well-educated palate combined with a highly developed sense of smell, and that I would be immediately aware of it if any dish is likely to prove harmful. Since I do not intend to swallow, there is no risk of ingesting possibly toxic material. As well, in consistency the dish is something between a thin vegetable stew and a thick soup which has been boiling in a covered container for more than an hour. I am grateful for your concern, Doctor, but it is not in my nature to take stupid risks.” There was a moment’s silence, then Prilicla said, “Very well, friend Gurronsevas, but if you should inadvertently swallow something, especially if it has any unusual or unpleasant effects, return to the ship at once. Be very careful.”

“Thank you, Doctor,” said Gurronsevas, “I most surely will.” He was about to resume speaking to Remrath when the Cinrusskin went on quickly, “You may have been too busy to listen to our conversation with Tawsar, or fully understand what you heard. The current position is that, with Tawsar’s willing cooperation, we have obtained all the physiological data that we need at present and it will require further study on Rhabwar to help us decide what else we need. The information on the Wem social structure is meager, however, and I feel a strong reluctance from Tawsar to speak about the subject, so that further conversation is becoming increasingly difficult.

“This seems like the right time for us to break off contact without the risk of giving offense,” it continued. “The imminent arrival of the working parties for their midday meal allows us to say, truthfully where everyone but Danalta is concerned, that we must return to the ship for the same purpose. Please complete your food-tasting as quickly as possible, apologize to the kitchen staff and say that you must return with us. They will assume that you, too, are due a meal. Join us as we pass the kitchen entrance in a few minutes time.”

Gurronsevas was holding the long spoon a few inches above the simmering contents of the pot. As Remrath watched and listened to his untranslated words to Prilicla, he knew that it must be feeling irritated at being excluded from the conversation. Had their positions been reversed, Gurronsevas would certainly have been angry, but suddenly he found that he could not speak to either of them.

“Your emotional radiation is difficult to resolve at this range,” said Prilicla, “especially with the kitchen staff adding their own emotions. Is there a problem, friend Gurronsevas?”

“No, Doctor,” he replied, “not if …How sure are you that the Wem mean us no harm?”

“I am as sure as an empath can be about the feelings of others,” Prilicla replied. “The kitchen staff are radiating curiosity and caution normal to the situation, but no hostility. Not being a telepath I cannot tell what they are actually thinking, and because of this there is a small element of doubt. Why do you ask?”

Gurronsevas was still trying to find the right words for his reply when Prilicla spoke again.

It said, “Is it because you are radiating an intense curiosity, presumably a professional curiosity, considering your present surroundings, and do not wish to leave until it is satisfied? Or is it that you feel more comfortable in a kitchen among other-species cooks than with the medics on the casualty deck of an ambulance ship?”

“Are you sure you are not a telepath?” asked Gurronsevas.

“I am sorry, friend Gurronsevas,” said Prilicla, “I had no wish to embarrass you because your embarrassment affects me. You may remain in the kitchen, but Doctor Danalta will stay with you as a protector. It is not capable of hurting any other intelligent being, but friend Danalta can assume some truly fearsome shapes if attacked. Should your situation there become dangerous, make your way quickly to the wooden outer wall and onto the lip of the cavern mouth, where friend Fletcher will lift you to safety with a tractor-beam.

“While you are satisfying your culinary curiosity,” it went on, “do you think you could widen the conversation to include general questions on the Wem social and cultural background, both past and present if possible? Do not be too obvious about it, and move away from subjects that appear to be sensitive. It may be that you will have more success with Remrath than we’ve had with Tawsar.

“Do not waste time replying,” it ended. “I can feel Remrath’s impatience growing very rapidly.”

“Sorry for the interruption, Remrath,” he said, doing as he had been told. “My friends, all but the one called Danalta, need to return to the ship for their own meal and this, your own eating period, seems like an opportune time. You will find Danalta an interesting being who is able to change shape at will. It can go without food for long periods, even longer than I myself can do. It is much smaller than I, a healer but not a cook, and with your permission I would like it to observe the workings of your kitchen.”

Remrath, Gurronsevas suspected, knew as well as he did that there was another reason for Danalta’s presence. The concept of there being safety in numbers was one shared by every thinking race.

“Your friend is welcome so long as it doesn’t obstruct us,” said Remrath, then pointed a bony digit at the spoon Gurronsevas was still holding above the pot. “Are you going to do something with that?”

Ignoring the sarcasm, Gurronsevas dipped the spoon into the greenish-brown, bubbling mass, stirred it briefly to feel the consistency, then raised a spoonful to his breathing orifice until he judged the temperature to be cool enough not to blister his mouth before touching it to the taste pad covering the inside of his upper lip.

“Well?” Remrath asked sharply.

Gurronsevas thought that he could detect the presence of three different forms of vegetation, but they had been so thoroughly mixed and overcooked that he could not separate the individual tastes, much less relate them to foods already known to him. No condiments, sauces, mineral or chemical flavorings were present, and not even a trace of the salt which must have been available from Wemar’s seas. Plainly the food was being prepared too far in advance and the subsequent overcooking had destroyed any complementary or contrasting taste possessed by the original constituents.

“A little bland,” said Gurronsevas.

Remrath made an untranslatable sound and said, “You are being much too diplomatic, off-worlder. You have tasted our staple dish, a meat and vegetable stew without the meat, and by the time it reaches table it will be scarcely warm. Bland is a polite description for this unappetizing mess, but it is not the word we or our pupils would use.”

“It needs something,” Gurronsevas agreed. Deliberately, he directed all four of his eyes towards the empty cold cabinet he had noticed earlier and went on, “Doubtless the meat would improve the taste, but you do not appear to have any. Is meat a part of their normal diet?”

In his head-set Prilicla said warningly, “You are in a very sensitive area, friend Gurronsevas. Remrath’s emotional radiation is disturbed and angry. Tread gently.”

That was a ridiculous thing to ask a physically massive Tralthan to do. Even though he knew what the empath meant, he was in the kitchen and the Wem must surely expect him to ask questions about food.

“No,” said Remrath sharply. When Gurronsevas had decided that he must have given offense and it was not going to speak further, it proved him wrong by saying, “Only adults are entitled to eat meat, if and when it is available. It is forbidden to the young, but that rule is relaxed when, as is the case here, many of them are nearing maturity. The pupils who are old enough are occasionally given it in small quantities to add taste to the vegetable dishes, as a preparation for and a promise of their approaching maturity and the status they can expect as brave hunters and providers for their people.

“Our hunting party is due to return soon,” Remrath ended in a quiet voice that sounded angry despite the emotion-straining process of translation. “But in recent years they have had limited success, and they will not share their meat and their mature strength with children, so they keep it all for themselves”

Plainly some kind of verbal response was needed, Gurronsevas thought worriedly, preferably a sympathetic or encouraging or innocuous one that would not increase the Wem’s anger. Not knowing what to say, he tried to play safe by making a harmless and obvious statement of fact.

“You are mature,” he said.

If anything Remrath became even angrier. So loudly that the two cooks at the other end of the kitchen looked up from their work, it said, “I am very mature, stranger. Too mature to take part in a hunt, or to be given the smallest share of the kill. Too mature to have my past hunts remembered with gratitude or my feelings considered. Occasionally, out of kindness or sentiment, a young and newly-mature hunter will throw me a scrap or two of meat, but those we use to add a little taste to the meals of the older children. Otherwise we eat what everyone else eats in this place — a tasteless, lukewarm vegetable mush!”

In his time Gurronsevas had heard and dealt with many complaints about food, although rarely when it had been prepared by himself, and felt able to speak without risk of giving offense.

He took a deep breath and said carefully, “I have met or know of many different kinds of creatures, intelligent beings like yourselves who have developed civilizations more advanced even than that of the Wem of many centuries past, and who eat nothing but vegetation from the time they are weaned from their mothers’ milk until they die. Their meals are served hot, as are yours, or uncooked and served in a variety of different—”

“Never!” Remrath burst out. “I can believe that they eat vegetable stew until they die, because we older Wem are forced to do the same. In all probability it precipitates our dying. But it is simply a matter of filling an empty and growling stomach with tasteless organic fuel, and eating vegetation is shameful and demeaning for any adult.

“But eating raw growing things like a, like a rouglar!” it ended fiercely. “Off-worlder, you risk making me sick.”

“Please excuse my ignorance,” said Gurronsevas, “but what is a rouglar?”

“It used to be a large, slow-moving meat animal which ate and digested foliage all day long,” Remrath replied. “A few of them are rumored to exist in the equatorial regions, but elsewhere they are extinct. They were always too slow and stupid to escape the hunters.”

“With respect, you are wrong,” said Gurronsevas. “Many intelligent species are herbivorous and suffer no feelings of shame because of it. Neither do they have feelings of mental or physical inadequacy among the carnivores and omnivores who eat meat only or a combination of both, as do you. Charge Nurse Naydrad, that is the one you will see with the long, silver-furred body and multiplicity of legs, eats only vegetation and is slow neither in its thoughts or movements. Differences in eating habits are not a cause for shame or pride or any other emotions except, perhaps, pleasure or displeasure over the taste, quality of the cooking or preparation of the food. They are just differences. Why do the Wem feel shame?”

Remrath did not reply. Had his question given offense, Gurronsevas wondered, or was the answer even more shameful? Rather than ask questions it might be safer to continue giving information while noting the other’s reaction to it.

“Food is a fuel regardless of its type,” he went on, “but the process of refueling is, or should be, a pleasurable experience. The taste can be enhanced in various ways by the addition of small quantities of substances that are animal, vegetable or edible mineral. Or a meal can be improved by using different constituents which complement or contrast with each other and make the taste more interesting. I have some small experience in this area including the preparation of …”

Briefly, he wondered how the subordinate kitchen staff at the Cromingan-Shesk would have reacted to such a ridiculous and uncharacteristic piece of understatement, but his listener knew nothing of multi-species cooking and would not be impressed by gratuitous displays of expertise that were completely beyond its understanding or, hopefully, its present understanding.

When he continued, Gurronsevas tried to keep the information as simple and basic as possible because this aged Wem cook, regardless of its advanced years, was the merest child in culinary matters. But as he warmed to his favorite subject and the minutes slipped past unnoticed, he grew aware that Remrath was showing signs of restlessness and possibly impatience. It was time to taper off before positive boredom set in.

“There is much more that I could tell you about food preparation,” he went on, “including the fact that my efforts are wasted on a few rare and very unfortunate beings. The shape-changer Danalta is one. It eats anything, vegetation, meat, hard woods, sand, most varieties of rock, all without being able to sense any difference in taste.”

He stopped suddenly with the realization that the conversations in his head-set were indicating that the medical team were boarding Rhabwar, the Wem students were about to reenter the mine, and Danalta had not yet arrived.

Or had it.

Standing against a poorly lit section of the wall behind the kitchen doors Gurronsevas remembered, there had been a wooden cask with the shafts of several brooms and mops projecting from the open top. Now there were two casks, identical but for a knothole in one of them that had the wet, transparent look of an eye — which slowly winked at him. Danalta had joined them.

Exhibitionist, thought Gurronsevas, and returned his attention to Remrath.

“We must continue this conversation at another time,” the Wem said before he could speak, “because now we have much to do. Watch if you wish, but kindly stand aside and avoid hampering our movements.”

Gurronsevas moved away to stand beside the cask that was not a cask. The movements that he was not supposed to hamper, he saw, were painfully slow. Remrath and its kitchen staff were ladling helpings of the vegetable stew onto deep-rimmed dishes which they placed two to a tray before adding two wide, flat spoons and two cups of drinking water taken from the entry pipe of the free-running sluice. The platters were unwarmed and some of them were still damp from washing. One by one the loaded trays with their two-place servings were carried to the outer room and placed on the big table until its entire surface was covered. While this was happening, the teachers supervising the Wem working parties and classes arrived and began adding the day’s crop of vegetables to the kitchen’s storage bins while their young charges moved on to the dining area.

Remrath told the newcomers that the presence of Gurronsevas would be explained later and to continue with their normal duties. The sight of them doing so was seriously elevating Gurronsevas’ blood pressure.

The age-immobilized tails, the stiffness in their hands, fingers, and walking limbs and their erratic, hobbling gait meant that they could carry and balance only one small tray of two servings at a time. It also meant that the food already cooling in the outer room would be even cooler, if not stone cold, by the time it reached the dining area. But the diners were unlikely to complain about it because their impatience for a meal of cold mush would be minimal.

“I can’t stand here and watch this any longer,” he said with quiet vehemence to one of the casks behind him. “The organization of this kitchen is a criminal shambles, and their food delivery system is …Don’t change or move to follow me, Danalta, unless I call for help.”

He waited until Remrath was hobbling past close by, then went on in a louder voice, “I have been observing your activities closely and believe that I can be of assistance. As you have seen, I am more physically agile than you are and much faster in my movements. And I have four hands, all of which are presently idle …”

The Great Gurronsevas, he thought incredulously as he was carrying the first four trays along the tunnel to the dining area, waiting at table! What was happening to him?