The Galactic Gourmet

CHAPTER 23

The conversation continued after the meal was over and the near-empty platters cleared away. Nobody, it seemed, paid the cooks the compliment of leaving clean plates. Tawsar thanked Gurronsevas for his help serving and for answering questions about himself asked by the young Wem diners. At no time did he see Tawsar touch its food, and when he mentioned this to Remrath later he was told that the First Teacher held to the old traditions and would not eat vegetation where others could witness its shame. Even though the other cooks, who had to take food to the very young children, had left them alone in the kitchen when he asked for an explanation, Remrath avoided the question.

Gurronsevas knew better than to criticize or offer suggestions about the workings of its kitchen to the cook in charge, no matter how poorly-equipped the place might be, because wars had started over less. Instead he talked about the other kitchens he had known and his criticisms were implied rather than spoken.

“We no longer ask the young to do these menial kitchen duties,” Remrath said. “There was a time when those who misbehaved were given responsibility for clearing away and washing the dishes and cutlery, and for cleaning the next day’s vegetables. But much crockery was broken and vegetables were improperly washed as a result, and the practice was discontinued. Reluctant helpers are not worth the trouble. Besides, it is better for the aged to remain useful rather than waste resources that seem to grow scarcer by the day. Is that a food-stain or wear on your platter? Please scrub it again.”

Gurronsevas immersed the platter in the cold, running water and rubbed at it with the piece of dense, wiry moss provided for the purpose before showing it again to Remrath who was engaged in the same activity. First a waiter, he thought, and now a dishwasher!

He said, “With many of the species I have known, especially when the individual is no longer young, repeated immersion in cold water stiffens the finger joints. Is it so with you?”

“Yes,” said Remrath. “And, as you must already have seen, at my age it is not only the parts bathed in cold water that suffer.”

“That, too, is a common complaint on many worlds,” said Gurronsevas. “But it is possible that the suffering can be relieved. I say possible because I have no knowledge of the subject myself, but Tawsar kindly submitted to a full medical examination and many metabolic tests, so we will soon know whether or not our healing can be practiced to the benefit of the Wem. But if not, on my world the young can often be made to help their elders when the right arguments are used.”

Remrath washed three more platters, examined them minutely for food stains and placed them aside still dripping wet before it said, “Do you know whether Tawsar is well or ailing? Is the age-rot that grows in all our bodies, and opens the way for other flesh-poisoning diseases, working within it?”

Gurronsevas was trying to think of a suitable reply when Murchison joined in on the ship frequency. “You were correct in saying that we might not be able to alleviate a Wem arthritic condition, but there is a fair chance that we can. Tawsar is old and frail but not sick. It could live for another ten years, longer if it would eat more. For some reason these people are nearly starving themselves to death.”

If the pathologist had tasted the recent Wem meal, Gurronsevas thought, the reason would be plain. To Remrath he said, “Tawsar has many years of life ahead, especially if it would eat more food.”

Remrath scraped the congealed remains of a meal from a platter into a waste bin before sliding it into the washing trough. It said, “The young would help us if we asked them, but the old must do useful work while we are waiting to deliver up our bodies at the Ending, and it is work that we are allowed to do even though we are not always capable of doing it well. And we don’t want to eat more food, not when it is vegetation. The subject is distasteful in every sense of the word. But I have questions for you, Gurronsevas. If they are improper, ignore them. Your work I can understand because it is not unlike my own, but what about the beings who spoke with and did things to Tawsar? Where do they come from and what do they do there?”

Gurronsevas tried to describe Sector General and the work that was done there, but his description was much too simple and far from accurate because he knew that the tremendous truth would not be believed.

“So it is a great building in the sky,” said Remrath, “filled with beings who take in diseased and damaged bodies and make them clean and fresh and whole again?”

“That’s as good a way as any,” said Murchison, laughing softly, “of describing what we do.”

“There used to be places like that on Wemar,” it went on, unaware of the interruption, “but their work fell far short of that which you describe. You say that your friends on the ship come from Sector General and are willing to do this service for Tawsar and the rest of the senior staff?”

“Yes,” he replied without hesitation.

“I–I am grateful,” said Remrath, “but I am also uneasy about entrusting my body to strangers. Although one of them, you are known to me and …You, also, come from Sector General and must have knowledge that is greater than mine. I would prefer, when the time comes, that you did the work of returning my body to the freshness of youth.”

“Regrettably,” said Gurronsevas, pleased at the misplaced compliment, “I know nothing of these matters. My only contribution lies in the preparation, presentation and delivery of food for people there.”

“Is this an important contribution?” asked Remrath. “Does it help keep them clean and fresh?”

“Yes,” said Gurronsevas again. “I would say without hesitation that it is the most important one, since without it nobody would survive.”

In his head-set he could hear Murchison making an untranslatable sound.

“And you want to help keep us fresh,” said Remrath, lifting the last, newly-washed platter from the trough, “by making our food look nice and taste better? Impossible!”

Gurronsevas shook his hands dry because there was nothing he could see resembling a towel and said, “I would like you to allow me to try.”

Without replying, Remrath turned and hobbled stiffly into the outer room to return a few minutes later with an armful of the recently arrived vegetables. It began pulling leaves off some of them and roots from others before dropping the presumably edible parts into the water before it spoke.

“You are allowed to try, stranger,” it said. “But if, out of your greater knowledge and other-world experience, you cannot produce meat for us you will be wasting your time. That is our hope and the reason why I forced Tawsar to meet you in the first place. Instead of explaining our urgent need for meat, which is necessary for the survival of our species, he was ashamed and talked of other things and allowed your healers to do strange things to him.

“What do you want to do first, Gurronsevas?”

“I would like to begin,” he replied, “by talking to you about the Wem …”

“Yes, please,” said Murchison. “Apart from the physiological data, Prilicla says that you are getting more useful information from your friend in five minutes than we did from Tawsar in two hours.”“… About what you think of yourselves and your world,” he went on, ignoring yet another unexpected compliment, “as well as what you like to eat. Which objects, scenes and colors do you consider beautiful? Is the appearance of your food as important as its taste and odor? It has long been my belief that, in several important respects, a person’s behavior and level of culture is reflected by the food it eats and, of course, the civilized rituals and refinements practiced while cooking, presenting and eating it …”

“Stranger!” Remrath broke in. “You are becoming offensive, to myself and the Wem people. Are you suggesting that we are savages?”

“Gurronsevas, be careful,” said Murchison urgently. “Dammit, are you trying to pick a fight?”

“That was not my intention,” he said, replying to both questioners. “I know that the Wem are close to starvation, and many of the rituals of eating require a sufficiency, if not a surplus, of the preferred foods. But where I come from eating rituals can be altered, either through necessity or to relieve the boredom of an unchanging diet.

“Despite my ignorance of Wem cooking,” Gurronsevas continued quickly, “I shall make suggestions on how this may be done. If these suggestions are offensive or unsuitable for any physical or psychological reason, tell me so at once without wasting time on politeness. But before you do so, let me test the foods that are available and debate the suggestion with you at length so that I as well as you will know why it is unworkable.

“To make these tests,” he went on, “I need your permission to take samples, very small quantities, of the vegetation and condiments that you use here. As well, I would be grateful if you could take me out to where these plants are harvested. Seeing them in their natural state, and gathering and testing other possibly edible growths in the vicinity, might suggest alternative meals or changes in the existing menu.”

“But it is meat that we need,” said Remrath firmly. “Have you a suggestion for providing that?”

“Only,” said Gurronsevas, suddenly impatient with the other’s culinary monomania, “if you were to eat one of us.”

“Gurronsevas …!” Murchison began.

“We would not eat you, Gurronsevas,” said Remrath, taking the suggestion literally. “With respect, your limbs and body appear hard and tough. You might taste like the branches of a tree. The shape-changer’s parts might cause indigestion by changing shape within us, and the limbs and body of the beautiful, winged creature are as fleshless as the twigs of a bush in winter. The soft being who balances on two legs and the one with the shining fur might be suitable. Are they soon to die?”

“No,” said Gurronsevas.

“Then you must not offer them to us,” said Remrath in a very serious voice, “The Wem believe that it is wrong to eat another intelligent being unless it dies naturally and free of disease, or its body is broken in an accident. You must not shorten another person’s life out of sympathy for our hunger, no matter how desperate our present need. I am grateful for the offer, but distressed and shocked that you would behave with such a lack of feeling towards your friends. Your gift of meat is refused.”

“I’m glad,” said Murchison.

“So am I,” said Gurronsevas, bypassing the translator, “I am tough only on the outside. But I seem to have talked myself into a corner …”

To Remrath, he said, “Please, there is no need for you to feel distressed or shocked because we hold the same belief. My words were ill-chosen and were a clumsy attempt at asking another question. Would the Wem accept off-planet food, provided it was palatable and we were sure that it would not harm you?”

“Off-planet meat?” Remrath asked hopefully.

“No,” he said, and this time his words were well-chosen as he explained that, while it was possible to give the food the taste and consistency of different other-worldly meats, the material was not and had never been alive. The reason for this was that when different meat-eating life-forms worked together as they did at Sector General and on the ship, it was considered insensitive to eat the flesh of non-intelligent creatures who often bore a close physical resemblance to their intelligent colleagues. He ended, “The food is artificial, but you could not tell the difference.”

Remrath replied with a sound that suggested disbelief. The long silence which followed was broken by it saying, “Regarding the tour of our vegetable gardens, I have duties here which allow me very little free time for walking in the valley. I have a class and I must prepare for the evening meal …”

Gurronsevas concealed his disappointment. He would have preferred to have Remrath as a guide and advisor on Wem plant life than to waste his own time pulling quantities of specimens — which the other would have known immediately to be toxic — and then having to wait on the results of Murchison’s analyses. Politely, he said, “What are you serving this evening?”

“More of the same,” said Remrath shortly. It raised one hand stiffly to point toward the outer room and went on, “But we will be able to make the necessary time, Gurronsevas, if you bring in and break up the firewood, and help me wash the vegetables.”