The Galactic Gourmet

CHAPTER 21

A few minutes later the tunnel opened into a compartment whose wall-mounted lighting fixtures failed to illuminate the high and unsupported roof while showing the rock walls and sloping, uneven floor of a large, natural cavern. Plainly it had been utilized as an extension to the mine rather than a compartment hollowed out by Wem hands.

About two hundred yards ahead there was a wall, built from large, unfinished stones bound together by cement, sealing off the mouth of the cavern. The wall was pierced by ten large window openings, three of which still retained their glass while the others looked as if they had been boarded up for a very long time. Enough daylight came through the windows to bleach the artificial lighting to a dull, yellow glow and illuminate the rows of high, bench-like Wem tables that were separated by wide aisles into groups of twenty or more.

This was the communal dining area, Gurronsevas thought, then immediately corrected himself. Facing every rectangular group of tables there was a piece of equipment whose basic design, modified to suit the size and shape of its users, was common to virtually every intelligent species in the Federation — a blackboard and easel. Ranged against the cavern walls were side tables, some of them stacked with platters and eating utensils and others with books that looked as if they were disintegrating with age. Hanging from spikes driven into the rockface were a number of large, framed wall-charts which were cracked and faded almost to illegibility.

It was a school classroom as well as a dining area.

Fletcher was seeing everything that the team was seeing through their vision pick-ups, but the Captain kept talking about it anyway because the material was probably being recorded for onward transmission to Tremaar.“… The furniture and equipment is old,” Fletcher was saying. “You can see the corrosion stains where the original metal legs were attached, and the replacement wooden structure is not all that recent, either. The wall-frame supports are solid with rust, as well. They must be short of glass, too, otherwise they would not have boarded up the window frames in an area where daylight is available for classroom work.

“I missed seeing that wall on the cliff face,” Fletcher continued, a hint of apology creeping into its tone, “because it is built from local, weathered stone that is difficult to see because it is recessed and shaded by a rock overhang. I would say that the purpose of the wall is to protect rather than confine the younger inhabitants, because the cavern mouth opens onto a sheer cliff some five hundred feet above the valley floor. But we have the wall clearly in sight now. If an emergency withdrawal becomes necessary, Danalta and Gurronsevas can easily break through the boarded-up window frames. Doctor Prilicla can fly down and the rest of you can escape using the—”

“Not on the anti-gravity litter!” Naydrad broke in, its fur spiking in agitation. “That is primarily a ground-effect vehicle. At anything over fifty feet altitude it balances like a drunken Crrelyin!”

“—Using the tractor-beam,” Fletcher continued, “The ship is close enough for it to reach you and lift you down one at a time.”

“Captain,” said Prilicla, “the possibility of a life-threatening emergency occurring is very small. The emotional radiation of Tawsar and the other Wem in the mine we have not yet met was not hostile, and they are the beings with authority in this establishment. Our friend is radiating a mixture of shame, embarrassment and intense curiosity. It wants something from us, possibly only information. But it does not, as your colorful but anatomically inexact Earth saying has it, want our guts for garters. Please return to translation mode or Tawsar will think we are talking about it.”

Prilicla and Tawsar resumed talking, with occasional interjections from the other team members, but their conversation was becoming too medical to hold Gurronsevas’s interest. He moved over to the windows to look down on Rhabwar shimmering inside the dome of its meteor shield, and beyond it to the valley floor and the scattered groups of young Wem who were working there. The most distant group had formed into a line and was beginning to walk back towards the mine.

The ship had not yet reported the incident. Lacking Gurronsevas’s greater elevation, the watch-keeping officer would not have seen them.

He bent an eye to look behind him where Prilicla and Murchison were demonstrating the uses of the litter’s handheld scanner on Naydrad and each other, but not on Danalta whose internal organs were voluntarily mobile and far too confusing for a simple first lesson in other-species anatomy. Surprisingly, for a being of its advanced age and the inflexible habits of thought which usually accompanied that condition, Tawsar was quick to grasp the idea of making a non-invasive and painless internal investigation of a living body. It stared entranced at the internal organs, the beating hearts, the lungs in their different respiration cycles and the complex skeletal structures of the Cinrusskin Senior Physician, the Earth-human Pathologist and the Kelgian Charge Nurse.

It was inevitable that Tawsar became curious and wanted to look into its own internal workings, which gave Prilicla the opening it needed to ask more personal medical questions.“… If you look closely at the hip and knee, here and here,” the Senior Physician was saying, “you can see the layers of cartilage which separate the joints and which are supposed to form a thin, frictionless pad between them. In your case, however, the joint interfaces are no longer smooth. The bone structure has deteriorated and become uneven, and the movement of the limb, combined with the pressure of your body weight on surfaces which are no longer smooth, has torn and inflamed the cartilage and generally worsened the condition, making physical movement both restricted and painful …”

“Tell me something I don’t know,” said Tawsar.

“I will,” Prilicla replied gently. “But before I do that you must be told something that you do know, that your condition is due to the aging process that is common to all species. In time, in varying lengths of time, because our life-expectancies are not the same, all of the beings you see around you will age, our physical and sometimes mental capabilities will deteriorate until eventually we will die. None of us can reverse the natural aging process, but with the proper medication and treatment the symptoms can be reduced, or their onset delayed, and the physical discomfort removed.”

Tawsar did not respond for a moment, and Gurronsevas did not need to be an empath to feel the Wem’s disbelief, then it said, “Your medication would poison me, or give me some foul, off-world disease. My body must remain healthy and clean, despite its infirmities. No!”

“Friend Tawsar,” said Prilicla, “we would not even try to help if there was the slightest risk to yourself. You do not realize, because until now you had no way of knowing, that there are many similarities between the Wem and the off-worlders represented here. With minor differences in composition we breathe the same air and eat the same basic types of food …”

The Cinrusskin’s pipe-stem legs and slow-beating wings began quivering, but only for a moment. It did not stop talking.“… Because of this, the ways that our bodies work, the processes of respiration, ingestion and waste elimination, procreation, and physical growth are all very similar. But there is one important and unique difference: we cannot catch a disease from you or from each other, or you from one of us. This is because the pathogens, the germs, which have evolved on one world are powerless to affect life-forms from another. After centuries of close and continuous contact on many worlds, this is a rule to which we have found no exception.”

Prilicla bypassed the translator again and said quickly, “There was a strong emotional reaction to the mention of food. I detected the same feelings of shame, curiosity and intense hunger. Why should a native of a famine-stricken world be ashamed of feeling hungry?”

Switching back to Tawsar it went on, “We cannot promise that you will be able to run and hop like a young Wem. If we are able to treat you, there will be a marked alleviation of your discomfort. If not, no change in your condition or additional pain will be apparent. Withdrawal of the specimens we need to ensure that our medication will not harm you is also painless.”

It was not just another therapeutic lie, Gurronsevas knew, because in this case the doctor was feeling everything that its patient felt. Judging from the faint tremor visible in Prilicla’s limbs, it was also feeling the patient coming to a difficult decision.

“I must be damaged in the head,” said Tawsar suddenly. “Very well, I agree. But don’t take too long about it or I may change my mind.”

The medical team gathered around the Wem who was still lying on the litter. Prilicla said, “Thank you, friend Tawsar, we will not waste time.” Murchison said, “The scanner is on record,” and after that the conversation became densely technical. Gurronsevas turned his back on the massively boring medical proceedings and returned to the windows.

The four most distant working or teaching parties had merged on their way back to the mine and presumably their midday meal, and the closer groups would join them so that they would all arrive at the same time. They were maintaining the slow walking pace of their teachers rather than running and hopping ahead, and he estimated their arrival time at just under an hour. Rhabwar would have them in sight very soon. He wondered whether their lack of haste was due to teacher discipline or disinterest in the meal awaiting them. He was increasingly curious about the kitchen smells that were drifting in from the entry tunnel.

He became suddenly aware that Prilicla was talking about him.“… It moving away from us means no disrespect,” the empath was saying. “Because of its specialty Gurronsevas is more curious about what you put into your body than in what we are taking out and, whenever you can spare the time, it would be much more interested in investigating the Wem cooking arrangements than in—”

“It is welcome to look at our kitchen now,” Tawsar broke in. “The First Cook knows of the visit by off-worlders and will be pleased to see Gurronsevas. Does it require guidance?”

“Thank you, no,” said Gurronsevas. Silently, he added, “I can follow my nose.”

“I shall join you in the kitchen,” said Tawsar, “as soon as this strange activity is over.”

He was already moving towards the exit tunnel when Prilicla switched from the translator channels to say, “Friend Gurronsevas, I was talking about you simply to give Tawsar something other than the examination to think about. But suddenly there was an emotional response of the type I detected earlier. Feelings of hunger, curiosity and intense shame or embarrassment, but much more intense. Be very careful, and observant, because I have the feeling that you could discover something important to us. Maintain voice contact at all times and please take care.”

“I will be careful, Doctor,” said Gurronsevas impatiently as he continued his erratic journey between the desks. Who better than himself knew how many accidents could occur in a kitchen, and how to avoid them.

Prilicla resumed its attempts to take Tawsar’s mind off what Murchison and Naydrad were doing to it. Their voices sounded clearly in his earpiece.

“For the best results,” the empath was saying, “we should also investigate a healthy and active young Wem, ideally one close to maturity. It would be for purposes of comparison only, not for treatment. Would this be possible?”

“Anything is possible,” Tawsar replied. “Children are prone to take risks, for a dare or out of curiosity or to prove themselves better than other children. Maybe that is the reason I am subjecting myself to this experience, I was too stupid to realize that I have long since entered my second childhood.”

“No, friend Tawsar,” said Prilicla firmly. “There is a young and adaptable mind inside your aging body, but it is not a stupid one. There can be few others of your kind who could have faced a group of off-worlders, beings who must appear completely alien and visually horrendous to you, and help us with our investigation as you have been doing. That was and is a very brave act. But were you simply curious about us or were there other reasons for inviting us here?”

There was a long pause, then Tawsar said, “I am not a unique person. There are others here who are equally brave or stupid. Most of them are willing to meet and make whatever use of you that they can, and a few others, the majority of the absent hunters, refuse to have any part of you. As First Teacher it was my responsibility for inviting you into the mine. I was surprised that you did not need more coaxing, so perhaps you, too, are brave or stupid. And placing me under an obligation by promising to relieve the pain in my joints was unfair because I cannot repay …”

“Friend Tawsar,” Prilicla broke in, “there is nothing to repay. But if the balancing of obligations are important to your people, you have allowed us to satisfy our medical curiosity regarding the Wem, and this would repay the debt many times over. As for your stiffening joints, the pain symptoms can be relieved easily although a cure that would allow a return to full mobility might be more difficult because the condition is advanced in your case. We might have to remove the damaged joints in their entirety and fit replacements made from metal or hardened plastic.”

“No!”

The single word sounded so angry that it must have been accompanied by strong emotional radiation, and Gurronsevas was glad that he was not seeing Prilicla’s reaction. He had moved along the tunnel and was within a few paces of the kitchen entrance by the time the empath found its voice again.

“There is nothing to fear, friend Tawsar,” said the empath. “Joint replacements are done routinely, thousands every day on some worlds, and in the majority of cases the replacement is more efficient than the original. There is no pain. The operation is performed while the subject is unconscious and …”

“No,” Tawsar broke in again, less vehemently. “That must not be done. It would render parts of my body inedible.”

Gurronsevas was moving slowly into what appeared to be a service compartment adjoining the kitchen proper, which was hidden by two swinging doors that were impervious to sight but not smell. He could see long benches stacked with trays, neatly-racked eating utensils and shelves containing cooking-pots, dishes of various sizes, and cups, the majority of which were cracked or missing their handles. But as the implications of what Tawsar had said began to sink in, he came to a sudden halt.

He could only imagine how the medical team and the listening Fletcher on Rhabwar were reacting; like himself they must have been shocked speechless. It was the pathologist who found its voice first.

“W-We, that is, all of the intelligent species we know, bury their dead, or burn them, or dispose of them in other ways. But they do not use them as food.”

“That is very stupid of you,” Tawsar replied, “to waste an important natural resource like that. On Wemar we cannot afford such criminal wastage. We honor and remember our dead if their lives and deeds warrant it, but even so, a person’s past life has little effect on his or her taste provided they remain healthy. We would not, of course, eat someone who was too long dead, or who had died from a disease, or whose body contained harmful substances like metal or plastic joints. If we are sure the meat will not harm us, we will eat anything. Because of my advanced age, I myself will probably be tough and stringy, but nutritious nevertheless.

“The tastiest pieces,” the Wem went on, “come from the young or the newly-mature adults who die by accident or while hunting …”

The double doors into the main kitchen swung open suddenly to reveal the figure of a Wem wreathed in steam, and two others working some distance behind it. All three wore loosely-tied aprons of a fabric that had been washed too often for it to have retained its original color. The one nearest the door was the first to speak.

“Obviously you are one of the off-worlders,” it said politely. “My name is Remrath. Please come in.”

For a moment it seemed that Gurronsevas’s six, massive feet were rooted to the stone floor, because he was remembering Tawsar’s earliest words to him.

The First Cook will be pleased to see you.