Rhubarb (33 page)

“Have you made a decision?” asked Jeffrey.

“You’ve given me such wonderful choices,” said Martin.
“Let’s see. Easy death or hard death?”

“It doesn’t have to be death for you,” said Jeffrey. “I’m
willing to deal. I’ll take care of you, Cheryl, and anyone else you want in
exchange. I’ve discussed it with Chumpdark, and he agrees that we could create
a home for you somewhere. Maybe even on Earth.”

“With a few dozen of my closest friends?” said Martin.

“Something like that,” said Jeffrey.

“What a gracious offer,” said Martin. “But before we go any
further, I want to talk to Cheryl. Alive. Conscious. Right now.”

“Fair enough,” said Jeffrey.

~ * * * ~

As they traveled along a long tunnel, the sensation of up
and down returned. Gravity increased until the squids no longer reached out to
the walls, but slithered along what could now be called a floor. The goons
prodded Lee and Martin to walk.

At a human-sized rectangular door, Jeffrey pushed Martin
forward. “Honey, I’m home,” Jeffrey said with a sputtering laugh. He blobbered
his joke to the others.

“Hello?” Martin creaked the door open, shocked to find a
bogglingly perfect replica of Stewart and Cheryl’s trailer inside. A crash
struck the wall near his head, and showered him with shattered glass. He ducked
back, but Jeffrey shoved, and Martin tumbled into the mobile home, falling
against the legs of the kitchen chairs.

“Martin?”

He rolled over to find Cheryl standing over him, armed with
another glass tumbler and a wicked kitchen knife.

“Cheryl.”

“What are you doing here?” she asked.

“Coming to get you,” said Martin.

Cheryl considered him through narrowed eyes, and then she
shouted at the door. “Is this another stupid ploy, Asshat? I know you’re out
there.” She readied her tumbler for another throw, but the door remained
closed.

“I had nothing to do with any of this,” said Martin.

“I don’t care. Get up,” said Cheryl.

“You’re not going to stab me, are you?”

“I might, if you need stabbing.”

“I’m surprised they let you have a knife.”

“I’ve got a whole kitchen of ’em,” said Cheryl.

“Jeffrey told me they make you bake every day,” said Martin.

“Jeffrey? Oh, Asshat? Yeah. They’ve got a whole garden of
rhubarb, a big warehouse of flour and Crisco, whatever. I jump through their
little hoops every day, but apparently my pie isn’t good enough. And it never
will be.” This last struck the door harder than a tumbler.

“You look good,” said Martin. “I mean, considering…”

“Don’t start, Martin. What are you doing here?”

“I told you. I’m rescuing you. Stewart was going to come,
too, but he’s too sick. So I got Lee Danvers to come.”

“Lee Danvers?”

“It’s a long story,” said Martin. “He was in Brixton. We
came through the portal and crashed my truck onto the ship.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You don’t know where you are?”

“It sure as hell isn’t my kitchen.”

“Do you want to know?”

“Will I like it?”

“No,” said Martin.

“I kind of figured that,” said Cheryl.

“You’re about as far from the sun as you can be, but still
be part of the solar system.”

“Oh, that’s just great,” said Cheryl. “So what’s your
brilliant rescue plan?”

“It hasn’t gone quite as I envisioned,” said Martin.
“Listen,” he whispered. “They’re threatening to torture us to death unless we
give them the secret recipe.”

“I don’t have it. Do you? ’Cause if you do, let’s give it to
them and get the hell out of here,” said Cheryl.

“It’s not that…oh, god, you don’t know,” said Martin.

“Know what?”

“What they plan to do if they get it,” said Martin.

“What do they plan to do?”

He told her.

“You’re joking,” said Cheryl.

“Ask Stewart,” said Martin. “He’s the one who told me.”

“How would Stewart know anything?”

“Oh, god, you don’t know that either,” said Martin.

“What are you talking about?” asked Cheryl.

“I’m sorry you have to find out like this, but Stewart is
one of these aliens,” said Martin.

The blade of Cheryl’s knife caught a glint of light. “Liar,”
she screamed as she lunged. And then nothing.

~ * * * ~

Martin awoke on a brick-red tile floor. As he staggered to
his feet, a door swung open and Jeffrey squelched in. “Sorry about that, Screw
Man. Couldn’t have your girlfriend martyring you back there,” he said.

“Where am I?”

“The Herbert’s Corner kitchen, circa 1986. In fact, these
are the same appliances. We bought them at the auction when they remodeled.
Pretty cool, huh? These are the exact ovens where Margie and Linda Laughlin
baked thousands of pies. Everything runs off gas. We’ve even got well water
from Brixton. I can tell you’re impressed.”

“Where’s Cheryl?” asked Martin.

“Oh, she’ll be along. I’ve sent her out to collect supplies.
You two are going to bake me one last pie,” said Jeffrey.

“Go screw yourself,” said Martin.

“Clever. No, I’m serious,” said Jeffrey. “And before you say
anything, it’s too late for deals. I’m tired of mucking around, and Chumpdark’s
getting very impatient.”

What would have been the back door of the kitchen banged
open, and the two goons forced Cheryl and Lee inside. Cheryl had an armload of
fresh rhubarb. Lee had a twenty-five-pound sack of flour. They dumped their
loads onto the wide stainless-steel table in the center of the room.

“Are you all right?” Martin asked.

“Oh, just peachy,” said Cheryl.

“Hi, Lee. You meet Cheryl?”

“We’ve gotten briefly acquainted.”

“She’s not a fan of the show,” said Martin.

“Nobody’s perfect,” said Lee.

“Did you ask her not to stab me?” asked Martin.

“Did I need to?” asked Lee.

“Tell her that you met Stewart, too,” said Martin.

“Enough. Time to bake a pie,” Jeffrey said, clapping several
tentacles together.

“How many times do I have to tell you…?” said Cheryl.

“Yes, yes. You don’t know the secret. That’s why you’re
going to bake it with Martin,” said Jeffrey.

Cheryl laughed. “Martin? What, do you have a store-bought
frozen pie for him to thaw?”

“You’ve been away a long time,” said Jeffrey. “Your
paramour’s been rather busy.”

“Is it true what Martin told me?” asked Cheryl. “Are you
going to kill everyone on Earth?” Martin noticed that she didn’t protest the
use of the term “paramour.” He didn’t know what it meant exactly, and maybe she
didn’t either. But he liked the idea that maybe he was hers.

“Details,” said Jeffrey. “Start baking. Now.”

“Tell me,” said Cheryl. “Or I don’t bake another pie. Ever.
I don’t care what you do to us.” Lee gasped. Jeffrey slammed several tentacles
on the table and grabbed for Cheryl.

“No,” Martin shouted. “I do have the recipe.”

Martin heard every sucker of Jeffrey’s tentacles pop off the
stainless steel as he slid back slowly. A single product pan fell from a shelf
under the jostled table and rattled on the floor.

“You win, Jeffrey. Get Dork-Chump in here. I want him to see
everything.” Cheryl tried to protest, but Martin put up a hand. “We’ll bake you
the best damned pie in the universe. But someone’s got to take me to my truck.
The secret ingredient is there.” Jeffrey glared at him. “What are you waiting
for?” asked Martin. “Go get your boss and have one of these goons take me to
the Screwmobile.”

~ * * * ~

The ragged shaft through which the FastNCo. fleet Ford E-250
Super Duty Cutaway Screwmobile had raged was deep, but not as deep as Martin
expected. The hangar opened perhaps two hundred yards away through the sparking
tunnel of wreckage.

Stewart had warned him, but Martin marveled at the
insubstantialness revealed by the crash. Here, in the microgravity, the
facility had been outfitted with paper-thin walls, and hollow, brittle
structure. Bird bones.

“You tricks no,” the squid goon grunted from the other end
of his staple gun and stretched out a tentacle. “Fast get.”

“I’d get it if you’d let me,” said Martin, pulling against
the goon’s appendage. “It’s right here.” The goon let slip a bit of slack, and
Martin yanked the driver’s door open, tilted the seat forward, and found his
bag. He secreted the lighter in his pocket and turned around with the Pall
Malls.

“What it?” the goon asked.

“A kind of herb,” said Martin. “You know what an herb is?”

“No,” said the goon.

“Then stop asking stupid questions and take me back,” said
Martin.

~ * * * ~

The kitchen had been altered. One wall had been slid away,
revealing a glassed viewing room full of impatient squid. A battery of dinner
plate-sized images—dozens of live video feeds and data streams—dotted the
periphery of the glass. A different image cycled onto a prominent central
circle every few seconds. Every surface of the faux Herbert’s Corner kitchen
must have been embedded with sensors and covered with cameras.

“I suppose the doors are all locked,” said Martin after the
goon had dumped him into the kitchen and left to join the others.

“What are you playing at?” asked Cheryl.

“I’m a little curious about that myself,” said Lee.

“We’re going to bake them the magic pie,” said Martin.

“I won’t,” said Cheryl.

“Then I will,” said Martin.

“You?” Cheryl laughed. “You can barely make a waff…”

“I make a great waffle,” said Martin.

“Whatever. If you really have the recipe, you can’t give it
to them,” said Cheryl.

“Yeah, you probably shouldn’t,” said Lee.

“Actually, I think it’ll be okay,” said Martin.

Jeffrey’s voice boomed over a PA. “If you monkeys are done
squabbling, we’d like to see you bake a pie now. Some sort of herb, Martin?”

“It’s not what you think, Jeff…Asshat. That name suits you
much better,” said Martin.

“Sticks and stones,” said Jeffrey. Behind him, Chumpdark
bellowed and slapped the blade of a tentacle against the glass, with a firm eye
on Jeffrey. “Get started. Now,” said Jeffrey.

“Fine,” said Martin. He turned to Cheryl. “Help me. Please.
Last one.”

Cheryl closed her eyes. Lee put his hands to his forehead
and drug them back through his thin hair.

Martin found a couple of large stainless-steel bowls on a
shelf under the central table and banged them down next to the armload of
leafy, unwashed rhubarb. A magnetic strip covered with knives hung over a
three-basin sink. A rolling pin and several other utensils bristled from a
drying rack next to a stack of foil pie plates. Various shelves and cupboards
contained the sugar, the Crisco, the cinnamon. As if on cue, an icemaker dumped
a load of ice into its bin and began to sluice in another batch. Martin
surveyed it all again and still felt like he lacked everything.

He shouldered between Cheryl and Lee to get to the wide
commercial ovens. He picked the top of the two, touched the knob, and hung his
head, trying to remember.

“Four twenty-five,” said Cheryl.

“Thank you,” said Martin. He set the temperature, and after
a little orange indicator clicked alight, the oven rumbled as the gas ignited
deep in its bowels. Martin turned back to the table, and found Cheryl gathering
up the rhubarb.

“Wait,” said Martin. He put a hand on the rhubarb, and she
paused. “Trust me,” he said. He dug the Pall Malls from his back pocket but
kept them out of view under the table. They probably had a camera there, too,
but it felt safer to do it this way. Cheryl glowered when she saw what he had
brought, but he hushed her before she could speak. Martin zipped out a single
cigarette, returned the pack to his pocket, and then, doing his best
black-and-white movie star, popped the cigarette between his lips.

“No smoking,” Jeffrey called over the PA, slapping on the
glass. “Besides, you don’t smoke, Screw Man.”

“Do you want your pie or not?” Martin asked out of the
corner of his otherwise occupied mouth. Then, shielding his lighter like James
Dean in the wind, he lit up.

He took a long first drag and fought back the urge to cough
out his esophagus. He let the smoke burn deep into his lungs, and then, eyes
watering, exhaled it slowly, first toward the glass and the suddenly apoplexic
cephalopods, and then all over the rhubarb.

“What are you doing?” asked Cheryl.

Jeffrey burst through the door with frightening speed. A
tentacle lifted Martin off the floor. Another pushed Cheryl back, and another,
Lee. A fourth snaked around Martin’s neck as Jeffrey drew him close to one of
his eyes.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Jeffrey asked.

“Put him down,” Cheryl shouted.

“Put it out. Now. And stop fooling around,” said Jeffrey.

Martin choked a smoky breath directly into Jeffrey’s eye. It
squeezed shut, and the skin around it browned and shriveled. Jeffrey bellowed
and wiped at his eye with a juicy tentacle. Another arm batted the cigarette
from Martin’s fingers, and another squashed it on the tile floor.

“I don’t know what you’re playing at,” said Jeffrey, holding
Martin farther away, glaring with his un-smoked eye.

“Not…playing…” said Martin.

“You’re choking him,” shrieked Cheryl. Jeffrey’s good eye
swiveled toward her in time to see the rolling pin. It blunted against his eye
and clattered to the floor. He bellowed again, and Martin found himself free,
collapsing, not ready to hold his weight. But at least he had air to breathe.

When Martin had recovered enough to look up, he saw Lee
standing between Cheryl and a blinking and sputtering Jeffrey.

“Listen to me,” said Lee, his commanding, chocolate voice
belied by the quivering knife in his good hand. “Martin and Cheryl were only
defending themselves. There’s no more need for violence. Now, you may not like
what you’re seeing in here, but you asked Martin to bake a pie. And he’s
providing you a demonstration in good faith. If you want to know whether he’s
serious or if he’s simply wasting your time, there’s only one way to find out.
And that’s for you to get out and let him work.”