Xenotech Queen's Gambit: A Novel of the Galactic Free Trade Association (Xenotech Support Book 2) (20 page)

Chapter 23

“Dinner is where the magic happens in the kitchen.”
— Kris Carr

“Please pass the key lime grass chicken,” said Terrhi. “It smells delicious.”

“My pleasure,” I said.

I passed a serving bowl just a little smaller than Rhode Island to Queen Sherrhi for her to relay to her hungry daughter on her left. Key lime grass was a modified form of lemongrass from Mistress Marigold’s botanical laboratories and had a lot more zing than its parent. The Chinese-style chicken dish also included cubed yams and daikon, baby bok choy, and snow peas. Queen Sherrhi lifted the bowl easily with three sub-trunks while continuing to use a pair of chopsticks, tongs, a soup spoon, and a fork with five of the remaining six. She pointed across the round table larger than my first apartment with her sixth sub-trunk.

A tureen full of steaming noodles sat in front of Tom
á
so on a thick black tray. He was ignoring them, immersed in conversation with Shepherd. The P
â
kk, wearing only a plain black leather vest and a pink plaid bow tie, was casually eating a roast Marsulian wallawallabong as big as an armadillo. He’d already polished off a Dauushan-sized portion of charcoal broiled Kobe beef cubes on a six-foot stainless steel skewer.

Diágo wasn’t at the table. He was a few feet back, behind Sherrhi and Terrhi, where he could protect both the Queen and the Princess. The two other members of his security detail stood behind Tomáso, between our table and the large species door. A tiny drone, controlled by Diágo, analyzed every dish and checked for poisons. So far, so good.

The table itself was huge—a circle fifteen feet across held up by a giant central pillar the size of a redwood tree’s stump. There was plenty of room around it for nine humans, a P
â
kk, two and a half Dauushans and a Murm. Queen Sherrhi and Tom
á
so stood, and the rest of us, including Terrhi, sat on chairs on raised platforms on the sides. Terrhi’s seat was more of a half-round log, if you want to be picky. If the table was the face of an analog clock, the two adult Dauushans would be standing in open segments at twelve and six, while the platforms on the sides stretched from one to five o’clock and seven o’clock to eleven. Leftovers from earlier courses still covered the table and new dishes had just been delivered.

The first course had been a tasty salad made with T
ō
donese paralettuce, ubertomatoes the size of cantaloupes, and hearts of Pyr-palm, topped with Terran olive oil and balsamic vinegar. It had been excellent, but I’d only eaten a quarter of my tomato. I’d wanted to make sure I saved room for the rest of the feast. Now I was admiring the scenery outside the floor-to-ceiling windows to my left, revealed after the virtual reality projectors had been turned off. The well-lit grounds sloped smoothly down to the banks of the Chattahoochee and reminded me of the view Poly and I had enjoyed on our romantic first date. Then Queen Sherrhi waved one of her sub-trunks to get my attention.

“You’ll have to try the Don Juan noodles,” she said. Then she raised her voice to be heard at the opposite side of the table. “If my benighted
consort
will ever pass them this way.”

“Yes, beloved Matriarch,” said Tom
á
so, taking a momentary break from his discussion. “I hear and obey.”

Tom
á
so lifted a generous portion of noodles onto his plate with the tongs that had been hanging on the edge of the tureen. He replaced them and said “Twelve o’clock.” Hundreds of tiny legs, like the ones on my phone’s mutacase, extruded from the black tray beneath the tureen and carefully transported the noodles from his six o’clock position to Queen Sherrhi’s place of honor.

“Here,” said the queen, putting a huge helping of noodles on my plate before serving herself. “You’ll love them.”

“I’ll share with Poly,” I said, turning to my right and splitting my portion with her. She was seated between Pomy and me and was warming to her sister, even if they weren’t completely reconciled.

“No need for that, we’ve got plenty,” said Queen Sherrhi. “Ten o’clock.”

The tray trundled over to stop between the sisters. Pomy took some noodles and sent it along to her father at eight o’clock. Barbara was sitting between her husband and Tom
á
so, listening in on the Dauushan’s conversation with Shepherd.

“Why do you call them Don Juan noodles?” Poly asked the queen.

“Aphrodisiac properties,” said Queen Sherrhi, looking across the table at her consort.

Pomy didn’t touch her noodles after that.

“I’d like some over here,” said CiCi at two o’clock.

Mike sat between CiCi and Terrhi with a grin on his face. He looked pretty good in a tuxedo and had managed to scrub all the black feedstock powder off the parts of him that showed. CiCi was a knockout in a long navy blue dress with diagonal stripes of fluorescent colors that matched the streaks in her hair.

“None for me,” said the elegant looking woman seated between CiCi and Martin. “I have three kids already.”

She was wearing a floor-length, gold dress with diamond-shaped cutouts at the neckline, her black skin making a striking contrast with the fabric. Martin was impressive in his tuxedo. His shaved head made him look like a secret agent in a James Bond movie.

“I’m sorry,” I said, “in all the excitement, Martin neglected to introduce us. I’m Jack Buckston.”

“I know who
you
are,” said the woman. “Marty’s been telling the children bedtime stories about your exploits for over a month.”

Marty?
I thought. I’d file that for later.

“My name is Apollonia,” said the woman, “but everyone calls me Apple.”

“Very pleased to meet you,” I said. “Anyone who can keep
Marty
in line must have a lot going for her.”

Martin looked pained and shot me a “you’ll get yours” look. Introductions were made around the table.

“What do you do, Apple?” I said.

“I work in data center construction,” she said, “and teach martial arts two nights a week.”

“That explains how you keep
Marty
in line,” said Poly.

Our conversation was interrupted by the sound of whirring motors above us. A crane hoist unit attached to a system of interconnected rails in the rafters gently lowered a metal serving pan the size of a child’s wading pool into the center of our table on heavy steel cables. It had tall, fluted sides, like a quiche pan. When it got low enough, we could see steam rising from the bubbling pink surface of the food inside.

Chit, who’d been relaxing on top of an overturned water glass between Poly and me, eating a salted borsum nut, had to check to make sure she wouldn’t be underneath the pan when it finally settled in place.

“Wonderful,” said Queen Sherrhi, beaming. “The main course has arrived.”

Chit sniffed.

“Smells good,” she said. “But it’s gettin’ hot in here.”

The steam was flowing over the edge of the pan and had already reached Chit’s water glass, so she spread her wings and did a quick flit up to my left shoulder.

“Whadda ya call this stuff?” Chit asked Queen Sherrhi, waving a foreleg at the giant pan.

“There are several ways to translate its name,” said the queen. “Some guidebooks call it
Luscious Layers.
”

“Keen’s guides call it
Dauushan Lasagna,
” said Barbara. “I can’t wait to try the Teleport Inn version.”

“Mother,” said Poly, “you and I discussed this for over an hour on my first trip to Dauush. I think the best translation would be
Dauushan Strata.
The root word is the same one used to describe sedimentary rock, and there aren’t any noodles, so calling it lasagna sets up false expectations.”

Barbara looked away from Poly, unsuccessful at hiding her displeasure.

“I’m less interested in what Terran’s call it and more concerned with eating it,” said Queen Sherrhi. “It’s the one dish always served on Dauushan holidays and special occasions.”

“And it’s Mom’s favorite,” said Terrhi. “Spike, no paws on the table!”

The chastened tri-sabertooth slid his front paws down and curled all six of his legs around the base of Terrhi’s slightly raised chair.

Fran
ç
ois drove a gleaming chrome forklift supporting a weighty triangular metal cutter-lifter, a Dauushan tool similar to the one Terrans use to serve slices of pizza, but a
lot
larger.

“Would you like to serve or should I?” Queen Sherrhi asked Tom
á
so.

“It’s only proper that
I
should serve
you
,”
said her consort, making a slight bow in her direction.

François backed the forklift up a few feet, then circled halfway around the table and presented the cutter-lifter to Tomáso. The Dauushan grabbed the massive metal implement in the thick tubular fingers of his right hand and held it in front of his mouth like a microphone.

“I’d like to thank all the little people who helped rescue my daughter and make this day possible,” he said.

“Next to you, we’re
all
little people,” said Martin.

Tom
á
so made a slight bow in his direction, too. The Dauushan transferred the cutter-lifter to his central three sub-trunks, leaned forward, and made a deep cut in the bubbling
Strata
with the tool
.
Then he made a second incision a few degrees from the first, forming a large wedge. He switched modes and worked the lifter underneath. Fran
ç
ois was just returning in the forklift, carrying four huge plates. Kijanna distributed clean, normal sized plates to the humanoids. Tom
á
so transferred the slice to one of the large plates and Fran
ç
ois delivered it around the table to the queen. A second huge slice was removed like the first and delivered to Terrhi, who beamed with pleasure.
The third slice was placed on a large plate which was then set on top of another self-mobile tray like the one from the Don Juan noodles. It walked its way around the table and we were all able to serve ourselves small portions, even Shepherd. The Pâkk, despite his preference for meat, was an omnivore. Finally Tomáso served himself a big slice and dug in with gusto.

I examined my portion of a wedge and saw why Poly thought
Strata
was a good name for the dish. The bottom layer was a thin, crispy crust made from a ground, lightly pink-tinted sort of flour. The next layer was a dark pink, almost magenta layer of leaves shaped a lot like Terran spinach. Then came alternating rows of light and dark pink sliced tubers held in place with some sort of clear gel that was probably the alien equivalent of egg whites. Oval, nut-like nodules also floated in the gel. Above the tubers came paper-thin sheets of meat, also pink, but thoroughly cooked. I thought they smelled like bacon. Resting on top of that were rounds of mushroom-like fuchsia fungi as wide and thin as the CDs down at NOD Music. Rings of a sliced, pale pink veggie that looked a lot like Terran onions were mixed in with that layer, too. Shreds of something similar to cheese, in twenty variations on pink, covered the “mushrooms” and “onions,” and the entire dish had been broiled in a congruent oven until the top layer had melted and browned.

While we ate, small pink “trees,” like individual extended stalks of broccoli popped up through the surface layer of “cheese” in the large pan and on the portions on our plates, releasing scents that reminded me of pepper and garlic and cloves.

It smelled delicious and tasted even better. Dauushan comfort food.

“Don’t eat the nodules,” said Terrhi, who was watching Mike gobble up his serving.

“Why not?” said Mike.

Then he got a pained expression.

“Ow.”

He paused, looking decidedly unhappy.

“Ow, ow,
ow.
”

“The nodules pop open when they reach a certain internal temperature and hold it for a given time,” said Terrhi. “Drink some ice water.”

Mike did and started to look better. CiCi patted his shoulder solicitously, leaning in close. The rest of us carefully separated the nodules out from our portions.

“Tell me, Your Majesty,” said Perry, speaking for the first time. “Does Dauush have any ancient epics of heroes and heroines fighting wars, taking great journeys, or defying the gods?”

Queen Sherrhi didn’t answer immediately. She made the same curious set of warding gestures with her trunks that Tom
á
so had made yesterday and looked lost in thought.

“There’s what happened during the P
â
kk-Tigrammath War, fifteen thousand years ago, when Shepherd’s ancestors and their opponents both tried to win the loyalty of the leaders of Dauush, but instead created and released a terrible plague that killed thousands of my people,” said Tom
á
so.

“Are the tales told as poems or prose?” asked Perry. “Were they initially written, or handed down as an oral tradition?”

“They were definitely written, Professor Jones,” said Tom
á
so. “They’re part of our historical record and we have the original investigative reports, photographs, videos, articles and interviews documenting the events.”

“From fifteen thousand years ago?” said Perry.

“Once information is on the ’net it is never forgotten,” said Tom
á
so. “Our civilization is much older than yours.”

“As is ours,” said Shepherd.

Perry kept quiet after that. This wasn’t his office or classroom.

“Are you working on any interesting projects, Apple?” I said to fill the temporary silence.

“I am,” she said. “I’m helping a client build a shadow data center.”

“What’s a
shadow
data center?” asked CiCi.

“
The Shadow
knows…” said Mike, trying to make his voice sound deep and ominous.