The Galactic Gourmet

beast are you?”

Gurronsevas ignored the insult and responded only to the question.

“I am a Tralthan,” he said reassuringly. “That is, I am a member of a species larger and perhaps more visually fearsome than the others you have met on the ship. Like them, however, I mean you no harm. Unlike them I am a cook and not a healer. But I, too, wish only to help return you to full …”

“A cook who isn’t a healer?” Creethar broke in. Its voice was quieter and the body was beginning to relax inside the restraints. “That is strange, off-worlder. Were you incapable of completing your education?”

“My name is Gurronsevas,” he said, unable to ignore the second insult in spite of Prilicla’s voice in his earpiece observing that convalescent patients were notoriously argumentative. “My early training and subsequent life have been devoted to mastering the culinary arts, and I have no other interests. I am, therefore, a good cook, and that is why I have been asked to help you. Creethar, you must eat before you are returned to the mine, but you refuse ship food. If it is unpalatable to you, explain why and I shall provide an alternative.”

Creethar’s body moved restively but it did not speak.

“There is an adverse emotional response,” said Prilicla, “a return of the feelings of fear and personal loss. I don’t know why this should be, but it peaked at your mention of returning it to the mine. Please change the subject.”

But the subject was supposed to be food and the necessity for making Creethar eat some, Gurronsevas thought angrily. Then, realizing that the empath was receiving his anger, he calmed himself and went on. “What did you find wrong with the ship food? Did the taste displease you?”

“No!” said Creethar with surprising vehemence. “Some of it tasted like meat, better meat than I had ever tasted before.”

“Then I don’t understand why you refused …” Gurronsevas began.

“But it was not meat!” the patient broke in. “It looked and tasted like meat, but it was some strange, other-world concoction from what the winged one called a synthesizer. It is not Wem food. I must not eat it lest it poison my body. You as a cook will understand the importance of meat to the adults of a species, any species. There can be no survival without it.”

“As a Tralthan cook,” said Gurronsevas firmly, “I know no such thing. The majority of my species has not eaten meat for many centuries. They do this out of preference, not because we have the stomachs of grazing animals. My home world, Traltha, and the many Traltha-seeded planets, are well-populated and thriving. You have been believing an untruth, Creethar.”

The patient was silent for a moment, then it said slowly, “Your preserver friends have said this to me many times. By your standards the Wem are backward and pitifully uneducated, but we are not stupid. Neither are we small children listening to the wondrous stories told by parents to give us pleasant dreams. Do you expect a grown Wem to believe an obvious untruth because it is told to me by off-worlders?”

Gurronsevas had not been expecting a response like this from a being weakened and still recovering from serious injuries. He thought quickly, then said, “I am aware of the difference between intelligence and education, and that of the two intelligence is of vastly greater importance because it aids the acquisition of education. But there are adult Wem in the mine who are beginning to believe our stories.”

“The minds of the aged,” said Creethar, “too often resemble those of the very young. I do not know why you are trying to make me eat your strange, sweet-tasting meat from a machine. You are not a friend or family or even a Wem, you do not know or do not care what damage it will do to my body, and you do not have my responsibility towards my people. No matter what you tell me, I will not eat your off-world food.”

Plainly Creethar had very strong feelings on the subject, too strong for logical argument to change them, and Prilicla’s emotional reading was in agreement. It was time to change the approach.

He said carefully, “The last time you spoke to Doctor Prilicla, who is the beautiful one who flies, you asked about your friends at the mine. I have spoken to Remrath and many of the near adults while working in the kitchen. What would you like to know?”

Even through the translator, Creethar’s tone sounded incredulous. “My mother allowed you in the kitchen?”

“I am a cook,” said Gurronsevas.

It was without doubt the greatest understatement of his long and distinguished professional life, but the patient did not know that.

When Creethar did not respond, he began talking about his impressions of the life and people in the mine. Briefly he described the initial off-worlder contacts with the aged teachers and the Wem young, his decision to spend most of his time there and, after the passage of a few days, the increasing acceptance of his advice by Remrath.

Well did Gurronsevas know that a kitchen and its serving staff was the center for all of an establishment’s gossip, scandal and current events. A table server was obvious only when he, she or it was doing something wrong, at other times remaining an inconspicuous part of the background, which meant that diners rarely felt it necessary to guard their tongues. Gurronsevas did not believe in training clumsy food-servers, so the intelligence available in the Wem kitchen was both up-to-date and accurate.

He did not always know the precise meaning, degree of scandal, or humor contained in the conversations he was relaying, but several times Creethar made untranslatable sounds and its body twitched inside the restraints, and gradually Gurronsevas was returning to the subject of food. The purpose of the conversation was, after all, to make the patient eat.“… Remrath has been kind enough to adopt many of my suggestions,” he went on smoothly, “and they have proved popular not only with the teachers and the young but among a few of your returned hunters who say that—”

“No!” Creethar protested. “Have you given them the poisonous off-world food from your machine?”

“I have not,’’ said Gurronsevas reassuringly. “The ship’s food dispenser is intended for crew use and it lacks the capacity to feed an entire community, so our off-world food was not offered to them. Only you have been offered it because of your gravely weakened and starving condition, and you have refused it.

“Your friends in the mine,” he went on quickly, “are eating and, most of them have told me, enjoying the local edible vegetation which was thought to be suitable only for children. They eat it because I have shown Remrath many new ways to vary the taste of your vegetable meals, and present them more attractively, and add contrasts of taste with sauces made from herbs and spices which grow all over the valley.

“For example …”

Creethar neither moved nor spoke while Gurronsevas, with growing enthusiasm, went on to describe the many changes he had wrought in the mine-dwellers’ eating habits. The new ways he had shaped and added spices or soft berries to their coarse-ground flour before baking had met with general approval. He said that his words and Creethar’s imagination were a poor substitute for the taste sensations he was describing. When he repeated the compliments paid to his cooking by Remrath, and even the arch-traditionalist Tawsar, there was still no response. He was fast running out of things to say.

Trying hard to control his impatience, he said, “Creethar, are you feeling hungry?”

“I am feeling hungry,” Creethar replied without hesitation.

“It is feeling hungrier,” Prilicla joined in, “with every word you speak.”

“Then let me give you food,” said Gurronsevas. “Wem, not off-worlder machine food. Surely you can find no fault with that?”

Creethar hesitated, then said, “I am unsure. The Wem food served to the young is well remembered, and it is not a pleasant memory. If you have somehow improved the taste, it may be because you have added off-world substances to it. I cannot take that risk.”

In the past Gurronsevas had dealt with his share of overly fastidious diners, and the diet and natural-food fanatics had been particularly difficult, but Creethar was making some of their demands easy by comparison.

“Creethar, you must eat,” he said very seriously. “I am not myself a preserver and cannot give a precise estimate, but if you begin taking food regularly you will soon be returned to your people. If you prefer Wem food to that from our machine, I can prepare the simple vegetable stew you remember as a child and, as flavoring, I shall ask Remrath for a little of the meat brought back by your hunting party. Your people are anxious to have you back, and I’m sure they wouldn’t mind …”

“No!” said Creethar sharply, its body moving weakly against the restraints. “You must not ask my people for meat, or speak to Remrath about me. This you must promise.”