“Um, that’s very kind of you but where should we sit?” Kara asked doubtfully.
“Simply sit down where you are,” Qi answered serenely. “There will be a seating platform for you when you bend your stalks and drop your posteriors.”
Kara wanted to protest that she knew there was no “seating platform” directly behind her because she would have had to walk right through it or at least around it and that hadn’t happened. But Raak squeezed her hand again and murmured,
“It’s okay. Sit down.”
Doubtfully, Kara began to bend her knees and lower herself backwards. She felt like she was getting into “chair pose” in Yoga and wondered how long she would have to hold it for.
But just as she was wondering, she felt something firm and smooth pressing against the back of her legs and then her thighs and butt came in contact with a seat.
“Oh!” she exclaimed in surprise as she relaxed and felt the chair holding her weight. “Oh, but how—?”
“Who knows?” Raak murmured from beside her. From the way his voice was close to her ear, Kara could tell the big Unbondable had taken a seat as well.
“But he, I mean, it, somehow made a chair appear out of nowhere!” Kara protested in a low voice. “How is that possible?”
“I am afraid your small mammalian meat brain could not begin to understand,” Qi’s voice said from somewhere over her head. “Only one with a plant brain—one whose roots reach far and branches spread wide—can begin to contemplate the wonders and mysteries of bringing matter into and out of existence with a mere thought.”
“Oh. Okay,” was all Kara could think to say. She had never considered her “meat brain” to be a liability before but it was clear Qi did and since he was their host and she was hoping to get some help from him, she had better play along.
“Now place your hands before you onto the table,” Qi instructed.
Kara started to ask, “What table?” but then just decided to do as she was told.
Lifting her hands, she placed them in front of her and—sure enough—found that they were resting on a hard, flat surface that was a little higher than waist height to her.
Though she knew she shouldn’t be surprised after sitting on an invisible, magically appearing chair, the invisible table still surprised her. She felt around carefully with her fingertips on its smooth, flat surface but found nothing as far was she could reach.
“I don’t feel any food,” she hissed to Raak.
“Because I have not called any comestibles into being yet,” Qi’s soft voice said. Wow, he—or it—really had a good sense of hearing! And apparently he could understand the Kindred Standard tongue as well. Kara made a mental note to be careful what she said around him—or it—in the future.
“We await your pleasure, oh Qi,” Raak said formally.
“Then please partake of these luscious xanthos,” Qi told them and suddenly Kara felt several round balls appear under her fingers.
“Oh, what in the world?” she exclaimed, feeling the strange things. They were firm yet squishy with the texture of a well-filled water balloon and they ranged in size from a pea to a golf ball.
“These are xanthos,” Qi repeated patiently. “They are a rare delicacy. Please enjoy them.”
“Thank you, Qi,” Raak said. “They are indeed delicious.”
“Uh, yes—thank you,” Kara said. She wondered if Qi could see them or not and decided it probably could in some way. Which meant she was going to have to eat at least some of the round, squishy balls she felt under her fingers if she didn’t want to offend it.
Hesitantly, she picked up a pea-sized ball and popped it into her mouth. It burst the moment she sank her teeth into it and a liquid which was both sweet and bland coated her tongue.
Well, that isn’t so bad, Kara thought to herself. It’s a little bit like weak tea.
Feeling braver, she popped a slightly larger ball into her mouth and bit down on it as well. This one had a different flavor—it was blander and the liquid seemed a tiny bit thicker but it still wasn’t horrible.
“Are you enjoying the xanthos?” Qi asked as Kara chewed and swallowed the thin skin of the ball she had eaten—which was a little like a grape skin, she thought.
“Oh yes—very much. Thank you,” she said quickly, nodding politely though she wasn’t completely sure if Qi could see her or not.
“Very good. Try a large one,” their host urged her. “Those are the most mature—the ripest, you might say.”
“Oh, okay.” Kara picked up a ball the size of a small lime. “If you don’t mind me asking, oh Qi,” she said, addressing the invisible plant being the same way Raak had. “Where do you get these, uh, xanthos? They’re delicious,” she added politely, though honestly they were some of the blandest things she’d ever eaten.
“Why, I grow them myself upon my own lower branches,” Qi told them just as Kara popped the large ball gamely between her lips and bit down on it. “You could say they are a kind of waste product. But since our species need such very different things to survive, our waste is actually very nutritious for you.”
“What?” Kara tried to say, but the exclamation came out garbled because her mouth was flooded with a slimy, cold liquid that had the same texture and consistency of a raw egg yolk.
Did he say waste? she thought wildly as she struggled not to choke on the weird, slimy liquid. Was the invisible plant alien actually feeding them its poop balls?
Ugh! Even if she hadn’t known that, Kara would have found it very difficult to swallow the raw egg yolk stuff that was coating her tongue. As it was, she felt some of it dribbling from the corners of her mouth and down her chin. She wished desperately for a napkin that she could spit the slimy mess discretely into, but of course, she had nothing like that. All she could
