“Not even lukewarm,” Georgia complained, and returned the tube to the microwave. “Can we do that again, Controller?” Three iterations later, she turned her head towards Larry and asked, “How long is this going to take?”
“I usually go for ninety seconds. The red mouthpiece will pop up when it’s done.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“It’s better to learn this stuff on your own, at least, that’s the way my parents taught me.”
“Could I get, uh, seventy seconds, Controller?” Georgia requested. A little over a minute later, there was a ding, and she had a hot, but not too hot, tube of chicken cacciatore with rice in her hand. After a brief inspection, she asked, “How do I break the seal in the mouthpiece?”
“Just squeeze it gently between your thumb and forefinger on the flats until you feel it give. The mouthpiece is actually semi-rigid, and the seal is a hard plastic disc that’s been scribed to break easily. The halves remain attached, so if you don’t finish off the tube, you can push them closed and then stick a cork in the mouthpiece.”
A few more minutes passed, and then Georgia said, “I can’t believe how good this tastes. Are all of the squeeze tubes like this?”
“They aren’t bad, but you kind of started with the best one. It’s hard to beat chunks of anything in tomato sauce.”
Five
“I hate Earth,” Ellen complained, rubbing the sore spot on her head. “It’s cold, it smells funny, and it just dropped something on me!”
“That something is why we’re here,” John reminded her, “and if you let your hair grow out again, the acorn wouldn’t have hurt half as much.”
“How many male traders do you know with long hair?” she countered. “It’s a pain in the butt in Zero-G. Getting a buzz cut at the festival on Dorf Seven is the smartest thing I’ve done in years.”
“No, the smartest thing you’ve done in years was agreeing to meet me here. I know, I know,” he added before she could respond. “I owed you for stealing your blanket perch at the Corner Station gadget festival, but I did get there first.”
Ellen bent to pick up the acorn that she was sure had left a dent in her skull and examined it carefully. “Are you sure there’s a market for these things?”
“The Huktra are nuts about them,” John said, and pulled a face when she didn’t react. “I ran into one of their traders who visited Earth on a culinary tour package deal and he happened to pick a bunch of acorns off the ground. Myort said they were better than anything he ate in any of the restaurants.”
“Why isn’t he here now if he thinks acorns are so great, or better yet, why isn’t he setting up an export business?”
“Because Myort hated Earth even more than you do. The rain turned his scales blue and people kept screaming and running away when they saw him.”
“Earthers are afraid of blue scales?”
“They’re afraid of quarter-ton aliens who look like hungry dragons. Besides, Myort didn’t know that acorns were good to eat until he got back home and found a few left in a side pocket of his luggage. I guess he originally picked them up to have something to throw at people who pointed at him, and it was pure chance I ran into him before he ate the last one.”
“That sounds more like the Huktras I know,” Ellen acknowledged. She waved her hand to indicate the expansive, badly overgrown town green where they had both landed their trade ships. “So who owns all of this?”
“My parents claim to have been the last residents to pay taxes, but since my mother was the town treasurer and my father was the mayor, they were just transferring money between pockets. This whole area was losing population even before the Stryx opened Earth, and after that, it was like a dam broke. By the time my parents boarded up the house and left for a Dollnick ag world as contract workers, pretty much the whole county was abandoned.”
“So who tends the acorn trees?” Ellen asked, dropping her shoulder bag to the ground and accepting a rake from John.
“They’re oaks, and they take care of themselves. Listen, the only reason I brought you in on this is because I know it’s a one-time deal and I owed you a favor. By the time we finish selling our cargos, word will spread across the tunnel network, and one of the big export businesses here will start harvesting acorns. They’ll drive the price down to where you and I couldn’t afford to compete.”
“So you’re saying that if you thought you could keep it secret and get rich by yourself, you would?”
“Of course, and you would too. I don’t see you traveling with a partner.”
“You know why that is,” Ellen replied, giving him a look. “So where’s your rake?”
“I’ve got this shoulder thing from my mercenary stint,” John said, moving his right arm through an abbreviated throwing motion and faking a pained grimace. “I figure that you can rake and I can shovel. We’ll fill the sacks in no time.”
“And you’ll load them into my cargo hold first.”
“I’ll alternate,” he countered.
Ellen made a ‘ptew’ sound as if she were spitting on her palm and offered her hand to shake. “Deal,” they both declared solemnly, and then she set to work raking acorns off the old asphalt.
A small herd of deer moved about in the high grass not a stone’s throw away, working on their own harvest. Occasionally, the oldest doe would stop feeding and eye the humans, though it was unclear if she was checking to make sure they maintained their distance, or simply annoyed by the intrusion.
“Break time,” John declared after two solid hours of
