The meal that was prepared and delivered was laid on the table for their human guests. Foster leaned in to sniff the spicy aroma of the seared golden-brown roast in front of her. For a world and civilization cut off from the rest of the galaxy, the smells did seem to be . . . familiar.
“All of this for us?” Pierce asked Norauk.
“It was the best they could provide on such a short notice, we seldom have guests.”
Norauk sat with them while he waved away his associates to return to the back, the kitchen. They all bowed in unison and took their leave, many of them gazing back at the five humans in awe and wonder. The humans were the alien visitors here.
“This gonna cost us anything?” Foster asked.
“Nothing, nothing at all, it is after all your first time here,” Norauk said as he reached over for a bowl of vegetables. “Eat my friends; you must be hungry from your travels, yes, yes?”
The five looked at the strange meals before them, none of them were willing to take the plunge and try it out, expect for Chevallier being the ‘I make my own rules’ person she was. Eating Radiance food was one thing as they studied humans for years before they made contact. Radiance knew exactly which foods they had that humans could eat, and which humans should avoid. But this? There was no telling if an off-world bacterium was festering in it which the locals would have developed a resistance to.
Pierce’s thinking was on the same level as everyone else’s as he used his EAD to take a long scan of the food. “We good, Pierce?” Foster asked him.
“I hope so,” he said, and looked at Chevallier chewing away at a piece of meat.
“This better be safe,” Chevallier said to him. “’cause I’m fucking starving.”
Pierce put his EAD way and picked off a thin strip of meat from the roast. “I think we’re good.”
Chevallier and Pierce’s eating eventually lead everyone else to dig in and fill their empty bellies. Foster couldn’t help but shake the feeling that she ate food very similar to this in the past. The smells, flavor profile, texture, and seasoning, it couldn’t have been a coincidence. She ate enough Linl foods to know that ingredients from other planets tasted and smelled different. The meat tasted like lamb and the salads tasted like something she had just recently.
Norauk excused himself and went into the back room to check up on the workers inside. Perfect timing, she thought and went to address her team. “I’ve had this before.”
“Just because food came from another world doesn’t mean it has to taste different,” McDowell said.
“Have you had a chance to dine in the mess on the Carl Sagan?”
“I went straight into cryo after boarding and was revived later, so no.”
“Chef Bailey had a unique way of blending human and Radiance food together, a technique he’s usin’ for all our meals,” Foster said, and looked down at their food. “I reckon this is the same deal.”
McDowell’s face cringed. “How do you figure?”
Foster offered him a bowl of her salad. “Taste this.”
“I’m not a salad eater.”
“Still, look at its shape,” she said pointing to it. “Looks like Hayco leaf, right? Those are only found on the Javnis home world and typically used for salads.” She took back her bowl and jammed her thumb toward the meat she was gnawing on. “That there is lamb, don’t care what anyone has to say. This is a combination of Earth, Javnis, and Linl cookin’.”
Foster’s discovery prompted Pierce to take more scans with his EAD. “Once we have access to the Carl Sagan’s database, I’ll run a cross check on these analyses. Perhaps the chemical compositions will shed some light on your theory.”
“Hey!” Chevallier mumbled with a mouth partly full of food. “Didn’t your mother tell you not to scan your food?”
Norauk returned five minutes later, rubbing his hands again. Foster suspected he was up to something. The food, offering to be a guide, he wanted something, the question was what?
“You two are married, yes?” Norauk said to Foster and Pierce.
“What? Us?” Foster said as the two of them began to flush.
“Yes, yes!” Norauk said, smiling, then faced Chevallier and McDowell who happened to be sitting next to each other. “And you two, husband and wife?”
“No!” They both shouted at the same time.
“Nope,” was the reply Pierce added.
“Oh my, this won’t do at all,” Norauk said, examining McDowell, Kingston, and Pierce. “What type of women do you like?”
“Ain’t nobody here to get hitched!” Foster bellowed at Norauk. We’re explorers damn it, not travelling bachelors.
“Surely you must know it is against the law for men to be without a wife?” Norauk said.
“Well, this is awkward,” McDowell said.
Norauk wagged his tails in a troubled manner. “You didn’t know?”
“We’re, uh, from another city,” Foster exaggerated for she wasn’t ready to reveal the presence of the Carl Sagan somewhere in the system. Or that they came from Earth.
“All cities on this planet have the same laws,” Norauk said. “Oh, you must be the others, from another planet, yes?”
“Another planet?” Foster said. “Yeah, you could say that.”
“Ah, I didn’t think there was more of your kind left!” Norauk’s tone changed to a more pleasant and excited one. “Well then, I shall find temporary wives for you all, unless you two females want to marry them?”
“Oh, poor Kingston,” McDowell said, laughing at him. “You’re going to be the odd one out.”
Foster shook her head. “We’re not marrying each other, even temporarily!”
“Ah, temporary wives it is,” Norauk said.
“No!”
Foster’s pleas went unanswered as Norauk ran off into the back rooms. As she recalled some of the people that brought out food were women. She dreaded the thought of them rolling out of the kitchen with a wedding gown on with Norauk at their side to perform a quick Las Vegas style wedding, back when Las Vegas still existed that was.
Kingston bit into a fruit that resembled an apple and put in his two cents on the predicament at hand. “She better be hot.”
10 FOSTER
Togi-toki, inn, third floor
SA-115, Sirius A system
May 20, 2050, 12:56 SST (Sol Standard Time)
The planet SA-115 was littered with multiple dome-shaped barriers across its surface protecting its inhabitants as well as its eco-system from the star it orbited. For thousands of years the people known only as the Poniga made the planet their home and lived a simple life of hunting, gathering, and trading with other members of their society. Each dome was connected via a network of wormholes, some of which were also linked to wormholes that existed on other worlds.
It was long believed that the Poniga originally arrived at SA-115 from one of these worlds and established it as their home. Legends had told that there were other members of their civilization on other planets, though contact with them had been long lost in the aftermath of a great cataclysm. A being, known only as the Architect, allegedly created the domes as a means for the Poniga people to live on a planet, that by rights, shouldn’t be able to support life. Most Poniga believe that it was the Architect that guided their early ancestors to the planet to survive. It went without saying, that the being known as the Architect quickly became a subject of worship and devotion as the Poniga people enthusiastically believed they owed their existence to it.