by Blaze Ward
He didn’t snarl, or even move. The other two had picked something up and grown the faintest bit restive, and either could stab him or punch him from where they sat.
Daniel understood knives. He had lived in a kitchen for twenty years. His kind had an old, inside joke about trying to tell the difference between a tattooed psychopath with a knife; and a cook.
Not every tattooed psychopath with a butcher knife you encountered was a cook, but…
Dead silence at the table.
Understanding that this was a test just as deadly as first earning his right to call himself a chef had been.
Eight prospects in a teaching kitchen. Each handed a box of random ingredients as a timer started. Seven fools immediately starting to throw things into pots and pans while Daniel sat with everything around him on the counter and had a nice, pleasant smoke, listening to the soul of the food.
One of the instructors had even come over to make sure nothing was wrong. Daniel had smiled then. He smiled now.
Three of the other seven had eventually made the cut and put on the hat. Only Daniel’s results had earned praise from the judges.
Be calm. Plan ahead. Then act.
Be a chef.
His smile seemed to convey something useful to Erin. She calmed. The other two did as well.
“Have you ever attempted something like a comitatus meal?” Erin asked in a voice that had apparently softened from a sharp sneer before it exited her throat.
“Weddings, bat mitzvahs, and holiday parties,” he replied in a professional, almost professorial tone. “A group of close friends eating from communal dishes, with a dozen options to cover tastes and potential food allergy needs. I suspect stir fry and ancient, Sinofied, American food will probably be a good opening gambit as I learn. Especially as meat is not common and vegetables are.”
“Allergies?” Iruoma asked, perking up.
Must have something she might be too embarrassed to discuss in the open. Warrior mentality and all that. Too tough to cry.
“I had a friend back home for whom mushrooms of all types were a violent, almost lethal allergy, and onions a lesser one,” Daniel turned his attention to her. “Garlic was fine for the man, but it was necessary to reshape certain dishes to avoid killing him over dinner. Especially with French cuisine. That, in turn, became a welcome challenge for me as an artist, because then you are working with a palette of flavors, brightening things or softening them down into more earthy tones as heat, acid, and time work their magic.”
He saw the twinkle in the woman’s eyes that promised a quiet conversation later. But he’d be doing that with all of them anyway in short order. That was what professionals did.
“And you won’t grow bored?” Erin asked dryly.
“I ran a bistro for five years,” he replied. “I have worked in kitchens for twenty. Boring would be having to cook the same menu for years on end, like a fast-food restaurant. I took this job because of the challenge of the larder.”
“Really?” she looked at him closer. “I was under the impression that you were unemployed and running out of money.”
“Whoever told you that was a fool,” Daniel couldn’t hide the sharp side of his tongue. “I left my personal skyvox behind because I knew there would be so many investors suddenly interested in backing me for a new gig that I would never sleep. Reporters wanting to know where I’m cooking next. I could have taken several more years to find a job, if I wanted.”
“Then why WinterStar?” Joane leaned closer from directly across, staring at him from close enough she could have kissed him if she wanted.
“Nobody will ever find me,” he turned to her and said quietly. “There will be no demands on me other than to cook good food. No investors will rattle my window at dawn trying to fund my next establishment ahead of the others.”
“Are you really that good?” Erin leaned forward as well.
Daniel found himself in some bizarre form of verbal combat with these women, when they would perhaps have preferred the blades on their hips, but it couldn’t be helped. This was the challenge that they understood. Three hard women, all trained warriors with disdain for the capabilities of a mere man.
“Yes,” he growled quietly. “And I shall prove it when we get there.”
For the briefest moment, he wondered if a fist or knife would be the reply, but he wasn’t about to back down to that sort of gauntlet.
Commander Kathra Omezi had found him, in ways Daniel still wasn’t sure how, and offered him a truly unique path forward. But he understood that he would have to cross a minefield of these women, and all the rest like them, to prove that he belonged.
Daniel let his gaze slide across all three with the sort of utter disdain that he would have unleashed on a reporter who came to an interview unprepared and asked the same, inane questions.
“Bring it,” he whispered.
5
Kathra had read the reports all three women had filed when they returned, and it filled her with a cold, evil joy to consider the impression the tiny man had made on three of her best, most aggressive warriors.
As if only women could be warriors. As if being a Gastropode-rated chef was somehow a lesser responsibility. And from the descriptions, they had all been surprised to find the man capable enough, secure enough to stand up to the three of them in public.
Kathra was pleased as she and her new cook toured WaterStar One.
Her few agents remaining in the Sept Empire had reported what little was known of the man. One had even been able to talk to the new owner of the old restaurant, Evening Bread, and get that person’s impression of the possibility of hiring Daniel Lémieux to serve the Mbaysey.
Kathra suspected that her mother’s ghost was probably laughing right now, in between cursing her fool of a daughter for ever relying on any man. But seriously, she was looking forward to being served something better than stew on a regular basis.
It was one thing to declare your independence from the humans and odd aliens of the Sept. To break your tribe off from the slavery and servitude they had endured for generations, and then escape, as her mother had done.
It took twice the gall to simply detach one’s self from the Sept altogether and flee into deep space with all her people. Twenty-two ClanStars. One ForgeStar. One IronStar. Two WaterStars. And the WinterStar itself.
She had put the chef into her personal strikefighter, Spectre One, and ferried him over to WaterStar One, with him crammed into the space in front where a weapon’s officer would fly, if she ever had any missiles for her squadron, rather than just the particle cannons she would use to chase off pirates or fools.
And Sept patrols, but they had long learned the folly of pursuing the Mbaysey into deep space, well away from their support bases.
So she had taken this Daniel Lémieux and carried him over to one of the two gigantic aquarium ships that kept her squadron fed. It was a massive cylinder, turning on a central axis, like the rest of her tribal squadron, to provide the illusion of gravity when gravity field inducers were so massive and expensive to run.
Cheaper to just spin.
Eight ring tanks, filled with all manner of freshwater fish and other aquaculture, as she and the cook made their way along a catwalk overhead. The ClanStars produced all the fruits and vegetables, trading between ships and paying tithe and taxes for protection and support. But none of them had the space to haul this much water, or grow this many fish.
“Thoughts?” she asked the tiny man who barely came up to her jaw.
“Do you ever trade caviar out?” he asked, pausing to stare down at the gigantic lake beneath them. “Keep sturgeon and harvest half their eggs?”
“Too much work, even with the prices we could probably command, this far from the few planets where the fish were introduced successfully,” Kathra replied, wondering how this man’s mind worked. “Sturgeon take decades to mature, and we don’t have the right environment for them, without a renovation.”
He nodded
absently and began to walk again. She followed silently in his wake.
“Almost no land-based herbivores for meat?” he asked after a few steps.
“Functionally none,” Kathra said. “We do trade frozen fish for such things with several of the more remote TradeStations, since they have to get them from planets otherwise.”
Again the absent nod, like a computer taking input passively.
“Have you considered sacrificing one of the tanks for salt-water species?” he looked up at her. “Seaweed has already been modified to provide an excellent source of vitamins and minerals on many worlds, since oceans are common. Plus it makes maki easier to make.”
“Maki?”
“Nihon rolls, formed of a dried seaweed to contain it, pressed rice, and raw fish at the center,” he smiled at some memory she was not aware of from her spies. “Tuna can grow huge, so you can get enormous amounts of otoro, a prime source of protein and fat.”
“At a loss of over twelve percent of my fresh water supplies?” she asked.
“Just over six percent, unless you were to decide to modify both vessels,” the cook answered with a serious face. “Or perhaps you could consider building an OceanStar at some point?”
Here less than a week, and he was already planning next year’s meals. Yes, she had chosen well when she had decided to look outside the Mbaysey for help. Idly, Kathra wondered if she should look for a competent sushi chef next. The kind that had traveled all the way to Earth to learn her craft over years, and could train a new generation here.
Fish was never really in short supply in the tribal squadron, because of the two WaterStars, but the look in the man’s eyes promised whole new levels of gustatory exploration that they had perhaps never imagined in the poverty of deep space.
“So what made you accept my offer?” Kathra asked when the man fell silent and began to walk again.
Her longer legs made it easy to catch up, so she walked beside him on the metal platform now. His head was tilted forward, but she caught the glimpse to one side filled with all sorts of silent emotions.
They walked several more paces in silence.
“It was not one thing,” he finally answered, probably when he realized she would outwait him. “The escape from my past. The excitement of a truly new challenge. Even the possibility to disappear into obscurity.”
“I hardly doubt a famous chef from the civilized worlds could be obscure here,” Kathra countered.
“Very few people will like me here,” he almost grinned as he continued forward. “Men are a rarity and only a necessity in certain circumstances I do not foresee myself being involved in.”
She watched him without comment.
“For the last several years I have been famous, Commander Omezi,” he said. “The center of attention, the object of ridicule or gossip columns, the cover of magazines, depending on the day. Challenged to never serve a single bad meal. Never have a day off, except for the traditional First Days when all bistros such as mine are closed and the restauranteurs get together to lie and drink wine. If I have notoriety here, it is because so many of the women of your tribe will openly disdain me, but it will not be personal. And they will have to come into my kitchen to do it, which most will not do, after they have a chance to appreciate better cuisine.”
“And when you want to go back to Genarde?” Kathra asked.
“I am already past the man who lived there for fifteen years, Commander,” the chef intoned like a low bell ringing. “At this point I have a hard time even remembering who he was. Yes, everyone will know who I am, but that cannot be helped out here, and it will be contained within your people. I will cook, sleep, and relax with a few thousand good books.”
“Books?” Kathra felt herself perk up. “What kind?”
“All of them,” the man said as he continued to pace remorselessly forward. “I loaded my e-board up when I decided to leave Genarde, Commander, perhaps knowing that I would be departing the Sept at some point and would need to haul the better parts of it with me.”
“The better parts?” she probed.
This man didn’t spout like the sort of chauvinistic patriotism too many of the Sept Empire’s citizens absorbed in their socialization.
“The literature of several thousand years,” he paused to look up at her, almost craning his head back as he did.
There was nearly thirty centimeters of difference between them.
“What sort of library does the Mbaysey keep?” he asked, face suddenly inscrutable.
“Each of the clans maintains their own,” she said with a sharp eye. “Without looking, I would presume that a book finds its way to all of them eventually.”
Daniel Lémieux, Sept Chef, nodded and began to walk again.
“Then we will need to upload all my books to your system, so you have something interesting to trade with the rest,” he almost laughed.
She followed, and considered what she could get out of some of the more stubborn groups with a whole new collection of books.
The vox on her hip beeped.
“Omezi here,” she replied as she pulled it out with one hand and put the other on the chef’s shoulder to stop his pacing.
“Signal, Commander,” Joane Obiakpani replied. She must be holding the command watch right now. “Sept frequencies and heavily encrypted. Looks like they found us again.”
“Understood,” Kathra said. “Launch The Haunt and tell the clans to prepare to flee. I will join you shortly.”
“Understood.”
Kathra turned to the chef, taking his measure silently. He stood perfectly still, relaxed and calm, staring up at her.
“Come,” Kathra decided. “You need to see what it is we face.”
Kathra began to jog past the man, looking for the next staircase up to the core of the ship. Behind her, the chef pounded loudly along, but didn’t seem to lose much distance as they moved.
Hopefully, it would be nothing more than a scout ship that had blundered into the wrong system. The Sept did not build long-range cruisers that could chase her people, especially since the Mbaysey didn’t live on planets, or even stations anymore. Simply step back and let the dark of deep space hide you, until you had to emerge again at a TradeStation for supplies she couldn’t yet fabricate out here.
The Sept would never catch her, but she also knew they would never stop trying.
6
He managed to keep pace with the crazed, Amazon warrior, up three decks, across and into the WaterStar’s core. From there, Daniel just had to remain perfectly still and rigid with his arms held in as Commander Omezi had emerged into zero gravity, grabbed him by the hips, and shotput the two of them down a long, open corridor.
She did it much faster than he suspected he would ever be able to, even when she was hauling along an extra sixty-eight kilograms of heavily-gasping baggage.
Spectre One sat perched in a small bay forward like a harrier hawk, clamped to the deck with magnets and joined to the ship by the short umbilicus of an airlock. Daniel didn’t try to help, other than to listen to and obey the giant woman’s commands as she thrust him along the soft-sided tube and into her ship.
Turn left to go forward. Feet first into the front well where this design apparently kept a gunner. Buckle himself in tightly.
Not touch anything on the boards in front of him, nor on the armrests.
Around him, the fightership came live with a hum of quivering power. His board even lit up, showing what his mind interpreted as a scan of nearby space, maybe looking down from the top of the solar system.
Wylanne system’s star off in one corner. The planet itself on the top edge, with several lights that maybe represented orbital platforms and TradeStations.
A cluster of lights over here, but not all that tightly bound. ClanStars up in the rings of the ice giant the squadron was orbiting, out in Wylanne’s darkness, mining for rocks and ice. Others below, deeper into the atmosphere, sucking vast amounts of gas off the atmosphere to be refined
later. Two WaterStars off to one side, waiting. ForgeStar had been crawling through the planetary rings, pulling loose chunks of metallic ore into its maw with a magnet on the bow.
Overhead, WinterStar was disgorging fighterships like a tree in spring casting seeds into the wind. Spectre One was suddenly catapulted off the deck and into space with a force that drove the breath from his lungs for a moment.
Idly, Daniel wondered why nobody wore spacesuits when flying, but then he supposed that it went against the hard-ass, warrior mentality. You lived to fight, or died from it.
Stupid, but nobody had asked his opinion.
Plus, suits would be expensive, especially with the varied sizes and shapes of women he needed to cook for. That was money that either didn’t exist, or could be put to better uses.
Books would be the same way. A newcomer would bring things like that, and contribute them to the common cause, just like they did their skills and knowledge. It wasn’t like he was going to get rich from what they were paying him, but he had room, board, and people that didn’t bother him much, so it worked out more or less even, as far as he was concerned.
On the board, a new dot appeared. It appeared to be moving closer to the tribal squadron, even as the other twenty-two craft that made up The Haunt moved to intercept it. Twenty-three Spectre fighterships. Not much to defend the tribe, but all they had, and he’d spent enough time around those women the last week to know they wouldn’t break or back down.
But what the hell was he doing out here? Besides having been with the commander, on the wrong ship, when it happened? Doing it this way would save her having to come back for him later. And keep him out of trouble with the WaterStar locals, when she wouldn’t be around if they decided that they didn’t like the thought of a lone male running loose without adult supervision.
“Signals?” Kathra’s voice suddenly brought Daniel back to the present tense.
“He was trying to be quiet,” Erin’s voice came over the radio. “That kind don’t understand the concept, so we caught him not long out of jump, just as his engines lit and started the burn to bring him to us.”