The Sol Majestic

by Ferrett Steinmetz

  “… the dammij…”

  Benzo slides down the wall, his head thumping against the sabotaged access panel. There are gleaming slivers of freshly exposed metal knifed across the panel’s dull sheen; one of the nuts fastening the panel to the hatch has been screwed off, the second is smeared with blood.

  Has Benzo been trying to cut the panel open?

  “Benzo, if you wanted to repair the lock, the … the screwdrivers are right over there.” As he points toward the tool case, Kenna sees the red steel bolted next to the shower, not six inches away from the hammock, and realizes Benzo was too terrified to get the tools and rouse Kenna.

  That’s foolish, Kenna thinks, then realizes he’s not spent his life under a slavemaster’s whims.

  A full belly didn’t mean Benzo didn’t have his own torments.

  “Benzo, I’m not … I’m not Her.” Benzo wails and pulls in tighter, sobbing, and Kenna realizes channeling Her power had flooded Benzo with traumatic memories. He imagines Benzo, trembling as he summons the willpower to disturb the man who controlled his family’s fate, trying to convince himself that Kenna didn’t mean it, breaking down from the strain of rebellion.

  “Gods, Benzo, I’m so sorry.” Kenna is filth, he is waste, he has harmed his friend who has accidentally cut himself open trying to fix the Escargone with a knife …

  The knife.

  Benzo had slashed himself trying to pry open the hatch.

  Which meant Benzo had given up hope of the perfect broth. And rather than dying in the Escargone, he’d injured himself in a frantic attempt to set Kenna free.

  Except he’s not injured, Kenna realizes, the bile boiling in his throat. The nanofilaments are writhing across the cut like worms, repairing the damage—of course She wouldn’t allow Her slaves to destroy themselves …

  “I couldn’t…” Benzo wheezes like a broken accordion. “I tried, Kenna … Either you died or they stayed in Her hanz … I hadda choose…”

  He wails the words, tilting his head back so his throat will open wide enough to let loose his sorrow, and only now does Kenna realize the pressure Benzo’s been under. He’d thought Benzo was only concerned for his family, but Benzo had been terrified about killing his friend—and why not? Benzo would get to watch Kenna starve to death, or watch Kenna slit his wrists, or see Kenna swallowing back tears as he plunged the knife into Benzo’s throat to end it.

  “Only way I could save both aya wasda cook a perfect broth,” Benzo mumbles. “I hadda winna bet to keep everyone alive, and I … I…”

  Benzo chews his mushy words into a defeated silence.

  Despite the moist heat, Kenna’s breath flash-freezes into liquid nitrogen. Benzo’s devotion to the task was his way of protecting Kenna, how could Kenna not have understood, Benzo was drowning his affection for Kenna in consommé because cooking was his best chance to get Kenna out alive, and …

  God, Kenna has been such a child.

  Benzo gulps in hitching breaths, his lungs too shriveled to hold his sorrow. He grasps Kenna’s blue Kevlar gown, pulling his way up Kenna’s body, and with relief Kenna sees the gash on Benzo’s wrist is shallow.

  Benzo’s tension slackens as he sags into Kenna’s arms.

  “I can’t do it.” Benzo’s voice sounds like a broadcast from a distant star. “Open the door. Send me back to Her. I’ll be a talentless fool, but I won’t have murdered you…”

  “Benzo … your family … is it…?”

  Benzo nods, shivering, cutting off Kenna’s query: It’s that bad there.

  Kenna looks over Benzo’s shoulder, through the dimmed hatchway window, imagining unlatching the Escargone’s door to walk into freedom. He envisions taking that first breath of dry air, not filling his lungs with this moldy chicken-steam, feeling sweat prickle off his arms instead of dribbling back into his robe. He imagines stretching his arms out without banging them into the freezer, running down the hallways …

  He tries to imagine Benzo’s family. He can’t; Benzo has never spoken a full sentence describing his mother before his throat swelled shut with remorse.

  Yet he can imagine the merry light in Benzo’s eyes forever extinguished by lifelong failure.

  “Then you must do this.” Kenna tugs Benzo, jerking his whole body toward the remaining chickens. “You must at least try.”

  “Then you need to give it to me.”

  He speaks as though it’s obvious what Kenna should give. “I’m uncertain what you…”

  His laugh is bitter as a bullet. “It’s why I envy you, Kenna. We struggle to serve Her, working eighteen-hour days, jolted awake by electrical shocks—”

  Benzo traces his fingers over his squirming nanofilament bands; they lap up the blood, fed by his body to dominate his body.

  “She tracks our hormone levels, our blood pressure, our EKGs—punishing us for feeling resentful. She won’t tolerate anything but pure adoration. It took me years to trust that Scrimshaw had disabled Her trackers so She couldn’t steal the kitchen’s secrets. I had nightmares that I went back, and She’d recorded everything, and She would shut down my eyesight, deactivate my mother’s pancreas, destabilize my brothers’ immune systems…”

  Whenever Kenna had imagined Benzo defying his Mistress, he had envisioned that bet as a huge showdown—Benzo flinging trays to the ground, shouting defiance. Now, he realizes Benzo’s rebellion had been a subvocalization—a stray thought he had refused to take back, a pebble in his Mistress’s shoe that She had reacted to by forcing him into monstrous bets.

  Kenna envisions himself as Benzo, trying to crawl across the Escargone to get to the man who’d threatened his family. His chest itches with flashbacks to biological punishments a creative sadist could hand out, knowing that even reaching for the knife without Kenna’s say-so must have been overwhelming …

  “But I saw what they did when they united behind me, Kenna. When I made a—a bet.” His lips purse into a silent whistle, still amazed after all these years. “I know they still think of me back in Her corridors. They toil under Her quarterly deadlines in the hopes that I might prove Her wrong. I’m the steel beams in their structure, Kenna, I’m why they don’t collapse inside.

  “And I … I don’t have that strength.

  “I’ve been trying for three years to make one perfect dish, and everything has boiled away in that pot—my arrogance, my confidence, my hopes. I’ve got nothing. But…” He smacks his lips. “You, Kenna. You stood up to Captain Lizzie. You stared down Scrimshaw. Nothing can stop you …

  “I can’t do this without a Philosophy. Give me yours.”

  Time slows. He knew he’d have to lie to millions to become the Fraudulent Prince, yet he’d never imagined the first person he’d lie to would be his best friend.

  Why did you ask for the one thing I cannot give?

  “… I can’t.”

  Benzo’s beautiful body falls into Kenna like an asteroid tumbling into a sun’s gravity well—and he croons in a cracking addict’s voice. “Kenna, please, I need to know what you know … What makes you Inevitable…”

  Kenna shoves Benzo away, repulsed—not by Benzo, but nauseated by how worthless he is, how all his lies have been exposed. But Benzo keeps crooning, begging, until Kenna shouts:

  “If I had any Inevitability about me, would I have lost my temper at you?”

  Kenna fears he’ll have to explain further. But it’s a small mercy that Benzo knows him well enough to understand what he’s admitted.

  And it is heartbreaking, seeing Benzo abandon his own pain when he recognizes Kenna’s anguish.

  “… but how?” he asks. His blue eyes are so earnest, he’s like a boy asking to be told how the magician’s trick was pulled off …

  Kenna can’t stare into that beautiful trust. He looks away into the shadowy murk of The Sol Majestic’s time-slowed kitchen, feels the sharp electric shame as he thinks of the chefs out there who believe in him …

  He drops his chin, studying the wriggling black filaments embedded i
n Benzo’s brawny chest.

  “Paulius bought so many of these bedamned robes, he put the Majestic into hock,” Kenna says. “And the only way to sell enough robes—to save the Majestic—was to fake a Wisdom Ceremony. So I did.”

  It’s a much shorter speech than he’d thought it would be.

  Lifting up to look at Benzo takes more effort than anything he has done in his life. He doesn’t want to stare into Benzo’s bleak despair as his friend realizes nothing can save them …

  Instead, Benzo’s face blossoms into a grin. “You’ve got nothing.”

  Benzo speaks as though he has just been told the funniest joke in the world. Kenna should be shamed by this accusation, but …

  Instead, he thumps Benzo’s bioengineered chest. “Well, you have no talent.”

  And Benzo burbles with laughter, a high and joyous titter flowing out of him, spilling into Kenna and Kenna is laughing and it feels like an old clogged engine spitting out dust. “We’ve got no hope!” he cries.

  Benzo nods happily—he’s staring the worst-case scenarios in the face, but it’s okay because he has Kenna. “We’re going to die.”

  “We are going to die so horribly,” and when Benzo says it this absurdity is a thing of beauty, and then he mutters, “Come here, you,” to pull Kenna in for a kiss.

  And Benzo kisses him, and Kenna worries that his mouth tastes foul, his robe is sticky with chicken-sweat, Benzo’s wound pulses blood down the side of his neck—

  But when he feels the soft tip of Benzo’s tongue slide into his mouth, all that is swept aside. It’s like being struck by lightning, love lightning, that Inevitable certainty that once they’ve stripped away all hope they still have this love, so why not fuck madly and wildly when there’s nothing left to lose?

  Benzo strips Kenna naked, and everything is beautiful.

  27

  The Morning After

  Kenna has discovered how paralytic orgasms can be, and he never wants to move again.

  He lies with his cheek pressed against the black rubber floor mat, every muscle so slack he’s certain his bones must have dissolved into semen. The warm steam traps the feel of Benzo’s strong hands on him, his limp cock sticky and rubbed blissfully raw. He and Benzo had drawn pleasure from each other’s bodies, stretching their desire out like spun cotton candy until they’d been reduced to twitching nerve bundles …

  Benzo had come first. Kenna’s mouth crooks up in satisfaction at that memory. But Kenna had come instantly after, the pleasure boiling up and out of them. Everything had erupted out of him, all their stress, all their concern, and he’d flopped to the floor.

  He’s drooling. Like a baby.

  Yet eventually, the rattle of pans and the hiss of boiling water rouses him from the dream. He could sleep, but his love—yes, his love—has stirred, and he needs to see what Benzo is doing.

  He pushes himself up, the soft suck of the rubber informing him that he’s been happily comatose for hours.

  Benzo is stark naked, knife in hand, whistling as he spreads another chicken across the table.

  He moves, loose-hipped, among the stations, cutting the chicken open and then swaying over to chop the celery. Benzo had always had a grim assembly-line rhythm. Now, he bobs up and down, his blade seesawing through the onion to a secret music.

  He sees Kenna stirring, winks, shoots him finger-guns. He does a little salsa backstep, shoulders dipping, encouraging Kenna to join in. Kenna staggers over, his legs weakened when he imagines his palms on Benzo’s bony hips again—and Benzo spins the knife down the table before sweeping Kenna up in a drop-kneed tango.

  They dance, pressing their thighs together, Kenna’s hands moving across the nanofilaments on Benzo’s back, shifting between the cold feel of his lover’s embedded technology and the kiss-hot patches of skin. Benzo massages Kenna’s neck, his touch melting his muscles—

  The pot boils over.

  Benzo breaks away to wave frantically at the pot, instructing the UI to lower the heat—then shrugs a goofy smile in Kenna’s direction.

  “The chicken’s gonna go bad if we fuck again,” Benzo says.

  Kenna shivers at the word; fuck feels so deliciously naughty, and yet so workaday. He’d heard Mother and Father making love sometimes—you couldn’t help overhearing things in transport ships—but they’d never spoken of it. Any desire that distracted from their Inevitability was—well, not quite shameful, but certainly impolite.

  Benzo’s word unseals a whole new world for Kenna. It speaks of a servant’s crudeness, a plain talk that trades elegance for practicality.

  Kenna loves to fuck. He tries on the words.

  They suit him.

  Kenna fetches Benzo’s chef’s coat off the floor, wraps Benzo lovingly in it. Benzo leans against him, purring. “Covering me up so you’re not tempted?” he asks.

  “Making sure you don’t cut that beautiful cock off,” Kenna ripostes.

  Benzo’s laugh is a shy snort, his thighs pressing together at the thought that anything he has is beautiful. Kenna intends to lavish praise on him every day; now they’re in love, he will adore every square inch of that wondrous body.

  Benzo has yet to move, dazed by the compliment. Kenna smacks him on the ass: “Cook.”

  Kenna leans back, the metal chill against his bare ass, thrusting his hips forward; his nakedness feels like a glorious advertisement. Perhaps he’s enticing Benzo with a reward for an exceptional job done?

  Benzo works efficiently, hoping to finish the broth to get to Kenna. He cooks the chicken, dices the carrots, bopping along to that jaunty tempo. He retrieves a palmful of juniper berries from the fridge, their deep-space purple laced with frosty nebulas.

  He winces. “Ugh. I can’t stand the way these things smell.”

  Kenna pulls himself up onto the counter, then regrets it as his ass squeaks across the metal; he’ll have to sanitize the hell out of this spot. “So don’t.”

  Benzo’s eyebrows knot in confusion. “Don’t what?”

  “Don’t use them.”

  He holds the berries out toward Kenna as though the fruit alone should make the argument for him. “They’re in the recipe, Kenna. One tablespoon juniper berries, crushed.” He speaks with the low reverence Father drops into whenever he quotes Grandfather’s scripture.

  “Who cares about the recipe? Perhaps you’ll discover your own perfect broth—I mean consommé.”

  Benzo shakes his head—and they’re out of synchronization again. “That’s not how this works, Kenna. This broth is flavor-neutral. It’s designed to slip into hundreds of The Sol Majestic’s recipes—if I change it, I change the delicate balance of flavors. This isn’t some hidden creativity test—it’s about technical accomplishment.”

  Kenna realized he had been holding on to some vague fantasy of Benzo forging his own glorious path—but Benzo’s right. That clear, amber fluid is a test designed to magnify the slightest flaw.

  Still, the first task Benzo had handed off to Kenna was the juniper—he hated the sticky pine-juice on his fingers.

  “So don’t do it today,” Kenna offers. “You want to touch me, don’t you?”

  Benzo’s smile is as delicate as a consommé.

  “Fine,” Benzo says. He chucks the berries extravagantly into the disposal. “One consommé, no juniper. A distinctly imperfect broth.”

  “You don’t have to call it broth.”

  “What do you call it?”

  Kenna’s eyebrow twitches with embarrassment. “Broth.”

  “Then it’s broth.”

  Kenna remembers Benzo snapping at him—Stop calling it broth. We call it broth around you because you don’t know any better—and realizes that Benzo remembers too, that Benzo has been shamed since they crept into the Escargone. That shift in vocabulary is a request that all sins be forgiven.

  “I can live with broth,” Kenna says. Benzo dips his head in acknowledgment: Yes. Yes, we can. “I love you, you know.”

  “Show me how after I finish
this pot?” And Benzo’s eyes linger on Kenna’s mouth, and Kenna remembers that Brillo-like friction of Benzo’s not-quite-a-mustache rubbing against his lips, the softness of his tongue, and he aches hard for his lover.

  “Promise.”

  Now the waiting is delicious.

  * * *

  They fuck. They cuddle. They exchange boyhood stories; Benzo finally finishes a sentence describing his mother. They clean each other. They sanitize the kitchen. They pick up the mess Benzo made, Kenna reinventorying to account for damaged goods.

  Except now the chores feel cozy. They’re building something together—and that something may be a bower for their corpses, but they’re okay with that.

  When the timer goes off, they taste the juniper-free consommé out of habit.

  Benzo doesn’t even put the consommé through his usual thirteen-second slurping factory. He tilts the shot glass into his mouth, moving toward the plastic tub to empty the botched batch into the sink …

  And cruises to a stop like a robot with a dead battery.

  “Are you all right?” Kenna asks. But Benzo’s pink tongue laps up the consommé residue on his lips. He plants his hands on the countertop, shutting down his body’s balancing mechanisms so he can better process this odd taste.

  “Try this.” He hands a fresh sample to Kenna with a purposely diffident air, reluctant to taint Kenna’s reaction with his own.

  Kenna slurps a swig. He’s imbibed enough consommé to sense a clean flavor unsullied by fat globules, to press his tongue against the roof of his mouth to check for the silty particles, then to roll it to the back of his tongue to hunt for the telltale tastes of burnt chicken.

  This consommé is … acceptable. There’s nothing he can point to that Benzo did wrong.

  Yet it’s …

  Shallow.

  There is a solid chicken flavor—but it slides off the palate, as ephemeral as a swallow of saliva. The onion and celery flavors weave their way underneath the chicken, trying to knot it into place—but the chicken taste disappears like water down a drain.