"No, what did he say?" replied Melville hesitantly.
"E sez, 'Ya gotta add enough that it doesn't taste as if yer being apologetic about yer spices. At's wat they tot us at the Royal Caterin' Academy. 'At means hole hog or none, to you uneducated sorts!'"
Broadax shook her head admiringly and continued, "Makes me feel almost homesick. An' I thot my boys might appreciate a li'l game fer PT this mornin', jist ta keep their sweat glands happy. So's my monk's off leadin' the parade while I finish my breakfast!"
No doubt about it, she was fairly chortling with pleasure as she savored her food and watched her marines swing by overhead. Then Melville thought about what she had said, and blurted, "Bitterash root? You mean the breakfast was supposed to taste that way?" He couldn't help but be aghast at the thought, as his morning breakfast of what he had thought of as river rocks and burnt sticks rolled over in his stomach.
"Yessir! Best I've had in years! Put me in a good mood I gots ta say. Ready fer some liberty in Lenoria wit Hans there." She paused for a second and then almost whispered, "Hey, skipper, is it true that stogie smoke kin mess up 'lectronical stuff?"
Melville's eyebrows rose before he could catch them. He was still somewhat flabbergasted that Jones' food might be tasting the way he had intended it to taste. And he was stunned to find a genial and voluble Lt. Broadax he had never imagined existed.
"Ummm, actually, Lieutenant, I understand that cigar smoke can cause some significant degradation of electronics equipment," he replied with a touch of confusion. "It's not something you really have to worry about, except on Earth. Why do you ask?"
"Well, I wus buyin' a bit o' a surprise fer Hansie 'at this 'Secrets' place, an' the li'l bints made me put it out. Then they had me skin outta me mail fer fittin' them frilly things. Anyway, I wuz curious if they wuz tellin' me true," she replied absently as her eyes sharpened to a glare at her marines.
"'Scuze me, sir," she mumbled as she stomped forward toward the hatch that the marines were currently using to dive between the upper and lower gundecks. "I tole ye, one atta time down 'at line, ye misbegotten idjits!" she snarled as she moved forward. "Are ye tryin'ta turn yerselfs inta brainless sailors insteada brainless marines?"
Melville was still standing where she had left him. "Broadax and lingerie?" he muttered. "Hansie?" The thoughts that bounced through his head were combining with his river rocks and burnt stick breakfast to make a previously wonderful morning entirely too interesting.
He looked at his monkey who looked back at him, apparently equally stunned. "You know," he said quietly, "there's an old Chinese curse that wishes you should live in interesting times."
The monkey let out a small, inquisitive "Eep?"
"Makes me wonder which old Chinese guy I got mad at me," he finished as he stepped up the ladder to the upperside quarterdeck. The monkey's emphatic "Eek!" made him wonder—for the umpteenth time—just how intelligent their pint-sized companions actually were.
As he reached the quarterdeck, the watch officer, Lt. Fielder came up to him.
"Good morning, sir," said Fielder, saluting as the captain approached. "By the stunned-ox look on your face I see that you have already had the pleasure of Lt. Broadax's company this morning."
"It's that obvious, is it?"
"She was up here talking with me earlier, sir," Fielder said with a barely suppressed grin.
"She's in a... pleasant mood, it would seem," replied Melville.
"Oh, yes, sir! She was going on about shopping in Earth stores for trinkets and lace and..."
"Stop!" Melville said as he held up a hand and shook his head, laughing. "I think this comes under the heading of TMI—too much information for me to process first thing this morning. Plus, I'm still wrestling with the idea that Kaleb Jones' meals are coming out exactly the way he planned!"
Fielder blinked and looked at Melville. "You mean he's not incompetent? So he must be trying to kill us!" Then he added with a shudder, "Well, all of us except Broadax, who is apparently convinced he's a culinary genius."
Melville grinned wryly. "According to our good marine lieutenant, this morning's disaster was actually something like sweet noodles with bitterash root seasonings. And also according to her, it was surprisingly delicious! And, apparently, good cooking—at least her idea of it anyway—is the quickest way to our Broadax's heart."
"Humph," Fielder replied with feeling. "The quickest way to her heart is through the chest wall with a knife! Or at least that's what I would have said before I saw how she reacted to Jones' cooking."
"Hmm."
"You know, sir," Fielder continued after a moment's thought. "If we had anyone aboard who could have done the job at all I would have begged you to replace Kaleb. Right now though the crew is sort of stuck at an impasse: Jones' food means Broadax is happy, and for some reason it seems to trickle down and make their lives better. On the other hand, feeling like you're getting poisoned at every meal is not exactly good for morale. I think if it wasn't for the marines, that pistol Jones carries all the time, and his demonstrated skills with said pistol and his knives... Well, if not for that, I have little doubt that one of the watches might have tried to recalibrate Jones' cooking skills before this. And even with all that going for him, I wouldn't want to be in Jones' shoes right about now."
Melville sighed. "Yes, I know. Unfortunately the only person we have aboard who could conceivably take his place is Mrs. Vodi. But she and Lady Elphinstone were both emphatic that she is only competent preparing food on a small scale and has no experience with using the large Keel burners. Besides, her full attention is required for her regular duties. Maybe we should have him prepare a human recipe instead of a Dwarrowdelf recipe?"
Fielder shook his head mournfully. "Already been tried. Remember the piece of black wood we had for dinner last night? Or was it leather?" he wondered aloud.
"Oh, yes," Melville replied with a shudder.
"That was a porterhouse steak," Fielder said with finality. "The operative word being was."
"Oh," Melville replied. "Damn."
Shaking off his mood, Melville took his leave of the quarterdeck and went forward to where Brother Theo was holding lessons for the midshipmen in his usual location, on the upperside waist.
The midshipmen all had knife blanks in front of them. These were lengths of tempered steel that had been ground to final shape but the blade had been given only a cursory sharpening, roughly suitable for minor work, but not the working edge a sailor depended upon.
Luckily for the midshipmen (and the ultimate purchaser of the blade), the blanks were stored so that they were "floating" in the plane of two-space, next to the Keel. The influence of Flatland worked to "draw" the edges into mono-molecular sharpness without affecting the temper of the steel. The blanks were differentially tempered with a very hard edge to hold that sharpness, and a much softer temper for the blade body, making for a knife or sword that was sharp, able to withstand shock and hard use, and still remain serviceable. Brother Theo had purchased the blade blanks on Nordheim, and they had been waiting in the hold, changing and becoming more valuable and more deadly with each passing day.
With the Ship's upcoming port call in Lenoria, Brother Theo was taking the opportunity to have the midshipmen (as well as any unoccupied hands available) add hilts, handles, and pommels. Thus turning these deadly and utilitarian knives into works of art. Highly useable art, mind you, but art nonetheless!
Hiltshad been purchased at Nordheim as well. They were rough bronze castings in several designs that had to be cleaned, fitted, and polished. The handles were of either Osgil zebra wood or Nordheim satin wood, and lovingly hand-carved. Pommels of one of five semi-precious stones were added last, from Arakis desert pearls to, most expensive of all, real pre-collapse cat's-eye marbles from Earth. For safe handling of the blades, they were inserted into an ironwood holder and clamped with leather straps so they could be held safely as the middies and crew worked on them. In a separate group, other crew members
were cutting, tooling,and sewing sheaths from four different varieties of Ambergris saurianoid hides.
Never being one to waste time, Theo was using this opportunity to expound upon Lenoria and its history and culture.
"Lenoria..." he began as he inspected the hilt of a knife he had just been handed. "Mr. Jubal, what have I told you about ensuring that the wrappings are snug? Think of having the hilt slide in your grip when you need it the most, and have pity on the poor soul who would buy such shoddy work! Even worse, think about how little money the Ship would receive for such slipshod craftsmanship!" Jubal responded with a grin and proceeded to repair the offending item.
Brother Theo started again. "Lenoria is one of Westerness' earliest colonies," he told the middies, "and it is now quite well developed. Some would say that it is even more beautiful than Westerness, the child outshining its parent. Its beautiful architecture, epic landscapes, strange cultures, and unusual animals make it one of the favorite stopovers for two-space Ships traveling west from Old Earth or from Westerness. The magnificent statue of the Goddess of Flight is a much-celebrated favorite among sailors. It makes Earth's Statue of Liberty pale by comparison, yet even it is dwarfed by the scale and complexity of Lenoria's Four Liberties. As the poet wrote:
"My soul, there stands a country
Far beyond the stars,
Where stands a winged sentry
All skillful in the wars."
The thought of shore leave on this legendary planet made the middies' young eyes glow with excitement as their teacher continued.
"Many of Westerness' thousands of colony planets have names and themes based on the classic science fiction that has informed and inspired our civilization. There must be a dozen desert planets named Dune or Arakis. (None of them, incidentally, has managed to give us a really decent sand worm or any useful 'Spice.' But you have to give them credit for diligently and persistently ingesting every known substance on each of these worlds in their search for a Spice.) Westerness has made Tolkien's work the theme for its architecture and much of its culture, with a lot of Victorian England mixed in for good measure. In the same way, Lenoria took its theme from some work done by Tom Kidd, an illustrator and writer in the classic era of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries."
He could see the young midshipmen begin to squirm as he commenced to wax eloquent on ancient history, and he knew that he should probably get to the point. "Among our retro-culture planets Lenoria is rather unique in its heavy development of airships to travel between its rugged plateaus. The huge, beautiful, lighter-than-air ships that grace the skies of Lenoria are something you will never forget. And, yes," he added with a sigh, "the nightlife of its portside facilities is as wild and diverse as anything you will find across the galaxy.
"Mr. Hayl," he admonished, "you are building a tool and a work of art for someone to cherish, not something that gets thrown into a box and ignored! Have pride in your work there!" Brother Theo's monkey eeked imperatively and glared at the offending middie as well. The midshipmen could never decide if Theo's monkey was mocking the monk or just mirroring him, but either way the little creature's antics were a constant source of amusement to them.
Melville wandered off, randomly looking at the fixtures of his Ship. Today's meals were being served on the upperside, and the young captain was about to move to the lowerside quarterdeck in order to escape the effluvia arising from Kaleb Jones' latest offense upon nature.
As Melville walked away from the mess line he heard one sailor complain, "I been watchin' ya! This stuff's been stewin' in its fat fer days now!" Indeed, Jones' bubbling cauldrons never ceased their labors, filled with unidentified entities constantly struggling to the surface as if to scream, only to be pulled down by other damned souls before they could speak.
"Aye!" replied Jones happily, shoving his pistol barrel in the boiling pot and stirring it. "'Ats wat they calls a slow cooker. Ya know I was never one fer slavin' over the stove. There's just one of me, ya know? So I needs to fix food that just gets on with itself. Right toothsome it is!"
"But... the fat..." protested the hapless sailor.
"Do I try to tell ya 'ow to sail this here boat? Don' even try to argue 'bout cookin' with an official grad-yew-ate of the Royal Caterin' Corps! The flavor's in the fat, ya know? Bet you didn't know that! An' a bit o' cookin' sherry... you can never 'ave too much cookin' sherry or bitterash..."
The next day started oddly. Kaleb Jones apparently managed a foul-up of unusual magnitude: the morning meal actually tasted good! A bit salty, perhaps, and a bit chewy, but wonderful in comparison to the normal Dwarrowdelf pottage the crew had almost become accustomed to.
Jones was in an apoplectic fury at the miscreants who had replaced his bitterash root with pepper and his ground rockthorn powder with salt! Not to mention the fact that Lt. Broadax seemed to have taken issue with the tampering with her breakfast! After a discussion with Jones involving much fondling of her ax on her part, and steady blanching of the skin on his part, Jones had gone into a flurry of checking for the adulteration of any of his other supplies.
Lt. Broadax then tried to put it out of her mind in the best way possible: by helping her marines train to be all they could be! Not that they saw it that way, of course.
Broadax slammed a hapless marine to the deck and looked in disgust at his unconscious body. "Corporal!" she growled out to Kobbsven. "Dock that marine a day's pay fer nappin' on the job!"
"My gawd," Dwakins mumbled from the sidelines, "she's tryin' ta kill us!"
Kobbsven nodded mournfully, his droopy, scraggly, handlebar mustache looking even more pathetic than usual. "Ja, yew betcha. I tink maybe she tinks she's workin' off her frustrations wit' a liddle hand-ta-hand training. Only ting is, I wants ta keep my hands! An' all my udder parts too!"
Broadax rumbled from within her toxic cloud of smoke which seemed to keep wreathing her short form no matter how hard the constant breeze kept blowing it downward. "Kobbsven! Ye overgrown ox! I heerd dat! Git yer butt out here. Yer the next 'un."
"Damn it, Dwakins, see whut ya made me do!" he moaned.
"Yer all veal!" snarled Broadax to her marines. "Ye know wat veal is, boys? It's food, kept inna box so's its muscles decompose an' fill with fatty tissues while its brain grows weak. Yer all veal, so come to momma an' I will set ye free frum yer leetle boxes!"
Kobbsven moved slowly toward the center of the smoke cloud. Very, very slowly. She might be a third of his height but she was faster than greased lightning and had one hell of a mad on.
He slid forward and then feinted with his left hand as he shifted back. At least that's what he thought he was doing as he felt an iron fist grab his groin and flip him up as her other hand grabbed his chest. He saw her head underneath him (how in hell did he get up here?) and as he swung at her with his fist he suddenly felt the deck slam him in the back as her foot planted itself against his throat.
"Blast it, Kobbsven!" he heard her growl above him. "Lookee wat ye did, ye doorknob! Ye broke my ceegar! Dammit, all yer doin' is makin' me mad! Why in hell can't ye sorry excuses fer marines do like yer supposed ta an' hit me! Not a pore defenseless li'l ceegar that ain't never hurt nobuddy!"
Kobbsven coughed, and spoke to the center of the three clouds swirling over him. "Uhh, no excuse, ma'am?" he ventured trying to focus on where he thought she was.
"Damned right! No excuse! Now git!" she said. "Dwakins! Yer next! Remember, boys, 'pain is jist weakness leavin' the body!'"
"I didn't know I vas dis weak," mumbled Kobbsven as he crawled away.
Melville looked over at Fielder as they stood together at the upper quarterdeck rail. "I see our Lt. Broadax is returning to her normal, congenial self. I guess our morning repast might have had something to do with her decision to change the training schedule?"
He cocked an inquisitive eye at his first officer, who returned a sheepish grin.
"I admit I heard that she was a tad perturbed after breakfast, Captain, but the reality does see
m a bit, ummm, extreme! Brother Theo mentioned that some of the midshipmen were a bit excited this morning before breakfast, but we decided that further inquiry might not be a good idea. And after seeing her training regimen I am quite certain it's not necessary to pursue that inquiry any further. I'm not sure the middies would survive a training session that intense!"
Melville chuckled as his monkey eeped in cheerful agreement on his shoulder. "Midshipmen do enjoy their pranks, don't they?" he responded, "but I really think they ought to find something to keep them out of sight for a while, don't you?"
"Brother Theo and I agreed that there were some tasks that needed to be done that should keep them well away from our resident ogre. It is good for my soul to see so many industrious young men volunteer so eagerly. I think they were truly inspired by our marine lieutenant's current vigor! Hopefully she will cool off after some liberty in Lenoria tomorrow." Fielder gave one of his patented sardonic smiles and continued. "I think I had better suggest that the galley be off-limits for their hijinks, as I am not sure Jones would survive his next food faux pas. As a matter of fact, even our Guldur crew members are out of sorts."
"The Guldur?"
"Yes, sir. It seems that Hans has had a few of them ask why the food got so bad again. He said they weren't really unhappy, just curious as they had gotten to like having food with some flavor!"
"Damn!" said the captain. "I was looking forward to finding a replacement for Jones. I didn't realize that a sizable portion of the crew actually enjoyed his cooking. How do the Stolsh feel about it?" asked the captain. It was easy to forget about their handful of doleful, semi-aquatic Stolsh crewman.
The Guns of Two-Space Page 28