“But…how can I do that?” Vicky asked, dismayed. “Do you want me to present my credentials? Because I would have to go and get them.” She wondered if she could contact the Mother Ship and ask them to whip up a batch of fake doctoral diplomas or something like that. She certainly hoped so!
But Professor Lornah was shaking her head.
“Oh no, my dear—you just have to prove you can teach. I tell you what—we’re headed to a symposium right now where Professor Torella will be in attendance. I have the last lecture slot but you can lecture right after me. No one will mind staying to hear such a renowned professor who has come from so far away.”
“Oh, well thank you,” Vicky said blankly. “But I didn’t really bring any of my, uh, lecture materials with me. You know—visual aids and such.”
“Don’t worry about that,” Professor Lornah said, making a shooing gesture. “We have a fully integrated sensory auditorium. You’ll be given everything you need to make an impressive showing.”
“Oh, um, okay.” Inside her head, Vicky was madly scrambling. She hadn’t expected to have to make a presentation on this alien world—especially not as soon as she landed! Then she took a deep breath and told herself to calm down. Despite the strange circumstances, this wasn’t her first rodeo—she’d been teaching high school for years.
And I don’t believe lecturing to a roomful of stuffy alien academics can be worse than trying to teach a bunch of bored, hormonal teenagers, she told herself firmly. I’ll figure it out.
Just as she had that thought, they came up to an even larger and more impressive building than the ones they’d been passing. It looked like a Medieval church to Vicky, with gray stone sides, soaring architecture, and stained glass in the many windows that seemed to shimmer and shift as she looked at it.
The colored glass pieces in the two vast windows on either side of the main entrance were in the shapes of enormous insects, she realized as she took a closer look. One looked like a giant orange praying mantis with pink and purple butterfly wings and the other looked disturbingly like a large cockroach—a turquoise one—with candy-apple red legs and wings.
As she watched, she realized the insects in the floor-to-ceiling stained glass windows were moving—flexing their wings and curling and uncurling their antennae very slowly but noticeably.
Vicky stared in astonishment. It must be some kind of alien tech in the window glass, making it look like the huge insects were moving, but it was amazing all the same.
“This is the University of Insects and Arachnids,” Professor Lornah explained, waving at the windows. As you can see.”
“Yes,” Vicky said. “I certainly can.”
“Your craftsmanship is very impressive,” Chain said, speaking for the first time. “I would love to learn the technology behind the shifting patterns in the glass—unless it’s a trade secret of some kind which cannot be shared.”
“Oh, you’d have to ask Professor Dunna of the Architecture and Adornments University,” Professor Lornah explained. “Though I don’t know if she would speak to you. And, being only a student, I doubt you’d understand anything she said anyway.”
She gave him a once-over, as though he must be stupid as they ascended the gray steps of the Insect University.
“I find my student to be an extremely good judge of mechanical matters and architectural structures,” Vicky said indignantly, defending the big Kindred. “In fact, Chain has innovative ideas on many subjects.”
“Is that right?” Professor Lornah arched an eyebrow at her. “Then maybe you’re teaching him the wrong things. Come along now, we must hurry,” she continued as they mounted the steps and entered the grand double doors which guarded the main entrance. “Oh, and this is a dinner lecture,” she added to Vicky as they passed through the arching double doors which rose twenty feet above their heads. “So I hope your remarks will be tasty.”
And with that cryptic remark, she led them into the vast building.
Chapter Sixteen
“Tasty remarks? What does that mean?” Victoria hissed under her breath to Chain as they walked through the high, echoing stone corridors of the University of Insects and Arachnids.
Inside, the building was as impressive as it had been on the outside with cathedral ceilings of gray stone arching up towards the sky. All of them had the same moving stained-glass windows which threw ever-changing, colored patterns down on the gray flagstones below. They looked like jewel-colored puddles spilling across the floor every few feet.
But the art in the windows wasn’t the only decoration. There were glass cases against the walls—some of them several stories tall—filled with mounted specimens of insects from hundreds of different worlds. Chain saw plinkk spiders smaller than a quasi seed in one case and a monstrous yorgyx wasp with a six foot wingspan and a barbed stinger as long as his arm in another. Truly, an impressive collection, he admitted to himself. But right now it wasn’t the bugs that concerned him, it was Victoria.
“I’m sorry—I really don’t know what ‘tasty remarks’ means either,” he murmured in her ear. “I’m also sorry you’ve been forced to take the lead here. I didn’t realize we were going into a Yonnie Six-type situation.”
“A what? What’s Yonnie Six?” she demanded, frowning.
“A planet where women rule over the males and treat them as slaves,” Chain told her. “I don’t think it’s quite that bad here, but it does seem like females are in charge on Priima Belle. So I’m afraid you’re stuck doing the deal for the T’lix-Kruthe.”
“But what if I can’t? What if they don’t like my lecture and I can’t convince them I’m a good enough teacher?” Victoria shook her head. “God, this is like an observation times ten.”
Chain gripped her shoulder firmly.
“You can do this,” he murmured, wanting to give her as much strength and courage as he could. “Remember how you faced down those Varians when they came after me in the Last Call? I was in awe of your performance—the way you dived right into the roll. You can handle this, Victoria.”
She threw him a grateful glance and he thought again how lovely she was in the fluttering green gown and exotic eye makeup. Then again, he found her lovely in just about anything—or nothing at all, he reminded himself, remembering how luscious she looked naked. He just wished she could see herself the way he saw her—as a sexy, confident mature woman who was incredibly desirable.
Did she find him desirable too? She seemed to, but Chain couldn’t help remembering the way she’d talked about going their separate ways after this and how he ought to find himself a younger female. If only she knew how difficult it was for an M-Switch Kindred to find any female at all who wasn’t immediately turned off by the thought of being with a “Snatcher” like him!
Or did she already know? Was she trying to put him off nicely with all that talk of him finding someone else?
Surely not. Chain pushed the thought away uneasily. Anyway, she was speaking the truth about them going their separate ways after this mission was over. Although, the longer they were together, the less he wanted to part with his curvy little Elite…
“Here we are—the Grand Lecture Hall.” The rather pompous voice of Professor Lornah interrupted his uneasy thoughts and he looked up and saw they were heading into a dim, cavernous room filled with tables and chairs.
Each table seated four and he saw that most of the guests consisted of mature women in their fourth or fifth or even sixth decade and males who all appeared to be in their second decade. So apparently the teacher-student relationship here was strictly male/female and based on age, Chain thought. There were plates in front of each of the audience members and they looked to be finishing some sort of meal.
They were coming in from the side and at the head of the huge room Chain saw a tall stage with a woman standing on it. She was wearing the same flowing gown and elaborate eye makeup of the other females in the room and she seemed to be finishing a lecture.
“And that concludes my
presentation on the Blood and Bile Based Delicacies of Xuuruu Prime,” she was saying. “I hope you have enjoyed this lecture and thank you for your kind attention.”
She bowed deeply and the audience all began to clap as a long blue curtain came down and hid her from view.
“Oh—it looks like a kind of dinner theater,” Victoria murmured. “I wonder if that’s what Professor Lornah meant by ‘tasty remarks’?”
Speaking of the Professor, she was leading the way to a center table right in front of the stage which had apparently been kept empty for her. There was no one else there and the four chairs all faced the stage.
“Now then, here we are,” she said, speaking exclusively to Victoria. Apparently males were treated like furniture on this world—useful for some things but regarded more as a functional item than a person, Chain thought dryly.
Well, he could deal with that, he decided. He wouldn’t want to live on such a world all his life—the Kindred believed in equality and mutual respect between males and females. But it wouldn’t bruise his ego to be quiet and take a back seat to Victoria while they were here—it was just a necessary part of the character he was playing.
“Have a seat,” Professor Lornah continued, still talking to Victoria. “And watch my presentation to get an idea of how to do your own. When the curtain falls for me, you come up those side steps there to the backstage area.” She pointed to some steps to one side of the stage. “I’ll help you get all set up and introduce you. All right?”
“All right—thank you,” Victoria said as she and Chain and Lorn, Professor Lornah’s student, all settled in three of the chairs. “Oh, and break a leg!” she added brightly, before she thought.
“What?” Professor Lornah looked shocked. “Why would you hope that I break my leg?”
“Oh, uh…” Victoria’s cheeks got pink with a blush. “It’s what we say on my planet right before any important presentation or performance. It means ‘good luck’ but since we consider it bad luck to actually say, ‘good luck’ we say ‘break a leg’ instead.”
Professor Lornah shook her head.
“What a fascinating world you must come from. I can’t wait to hear your lecture on the various languages spoken there.”
“I can’t wait either,” Victoria said, smiling a little too brightly, Chain thought. “To give it, I mean.”
“All right,” Professor Lornah said cheerfully. “Then here I go to break my leg!”
And she trotted away, up the side steps she’d indicated to Victoria which led to the stage.
Chapter Seventeen
“Whew,” Vicky muttered to Chain when Professor Lornah was finally gone. “That was close. Can’t believe I told her to break a leg!”
“Does it really mean what you said?” Chain sounded curious.
“Oh yes.” Vicky shrugged. “It’s just theater-speak, that’s all. I’ve been coaching Drama for so long it just kind of popped out.” She looked around the darkened theater—well, she supposed it was technically a lecture hall but with the seating arrangements and the fact that there were plates in front of them, it certainly seemed like a dinner theater. “I wonder how all this works? Does someone come around and serve us food or what?”
“I suppose we’ll find out,” Chain murmured back.
“Or you could tell us,” Vicky said, turning to the professor’s student who had been sitting mutely at one end of the table. “Lorn—isn’t that your name?” she asked, looking at him.
The scrawny young man seemed extremely surprised at being addressed.
“Why, y-yes Pr-professor Victoria, it is,” he stuttered, ducking his head shyly. “Thank you for addressing such a l-lowly p-person as muh-myself.”
“Lowly?” Vicky frowned. “Just because you’re a student?”
“Well…y-yes.” He ducked his head again. “C-can I h-h-help you in s-suh-some way?”
“We’re just wondering how exactly this theater, er, lecture hall works?” Vicky asked him. “I mean, does a server come around with a menu to take your order or does everyone get served the same thing or what?”
Actually, she was getting pretty hungry. It had been a long time since lunch and she hadn’t had dinner—she’d been too busy running from the awful lizard-like Varians.
“N-not exactly,” Lorn said. “What h-happens is the f-food m-matter distributor converts the th-thu-thoughts of the professor into ed-ed-edible substances,” he got out at last.
“Food matter distributor?” Vicky asked, mystified.
“Th-the p-pl-plate,” Lorn got out at last, nodding down at the wide, curving white china plates in front of each of them.
Frowning, Vicky tried to pick hers up but found it seemed to be welded to the table top. Chain’s was immovable also—as were all the plates, she soon realized. But how could you clean them or change them if they were stuck to the table?
“I don’t understand,” she said blankly. “What’s the deal with the plate being permanently stuck to the table?”
“W-w-well, it’s n-not exactly a p-plu-plu-plate,” Lorn explained.
“Not a plate?” Vicky frowned. “That’s okay, I’m sure we’ll figure it out,” she said quickly, when Lorn started to explain. The poor kid was red in the face from the effort of saying so much in the first place.
“Suh-suh-sorry,” he said, looking down at his own immovable plate, his cheeks dull red with shame. “I kn-know my stu-stutter is b-bad. P-professor Lornah s-says it d-doesn’t matter though b-because my t-t-tongue is good for other things.”
Other things? What things? Vicky wanted to ask. But she didn’t want to make Lorn explain when it was clearly hard for him to get words out. Besides, the curtain was rising, so they all turned their attention to the presentation.
Standing at center stage was Professor Lornah. She was smiling beatifically and wearing an elaborate gold and silver crown which stuck up at least three feet above her head. Vicky wondered how much it weighed and how in the world she’d managed to get it on without messing up her elaborate hairdo.
“Friends,” she said, “Pundits, Professors, and Pedagogues gathered here to learn and to teach. I am Professor Lornah of the Cake and Dish University here on Priima Belle and today I would like to lecture you about the many prandial delights essayed by the Ys people of the Northern Gimbol territory on Hrx Tertia and the various artisan-made platters they serve them on.”
“Wow, that’s a mouthful,” Chain muttered under his breath to Victoria.
“Literally,” she whispered back. “Look!”
For as Professor Lornah spoke, describing a “rich honey cake with pippa seeds and crunchy tonga husks served upon a delicate jade green platter carved all over with crimson runes” that exact thing popped into existence on their plain, immovable white plates in front of them.
Well, the cake and platter didn’t ‘pop’ exactly, Vicky thought. It was more like a fizzing—a staticky noise like a really old TV might make when it wasn’t tuned to any channel. During the fizzing, the item in question came slowly into existence until it looked as solid as the table it was sitting on.
Vicky looked uncertainly at the golden-brown cake about as big as a cupcake, studded with bright purple seeds and covered in pinkish-orange shavings. Was it really real? What were they supposed to do with it?
Lorn answered her question by leaning across the table and hissing at her, “Quick,” he whispered, this time with no trace of a stutter. “It’s an insult not to take a bite before it melts away again! Hurry!”
“Oh—okay.” Quickly, Vicky snatched up the tiny cake and took a bite. The cake was real, all right—dense and moist and sweet and spicy. It melted on the tongue and yet had a lovely chew to it. “Mmm!” she murmured in appreciation, taking another bite. “This is good.”
“Professor Lornah always d-does the best lectures,” Lorn said, with apparent pride. “She gets asked to speak m-muh-more than any other professor here.”
“I can see why,” Vicky said, taking another bite of
the cake. “Delicious.”
Beside her, Chain was enjoying his cake as well. In fact, he finished his off in two bites.
Vicky, on the other hand, wanted to savor hers. She took tiny nibbles but she had barely eaten half of the delicious little cake when Professor Lornah stated that she hoped they had all enjoyed the delicacy but now they had to move on.
As she began to speak about something that sounded like a cross between a jelly donut and a stuffed potato, the remains of the honey cake abruptly melted away from between Vicky’s fingers, making her sigh in disappointment.
“Oh, too bad! I didn’t know it was going to disappear,” she whispered.
“D-don’t w-worry,” Lorn told her. “Sh-she’s j-just getting started.”
And indeed she was. The next cake popped up on a gorgeously scrolled limestone platter and this time Vicky was determined to eat it all. She was really hungry and the honey cake had been barely more than an appetizer.
This cake, however, had a much stranger texture than the last. Vicky bit into it anyway to find that it was, indeed, very like a cross between a stuffed potato and a jelly donut, but the bright jelly inside it tasted strange in her mouth. It had a weird meaty flavor and it felt oozy and strange against her tongue.
She swallowed and decided to take a closer look before she bit down again. To her surprise and disgust, she saw that the filling inside the potato-donut-cake was moving. Suddenly Professor Lornah’s voice caught her attention.
“…filled with the immature larvae of the bleck tree-hopper of Nissa Prime,” she was saying, gesturing to the potato-donuts everyone seemed to be eating. “It’s a lovely dish and it seemed to jibe nicely with tonight’s theme and location, since we are lucky enough to be hosted by the University of Insects and Arachnids.”
Larvae? Those are larvae in there? Vicky looked with dismay at the squirming filling of her donut. But I ate that! I ate a bite and swallowed it!
Stealing Her Heart: A Kindred Tales Novel (Brides of the Kindred) Page 10