Rev poked at the piece of . . . he wasn’t sure what. It jiggled a bit, like jello, but it looked more like a butterflied sea slug.
He looked at the four others: Kelly, Randigold, Punch, and Pika. Kelly was grimacing, Randigold was looking at him with a grim but eager expression, Punch was Punch, and Pika—well, who could tell what a dragon was thinking?
“Are you really going to try it, Sergeant Major?” Randigold asked.
“Are you?”
“No way. That looks disgusting.”
“We can modify the appearance if necessary,” Pika said.
You might have to.
Rev stared at the slug again. He’d faced death in combat. He’d faced an angry Tomiko. So why was he quaking in his boots now?
“It’s safe?”
“I can assure you that it is.”
Geeze, Reverent. Just do it.
Before he could think of a million reasons not to, Rev scooped up the sea slug, closed his eyes, and bit it in half. His first impression was that he was eating a real slug. It was soft and slimy, and he almost gagged, but then . . .
“Oh, by the Mother,” he said, opening his eyes in surprise. “It’s watermelon. Real, watermelon!”
He held out the other half to Kelly, who backed up a step and stared at him suspiciously.
“For real? You’re not trying to pull something on me now, are you?”
“No, really!”
This thing didn’t look like watermelon. It didn’t feel like watermelon. But it sure the heck tasted like the sweetest watermelon he’d ever eaten.
“Is the taste satisfactory?” Pika asked.
“I can’t believe it,” Rev said. “But yes, it is. I don’t know how or why, but that slimy thing is watermelon.”
He shifted his hand to offer it to Randigold. She tentatively took it, sniffed it, then flicked out her tongue and gave it a little kitten lick. Her eyes got wide, and she popped it into her mouth.
“He’s not shitting you,” she said after she swallowed it, then lifted the plate Pika had brought the sample in and licked that, too.
Never in a million years would Rev have expected this. He’d been skeptical from the beginning. Yes, this was a race that had uplifted at least two other races—probably more—so they had to be almost godlike in their biological abilities. But “almost godlike” and “god” were two different things.
With the decision to stay on Haven—“Tylydina” was just too difficult for humans to pronounce, and so they’d taken a vote, with “Haven” coming out on top—the Po had been extremely eager to make life easier for the humans. Rev and the rest had often complained about the food. The fabricators were in the process of being torn down for shipment, but they were not scheduled to come down for another two months. And once they were operational, that would be a limited fix. Once the supply of organic bases ran out, they’d be rendered useless.
They could set up the algae farms, but even with the entire gamut of algae, that would limit the scope of what could be fabricated. An eternity of the Base 2 menu would be a fate almost worse than death.
That’s when the Po offered to recreate human food with the same taste and nutrition as what they now had. All they needed was the chemical composition of the food, and they could recreate it with what was available on Haven.
All of the humans had seen that the Po were far more technically advanced than they were. But this seemed a bridge too far, more brag than actual capability. But it was worth a try, and anything that could supplement the fabricators and provide nutrition would be a good thing.
The Po wanted a sample to work with. The fabricators could make their rendition of hundreds of ingredients, but they did that by rearranging any of twenty-two organic bases, and then manipulating color, texture, and, most of all, taste, to get the desired outcomes. They weren’t the real thing.
Enter Punch. For reasons only known to him, he’d long ago downloaded the chemical composition of thousands of items, including food. When he told that to their hosts, the Po were excited, stating that they could replicate that, whether it was a single food item or a dish from a recipe.
Rev brought that to Hyung and Offie Belang. Dr. Belang was the head biologist, and she gave a tentative OK to the concept, but she said there had to be rigorous testing before she’d approve it for consumption.
Randigold had suggested that Punch give Pika the chemical composition of Coke, which she swore the fabricator could never get quite right. But after considering the complexity, Punch decided that something simpler would be better, and he gave Pika his data on watermelon.
A week passed, and Rev didn’t hear anything.
“I guess it was too good to be true,” Rev told Tomiko as they ate their combat rat dinner.
“I don’t know if I’d trust them with our food,” she said. “We can always grow the algae and know that’s safe.”
“Base 2? I sure the heck hope they can do better than that.”
“We eat to live, Rev, not the other way around.”
“Speak for yourself.”
Rev had never understood Tomiko’s outlook on food. Sure, she enjoyed something that tasted good, and she was a true carnivore. He thought back to when they barely had a romance, and he brought her a piece of Round House Charlie, one of the finest strains of copyrighted vat beef in the galaxy. That had been one of his finest hours. But other than meat, to her, good food was just a nice thing to have if it was there. She could subsist fine on the very basics.
“It won’t be just Base 2, anyway. We’ve got the ship’s garden plants that we’re going to try and grow here,” Tomiko said.
“And if some pathogen doesn’t attack our garden. And if the yetis don’t come and raze it.”
“I’d like to see them try. But, like I said, we’ve got algae.”
“Don’t remind me.”
The next day, though, Punch came and got Rev.
“Pika has the first go-round on the food.”
“The first one? That doesn’t sound good.”
“He said that this will take a few steps, being the first time they’ve worked with Earth life. After this, it’ll be easier.”
“Did you tell Hyung and Belang?”
“I thought I’d tell you. If you’re interested.”
Rev hesitated. This was really on Belang’s turf. He was security, Norton still had the ship, while the civilians were about everything else at this juncture.
“I guess we don’t have to put this on her plate, too.”
“Was that a pun, Rev?”
It took him a moment to realize what Punch was saying. Then “plate” registered.
He hadn’t intended to say a pun, but he was going to take credit.
“Sure was.”
“It was a bad one.”
“Better than any you’ve come up with lately,” he said before turning to Kelly and Randigold.
“You want to go see what concoction the dragons came up with?”
“Dragon food,” Kelly said, wrinkling her nose. “Sure, let’s go see that poison.”
Only, now, after tasting it, Rev was all in. Yes, they needed to work on the mouthfeel, and it would help if it were the same color as real watermelon. But the important thing was the taste.
And the nutrition, I guess.
And if they could make watermelon from the carbon atoms and whatever that were native to the planet . . .
“Hey, Pika. I know what you feel about killing and stuff like that, but could you whip up, you know, meat?”
“Whatever we produce, it was never alive, much less sentient. It will undoubtedly be more challenging than a simple plant like watermelon, but there shouldn’t be a problem with that.”
Rev looked to Punch. “In that wonderful, high-capacity crystal brain of yours, did you happen to download Round House Charlie’s copyright data when we were discussing it back those many years ago?”
“You know me better than that. Of course, I did.”
Rev smiled as he addressed Pika.
“Well, then. I’ve got another project to test your abilities. And if you pass the test, we’re gonna be best friends forever.”