Chapter 4

He arrived at the mess hall a few minutes early. Rosh'tur came in just moments after. She and the two cooks ending their shift exchanged nods and swapped places without a word. Kevan strode up and stood just inside the prep area.

"So, you are not late. That's a good start."

"I take this seriously. Being late would be ...disrespectful both of the opportunity and of you. I have been studying up on names of foods and the items used to prepare them. I'm expecting some different techniques, but I'm also expecting that some things are universal."

She paused at that. "Yes, I suppose some things might be. We'll see. We'll serve two meals during our five-hour shift. They will be dinner for some, breakfast for others. If you haven't noticed already, meals are rotated around. Today we'll be serving 'arckresh', which is a breakfast item, and 'kruteck', a dinner item."

Arckresh he was familiar with. It was somewhat similar to an omelet, and was one he happened to have read about. The other he wasn't familiar with, and he admitted so. She left it for later.

They had an hour to prepare the breakfast. Some of the time they spent reviewing the items and ingredients they'd use, along with technique. The eggs were whipped, and then cooked in oil with the ingredients folded in. A flour mixture was added as the whole thing was turned to give it a light breading.

Kevan explained the omelet to her, how it was made light and fluffy. To her credit, she seemed curious about it, and conceded that if he made her one later she would try it. The hour passed quickly before they started preparing in earnest before Rich'ti came in to eat.

He found that the cooking tools they used were not too different from ones that he might have used for similar purposes, except for their handles. Where handles on human cooking tools were usually long and slender, the Rich'ti ones were more of a curved half-circle that the hand fit into. His own hand didn't fit quite as comfortably as Rosh'tur's seemed to, but it was not uncomfortable. It took him some time to get used to the grip. Some had indentations where the individual fingers could rest to enhance the grip. He noted that Rosh'tur'si fingers were longer than his own. They also used wider, shallower bowls than he was accustomed to for mixing ingredients.

The long flat area he had thought was the grill, essentially was the same as he had seen in restaraunt kitchens back home. One area of it had slightly recessed circles that pans fit snugly into. There were short, flat handles off the sides of the pans for lifting them with, instead of the longer handles Kevan was used to. Lids for them had an area you could slip your fingers into to grip, instead of the usual human knob on top.

They didn't have to do much cutting of anything, he found. He'd read about the machine they had that prepared food items for cooking, which he'd associated in his mind as the mother-of-all food processors. It apparently trimmed fat off meat, cut nearly anything into cubes, slices, or strips, and could grind or crush things too. It was self-cleaning and had several drawers that would slide out to accept whatever you were needing tended to. Then you programmed it and another drawer slid out with a bowl containing the finished product. He found himself impressed by the uniform nature of the diced vegetables and meat they used in the arckresh. Rosh'tur explained that there were smaller versions of the machine in most places that could prepare one item at a time. This one was designed to handle the needs of a kitchen that served a larger group, and therefore could prepare several items at once, and in much larger quantities.

He found that he quickly became hot and sweaty while working in such close proximity to the grill. Rosh'tur, on the other hand, didn't seem to notice the heat any more than to be sure it was the right setting for cooking on. Most of the time, she worked silently and quickly, although he suspected that he was slowing her down just a bit. He hoped that he was making up for it with his own work. She watched over him with a sharp eye, especially in the beginning, to be sure he didn't overcook the Arckresh.

Rosh'tur explained that this was not a busy shift, so they would not be full to capacity for either of the meals they'd serve. Shortly before Rich'ti started filtering in she suggested he stand back and let her do most of the serving.

He ended up deciding it was good advice. Many of the patrons gave him mistrustful looks. Several of them seemed almost leery of the food, but they had no way to know how much or how little involvement he'd actually had and what Rosh'tur had done herself.

It occurred to him that Rosh'tur might have been the only cook to work solo. He wondered if that had to do with her or the least-busy shift.

"Is most cooking done by pairs of cooks?" he asked once the eating crew was mostly seated.

"Typically. On a ship this size, at any rate. Larger ships with larger crews either have larger mess hall with larger staffs, or they simply have more mess halls. In general this size of mess hall is preferable to larger, more impersonal ones. I have usually preferred to work alone, and the shift allows for it."

"Am I intruding on that?"

She laughed in response, more loudly than he might have liked. "No, I find you curious, and sometimes even amusing. I tend to see the same faces all the time. I like different perspectives, and we do not get guests often. Once you settle into the routine, we'll have some time to talk over the days before we drop you off."

"Now then," she continued scanning the eating crew members, "everyone is accounted for that usually comes in for this meal shift. If you are hungry, we will make two more servings for ourselves before we begin cleaning."

He nodded, realizing that the smell of all the food cooking had made his stomach take notice. He had been too distracted by conversation to finish eating most of the meals he'd had earlier. She stood back and had him cook the two servings without any assistance or comment from her and then seemed to be appraising it while she ate.

"How is it?" he asked between mouthfuls. To him, the Arckresh had looked like an omlet, but tasting it was an entirely different experience than he had expected. The meat they had added to it was very tender and had an almost smoked flavor to it. The three vegetables all had a slight crispness to them, and were mild in flavor. The other ingredient had not turned out to actually be eggs, however, and tasted more like a cross between mozzarella cheese and orange juice. She had explained that it was an 'excretion' from an animal. He fervently hoped that she meant something akin to milk. The whole thing wasn't half bad, but required a little getting used to.

"I thought for a moment there that you might overcook it, but I have to say you did rather well for your first time cooking our food," she replied.

He caught himself grinning as her expression changed to one of surprise. He quickly apologized, explaining the difference between Human and Rich'ti expressions for gladness.

"I'm still learning all the differences," he said. "So please forgive me if I make some strange gestures or had odd expressions."

"I will keep it in mind," she replied, seeming amused.

Once they had finished eating, they cleaned up the cooking area before gathering the bowls from where the other Rich'ti had left them, and washing them up. After seeing the food processor, he was surprised to find that they didn't have some marvellous machine to handle the cleanup. Instead he found they washed each dish by hand dunking them in a basin first as a rinse, then wiping over them with a strange, slightly gritty mixture that reminded him of sandy mud. Then they were dunked into two more rinse basins before being dried with a towel.

"When you're planetside, you'll find that the children get this responsibility," she explained when he asked about it. "These bowls are all wooden, which we prefer over metal wherever we can." He realized that the bowls they had used in cooking had been wooden too, and only the pan and grill had been metal. Even the wisk-like tool had been made of wood.

"We have experimented with machines to handle the washing of dishes," she continued, "but most either wasted water or dried out the wood. In the end, it has always been best to just wash them with estro," she pointed at the muddy, sandy mixture.

They took some of the time between meals to clean all the eating surfaces, wiping them down. Kevan explained that humans used mostly metal and synthetic materials--not knowing if they had a word for plastic--for cooking and serving food, and that there were machines for almost all the washing. It made it easy to ensure everything was sanitary.

"Sanitary, sterile," Rosh'tur commented, "these are cold words. We prefer wood because it makes for a more enjoyable cooking experience. If I were preparing something for a special occasion I would even be doing the cutting and chopping by hand. It makes it more special and not so... processed and artificial."

"Most of our food is rather heavily processed. It makes the whole thing faster, more consistent, and more efficient for us. Not that there's anything wrong with taking time to do something right, it's just that we tend to have too much else going on. We do have some that specialize in cooking for others, and those are prized individuals."

"So your kind don't consider food something special? I know some races just eat nutrition paste with no flavor at all."

"Well, yes, mostly we do. And for special occasions and the like especially. And flavor is certainly something we all crave. But cooking isn't something everyone takes time to be good at. Some would rather someone do the cooking for them. But it isn't always practical, so if machines and technology can reduce the preparation time to just a few minutes, that's seen as an acceptable compromise."

"Well then. Next we will take some time to prepare food for others. We will take time to do it right, because to do so shows respect for others. An enjoyable meal is a gift we can present to the crew as an unspoken way of thanking them that we aren't the ones cleaning reactor spaces, for example."

Kevan laughed, having to turn his head away to conceal the smiling in the process. He regained his composure and turned back. "I agree completely. Let's cook."

They spent the next couple of hours preparing the kruteck, which reminded Kevan of a stir-fry meal back home. As if to prove her point, Rosh'tur insisted that they do all the cutting themselves instead of using the machine. He worked, undaunted by it, and found that the even rhythm he fell into with the knife was actually somewhat relaxing.

There were eight different items that went into the kruteck, along with five different spices. Most of the ingredients were vegetables, some of which he recognized from his research. There were two different kinds of meat as well. Like a stir-fry, they started by cooking the sliced strips of meat in some sort of oil and then added the vegetables in and order that Rosh'tur specified. He noted that the only real difference to a stir-fry was that there was no rice to serve with it. When he had the chance to taste it, after everyone had been served, he found that it actually didn't taste too different from a stir-fry either. He almost thought he tasted a hint of teryiaki to it.

After they had eaten small servings themselves, they cleaned the grill and the rest of the cooking area again before collecting and washing the dishes as people finished. He noted that this time she collected the bowls directly, and that the Rich'ti knew to leave it at the table instead of stack them.

"They know we are at the end of my shift," she told him when he inquired. "When we are in the middle of the shift, we have plenty of time to wash things up in-between. At the end of the shift we have less time to clean up before the next shift begins. It is a matter of pride to never leave a mess for the next shift. I always leave a clean kitchen for them."

He made a point of working hard in the cleaning effort. It did not take long. When they finished she thanked him for his help. He thanked her for the chance to be helpful.

The next shift showed up, one male and one female. The male went out of his way to inspect everything, as if searching for some kind of human contamination. Rosh'tur left without saying anything more, and Kevan left, knowing this next shift wasn't going to find anything to complain about.

Sarsh'ta would be asleep, he decided, calculating the time in his head as he walked back to his room. It was night time on the ship. The hall lighting was dimmed. The five Rich'ti hours was nearly eight human hours. He was a bit tired out. He could sleep through this shift, and wake up with the daytime crew.

He slept what to him felt like a regular night's sleep before meeting Sarsh'ta at breakfast.

"Four more days," she informed him.

"I'm hoping to be acclimated to your day cycle by then," he said. "My shoulder and ribs are already feeling quite a bit better, so I'm hoping to be able to do some heavier exercise for the rest of the trip. Between mess hall duty and working out and time split between you and the library, I think I have plenty to occupy my time..."

"Well, there's at least one shift per day you can have me mostly for yourself," she said.

"Perfect. We'll see if I ever run out of questions for you. I have a list of them for today. Maybe we can get started on some of them while bathing?"

To his surprise, the next four days seemed to fly by. He managed to avoid any altercations with the crew, and had Sarsh'ta answer a good majority of the initial questions he'd compiled. He also found himself getting more comfortable with the bathing ritual, although he suspected that a lot of it had to do with their conversation.

He found out some more information on where he'd be staying while living on the planet. Sarsh'ta had made arrangements with her own community to host him. He found that they had an even more communal society than he had thought. He would have a room to himself, which had been adapted to include a human-styled bathroom. However, the room was off of a communal center, with other rooms that Rich'ti lived in. He compared it to human apartment buildings, but found out that sleeping and mating were really all that the Rich'ti did in their private rooms, and that wasn't always the case with mating either. The Rich'ti spent most of their day grouped with other Rich'ti, either by profession or community.

The community that Sarsh'ta was a part of wasn't the one she had grown up in, but the one she had adopted while attending school for her career. Thus, the other "Human experts" would have a chance to meet him and compare notes. He momentarily had the words lab rat run through his mind when she mentioned it, but brushed it aside. He could understand their curiosity. He felt the same himself.

The community wasn't limited to just the Human experts, however. There were also some who had other professions. Like most communities, this one included the children of the males there or males who had been raised there, and the elders who had retired. Kevan came to understand that these communities ate together, played together, and spent most of the time that wasn't specifically devoted to their careers together. Sarsh'ta told him that it would be expected for him to be a part of the community and that the elders would be available to him to explain things when she was not. She mentioned that she would have to leave from time to time to handle things at the capital with the Takor and his other advisors, in order to start finding out what kind of negotiations they were planning to initiate with the Humans through Kevan.

The last night, before they were due to arrive on the planet, Kevan spent some time compiling a report to send home. He found that there were some details he chose to leave out, to begin with, not wanting to see his own kind immediately try to exploit the already untrusting Rich'ti. He did mention their dislike for lying and deceit, and advised that his government be nothing but direct in their dealings with the race, or they would lose out on the opportunity for some advanced technology. He knew that would get their attention, and described a few of the machines he'd seen that were more advanced than his own kind had achieved so far.

He genuinely enjoyed his last work shift with Rosh'tur. They made a slightly fancier dish. It was cubes of meat dipped in something resembling honey before being rolled in a flour and spice batter and fried in oil. They were served with small wooden skewers as eating utensils.

Many of the Rich'ti had gotten used to him by now. None scowled at him. A couple females even stopped to wish him luck on his assigment. One male even said, "You are an interesting alien. Not what I expected. I do hope you aren't a spy." Kevan understood that to be the closest to a compliment he should expect from that one.

"I have enjoyed our time together, Kevan," Rosh'tur admitted when the shift was over. In the past I have had this shift alone mostly by choice. It has been a pleasure to share it with you. If the rest of your kind are like you, then there is hope for you yet."

He did not smile at her, nodding their rolling nod instead. She did not attempt any human expression, which he took as a good sign. When Sarsh'ta had attempted a smile when they first met he had taken it as a gesture of trying to make him more comfortable. Now he didn't want them trying to mimic him. He didn't want to be seen as a source of change. Bringing them new ideas and new perspectives would be fine, but the last thing he wanted was for them to perceive him as some agent of infectious change. More and more he felt as though he would be able to succeed.

Sarsh'ta had told him the time they expected to come into view of their homeworld, and agreed to take him to an observation bay where he could get a look at it from orbit. He spent the hour prior to that pulling his belongings back out of the various drawers and hammocks about the room, checking to be sure that his computer was securely nestled in its casing. He separated his dirty clothes from his clean ones, making note of which suitcase his laundry was stashed in. He dressed himself in a proper suit this time, instead of the jumpsuit he'd arrived on the ship in. He was just surveying his pile of luggage when the door chimed. He realized that Sarsh'ta was early as he opened the door panel for her to enter.

"I was going to help you pack, but it looks as if you have already finished," she said as she surveyed his efforts.

"I thought I'd get it out of the way," he replied. "I don't like to rush through things at the last minute if I can avoid it, and I wanted plenty of time to watch our approach to the planet."

"How much of a view do you want?" she asked.

"What do you mean?"

"There's plenty of areas of the ship that have windows to the outside, but the observation bay is a much larger view. There are some Rich'ti who are not comfortable with feeling that close to being out in open space."

He raised an eyebrow at that.

"I've never been out in open space myself," he admitted, "although I know that most of our ship crews are trained to handle it so they can make repairs to the ship if needed. I'd like to see what you are talking about, however. If I find myself uncomfortable with it, we can always relocate."

"Very well," she said. "Come with me then."

He followed her to another portion of the ship, one that he hadn't been in before. They went into a small, long room that he estimated would have held around twenty Rich'ti standing side-by-side. After the door had closed behind them, Sarsh'ta tapped at another panel, next to the one for the door, and the lights went out in the room. A moment later, half the room vanished and it seemed as if the room he was in had opened up into space. He could vaguely see the wall behind him, and the floor beneath him, but the wall in front of him and the ceiling seemed as if they were entirely gone. He found himself taking an instinctive step backwards before being caught up in the breathtaking view of their homeworld and it's two moons.

"No... this is good," he said, staring. The planet was blue and green striped with long, narrow strips of white and gray clouds. There were no indications of major storm centers, at least not on the visible side.

One moon, the smaller one, was in direct sun, showing a landscape of craters and mountain ranges. The other moon was larger and shaded by the planet. That moon's surface was dark gray but covered in a network of lights. He could make out what had to be cities almost sprinkled at random over the surface.

He looked back at the first. "You've only settled one of the moons? Or is it just at the other side of it?"

"That one is unstable physically. The settled one is mineral rich and has no atmosphere and less gravity. Most of our heavy industry is located there where there is no environment to damage. Toxic chemicals can be used and buried there without affecting anything. "

A group of ships approached. Most were of similar flying-wedge shapes, and all appeared larger. The lead ship looked almost like two ships put together perpendicularly, creating a cross shape seen head on. It was noticeably larger than the others.

"That is Agronet's flagship," Sarsh'ta explained. As the ship drew closer he was better able to judge its actual size. It was big. The human fleet had a couple of dreadnoughts about the same size, and only maybe three fighter carries that might have been slightly larger.

A shuttle came around from the back of it and started approaching. "The shuttle will take us to the planet. Agronet will accompany us and will be with us for your formal presentation. We should go meet him at the shuttle hangar," she said.

He blinked as the view behind him suddenly disappeared, replaced with the dark gray wall he'd seen on that side of the room when he'd entered. He now noticed that the whole side of the room seemed to be made up of tiny pieces of something that looked similar to a smoked glass. He wondered briefly how it worked.

"What about my belongings?" he asked as they left the room.

"They will be brought to the shuttle and then unloaded for you when we arrive where you'll be staying," she replied. "We will make a stop at the capital first, for your formal introduction to our leader and his other advisors. It will be brief, I'm sure. After that, we will go to where you will be living."

They stopped off at what seemed like a small office, to Kevan, to drop off their crew bracelets before going to one of the shuttle hangars. He had no way of knowing if it was the same hangar he had arrived in or not, as it looked identical.

Agronet stood off to one side, conferring with another Rich'ti that Kevan had not seen before. He saw two other Rich'ti maneuvering hovering carts that carried Kevan's luggage and some other crate-like boxes on them.

Unlike human shuttles, which often resembled ancient human aircraft by having slight wings and fins for aerodynamics when maneuvering within atmospheres, the Rich'ti shuttle looked more like a huge bullet. or a giant suppository, he thought wryly. It was the same black, metallic material that the ships were made of, and was like a shorter version of the tubes from the sections of the ship, but came to a point at both ends. Round hatchways in the sides opened up and ramps extended down out of them for easier loading. Sarsh'ta led him to one of the hatches where he was surprised to see what looked like fur-covered bucket seats in it. It was the first he'd seen of anything chair-like in Rich'ti culture.

"It is for the safety of the passengers," Sarsh'ta told him when he inquired. "I understand your kind do this as well."

"Yes, but it's the first time I've seen seating like this," he replied, realizing he didn't know a word for 'chair' in Rich'ti.

"We do not find it to be as comfortable, so we do not make a habit of it," she replied.

Their conversation came to an end as Agronet boarded the shuttle, with two more Rich'ti that Kevan didn't recognize. The two new Rich'ti took positions, one at either end of the shuttle, in what looked like pilot's seats. Agronet took one of the passenger seats. As the shuttle's engines powered up, and the hatchways closed, padded bars slid into place across his legs, stomach, and shoulders. He noted that the bars rested across legs, hips, and chest normally. He suspected that his shorter stature might result in injury if the shuttle were to actually get in some sort of an accident.

He closed his eyes for a moment as he felt the shift of the shuttle moving out of the hangar. He was disappointed that there were no visible windows in the shuttle, until he noticed discs similar to the ones he'd seen in the observation bay.

"Would it be possible to watch our descent?" he asked Sarsh'ta.

"Of course," she tapped at a console between them and the discs became panels of vivid window-like view. He let the beauty of the planet occupy his whirling mind as they moved closer to the planet, trying to wash away the worry over what would happen when he finally reached the Rich'ti homeworld.