For What We are About to Receive
"Just what did you put in this, Vila?"
"I didn't," he said with the outraged innocence of someone caught with their hand in the till.
Tarrant silently pointed a fork at the bowl of lumpy, unnervingly pink stew in front of him, then at Vila's plate with its virtuously plain waxweed sandwiches.
"I didn't - well, yes I did. But I didn't want to."
"What did you put in it?"
"It was -" he looked around to see who wasn't here, "- Cally's idea, really!"
"But what is it?"
Dayna was happily chewing her way through an especially chewy piece of something. "It's good, Tarrant. Just eat it."
Tarrant frowned at her, then looked away quickly as she speared another piece of the something, and stared down at his own. "It's got thorns, Vila."
"Spines, probably," the cook mumbled.
"What was that?"
"I said s'fine. Cally thinks humans need to eat more meat."
"Any meal without meat is a waste of digestive juices," Avon drawled, wandering in in search of coffee. "You've all heard her say so."
"We have," Dayna agreed cheerfully, tearing off one of the thorny spines. Tarrant suppressed a shudder, grateful once again that Avon had forbidden Sarran recipes to be uploaded into Zen.
"Repeatedly," Vila stared down at his dully virtuous plateful, and wondered if he could sneak a soma to make it less virtuous.
"And in far more detail than anyone needs to hear," Tarrant grumbled. "So just what did you put in this, Vila?"
"What do you think?" Vila edged his chair away as he spoke. "Cally doesn't believe in wasting fresh meat, and the only fresh meat we've seen for weeks..."
"Is -?" Dayna looked up. "We haven't been anywhere but - Kairos..."
Her eyes narrowed.
Tarrant's eyes widened, and he dropped his knife into the stew, which splashed sludgily at him.
Avon's eyes gleamed with what, in someone else, might have been laughter.
"It's very good for you, Tarrant," Cally spoke coolly from behind them, "spider stew is very healthy, very lean and almost fat-free. You don't eat enough protein. I've noticed, and I'm getting tired of nursing people who don't look after themselves."
"But - but Cally -"
"Just eat it." She took up her own bowl and turned to go back to the flight deck, and fixed a glare on Vila. "You too, and you," at her not so fearless leader, whose eyes didn't look like laughing any more. "Finish it, and we'll have spider soup tomorrow."
There was a silence as she left.
"Avon," Vila said slowly, looking at the stew as if he thought it would climb out and eat him, "you remember that place that grew tropical fruits before the war."
"Just tropical fruit and nothing else," Tarrant nodded. "Or almost nothing else."
"Palmero. Yes, I remember..."
"Just a thought, you know but - if we're foraging for food instead of fighting the Federation now - d'you want to find a reason to go there next?"
Though when they finally gave in, gave up, and ate it with kumquats from Palmero - and a lot of Soma to wash it down - they found out that Dayna was right.
Spider stew was very, very chewy - and good.
-the end-