“And boring,” Ene said.
“Ene,” the captain reprimanded sternly.
“Sorry,” the girl apologized, but I caught her furtively roll her eyes the very next moment.
“We’re identical twins.” Mara pursed her lips, taking the seat at the head of the table, on the opposite end of the captain’s. “So, what’s for dinner?” she asked, clearly trying to change the subject.
The captain returned to the grill.
“We’re having cauldron dinner tonight!” Xilvo announced excitedly.
“Cauldron?” She curled her mouth, looking puzzled.
“Mara, this is Xilvo,” I introduced the boy, since no one else had. “And this is Ivex, Illal, and Ene.”
“Sure. Nice to meet you all.” She waved in their general direction.
The captain opened the grill, and I stepped to the counter.
“Do you need help setting the table?” I asked. There was nothing but a glossy tablecloth on the tabletop.
“No need.” He removed the lid from the kettle. An appetizing aroma wafted from the dish.
“Smells good,” I said.
Xilvo bounced in his seat impatiently. “I love Dad’s cauldron dinners!”
With a grunt, the captain heaved the huge kettle off the grill, then carried it to the table. Here, he turned it over and dumped its contents straight onto the tablecloth.
With a startled gasp, Mara shrank back. I just stood there, staring at various sized creatures spilling from the cauldron. Some looked like clams, or rocks, others had legs and tails, all slathered in a thick, creamy-red sauce that smelled...delicious.
“Yum!” Xilvo grabbed something that looked like a giant pill bug with a flat segmented body and several long, skinny legs.
“Xilvo, wait for everyone to join,” his father stopped him.
The boy dropped the bug back on the table and furtively licked the sauce off his fingers.
“Is this a joke?” Mara jumped to her feet. “This is just...”
Her face paled as she glanced at the pile of “food” on the table, then turned away, pressing a hand to her stomach. Clutching her throat with another hand, she ran out of the kitchen.
I felt like following her. The slimy pile on the table looked inedible, no matter how great it smelled.
The captain’s expression darkened. The children stared after my sister, confusion clear on their little faces.
It occurred to me, this might be the first time they ever had a human for dinner. Stefan never stayed long enough to have it with them.
The dish wasn’t a joke or a prank. This was what they ate. And they kindly invited us to share it with them.
The captain silently turned around and took the empty pot to the water feature to wash it. The kids just sat there, staring at the food but making no attempt to eat.
If they waited for Mara to return, they’d be sitting here for a very long time, growing hungrier. She wasn’t coming back.
It was awkward and gloomy, and I couldn’t leave them like that. The best I could do in this situation was to eat a damn bug myself.
At the very least, I could try.
“It smells so good.” I took the seat vacated by Mara. “Do we eat using our hands?”
“Yes.” Xilvo perked up. He grabbed again the bug he’d dropped. “I’ll show you.”
He folded the bug’s flat body lengthwise, cracking the outer skeleton, then pulled a slab of white flesh out. It looked flat like a pancake and flaky like fish. Xilvo tore off a piece.
“Then you dip it.” He dunked the piece into the sauce spreading in a puddle on the tablecloth. “And eat it.” He stuffed the meat into his mouth and chewed, closing his eyes. “Mmmm. The best!”
The captain finished washing the pot and now watched us from his spot by the sink.
“All right. Let’s see.” I picked a bug out of the pile.
Come to think of it, it didn’t look any more repulsive than a crab or a lobster. It was just gray outside, instead of red.
I crushed its shell, like Xilvo had done to get to the white meat inside. Once it was out of the exoskeleton with all those legs and antennae, it looked like an ordinary piece of fish, or a flat lobster tail. I tore a strip off and dipped it into the sauce.
It tasted even better than it smelled. The flavor must come from the sauce, not from the meat. Either way, it was good.
“Mmm.” I mimicked Xilvo’s expression, utterly surprised by how much I liked the taste of the dish. “It is good.”
“Your sister doesn’t know what she’s missing,” the boy observed pragmatically, tearing another piece from his “pancake.”
“Right, she doesn’t.” I smiled, dipping the next piece into the sauce. “Maybe I’ll take her some later.”
The captain returned to the table and took his seat. The other children started eating too, with crunching and munching sounds coming from every direction.
My hands were quickly covered in sauce up to my wrists, as I dug for more “bugs” in the pile and crushed them to get the tender white meat out.
“You have sauce on your nose.” Illal pointed at my face.
If I used my hand to wipe it off, I’d make it worse. I wiped my nose with my forearm instead, then licked the sauce off my arm.
My gaze crossed with the captain’s on the other end of the table. This was by far the least “classy” dinner I’d ever attended. But it was possibly the most fun. I giggled and shrugged, crushing another bug.
The captain watched me with an amused expression.
Xilvo picked up a round shell-rock from the pile. “Do you know how to eat this, Susanna?” The boy obviously had taken the role of my guide this evening.
“No. What are those?”
“Qualis mussels. You take them like this...” He gripped each half of the round shell with one hand. “Then wiggle them a little.” He rotated his hands in opposite directions. The halves of the shell fell open, revealing a gray core. Its wrinkly surface reminded me of the human brain. Or a walnut. Depending on how one looked at it. “Want to try it?” Xilvo offered the core to me.
I decided to think of it as a walnut not a brain. Dipping it in the sauce, I took a bite. The texture was denser with this one, but the sauce made it taste just as delicious.
“It’s good.” I smiled.
“I told you.” The boy nodded confidently. “Dad’s cauldron dinners are the best.”
The captain listened with one of his crooked half-smiles while effortlessly crushing the shells in his giant hands.
There wasn’t much to clean after dinner but our hands. The captain had already washed the pot. He just wrapped the empty shells into the dirty tablecloth and put the whole thing into the garbage shoot.
“Where does the garbage go?” I asked, watching him.
“In the composter below. It’s then used to enrich the soil for the plants to grow.”
“Oh, the tablecloth is biodegradable, then?”
He arched a brow ridge. “Isn’t everything?”
On Aldrai, it appeared it was.
As the captain was putting away a few leftover mussels and “bugs,” I asked if I could have one. I then cracked it, sliced the meat into thin strips, and put some sauce in a small dish before taking it to Mara’s room.
She sat on her bed, dressed in her silk pajamas, a cleansing mask smeared on her face.
“What’s this?” She eyed the plate suspiciously.
“Dinner.” I handed it to her.
As far as food went, Mara had the endurance of a monk and could go for weeks sustained by nothing but vitamin shakes or vegetable juice if she suspected she’d gained a pound. But this was a new planet. Our bodies had gone through a lot already, and I honestly didn’t remember the last time any food had passed her lips.
“You need to eat,” I insisted.
She wrinkled her nose. “Please don’t tell me it came from that pot.”
I didn’t say that. I knew my sister. She had the willpower to fast for days as part of the many diets she had done in her life, and now was not the time for that.
Instead, I brought the dish to my nose and smelled it with an expression of utter pleasure on my face.
“It’s really good,” I said. “Try it. It tastes very much like the lobster from that French restaurant where we had lunch with Petra, the German heiress, remember?”
She lifted a strip between her fingers, then took a tentative bite.
“Not bad. Fine, you can leave it here.”