Food : A Universal Language

Posted on Tue Jul 3rd, 2018 @ 9:03am by Captain Remas McDonald & Lieutenant Commander Shadi Zatra

1,619 words; about a 8 minute read

Mission: S1:3: Myriad Problems
Location: Porkies Fine Dining To The Stars, RecDeck.
Timeline: MD 1 18.30

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Steamrolled from the open serving hatch of the kitchen, and the medtech recoiled from the spiced smoke with a look of disgust on her prim and proper face.

“What I’m talking-” she screwed up her face, eye-watering from the aerosolized cayenne pepper, and held up an admonishing finger to the cloud. “...WHAT I’M TALKING ABOUT! I have had two people in sickbay pass out drunk after trying your ‘miraculous space chilli’. And you say you don’t know what I’m talking about?”

A gut rippling belly laughs echoed from the kitchen, as the door opened and the proprietor exited with a large pot in both stubby arms. He was a pig. It wasn’t a slur, just a fact that to the untrained eye Percival Porcine did indeed look very piggish. Short, wide, stout, rotund: these were but words the jolly chef would apply to himself. His snout was bristled with white whiskers, and his eyes were park orbs set deep in his skull giving him a perpetual squinting gaze.

He set the bowl down on a heating mat, and turned to reveal the stretched shirt logo of ‘Porkies! Fine Dining To The Stars’. You’d be mistaken in thinking there was a chain of Porkies Eateries across the spiral arm. There were two, one on Starbase 1 and one here on the USS Traveller. He smiled at the MedTech, and gestured to the bowl of deep red bubbling chilli.

“I don’t know what to tell ya. I use only the finest ingredients, grown by the ships hydroponics bays. And even the meat that I use is replicated from ships matter stockpile, so it’s nutritionally balanced for all dietary needs. Not even meat really, given the ship gone printed it out of thin air.” he said, scratching a fold of skin before planting his trotters on his hips. “What I cook here in my little eatery is hearty, healthy, wholesome and filled with love.”

“I’m sure you misspelt rum.” the MedTech shot back, and then held out an item she had unfolded from her belt.

“What’s that?” Percival asked, leaning closer to let his poor eyes look at the item.

“A bowl. I want to sample your ‘miraculous space chilli’ for myself,” she said cold enough to make Percival step back to protect the chilli from icing over.

“I ain’t running a science lab here,” he began to say, before noticing someone entering his restaurant on the RecDeck.

“I even brought a spoon,” she said, flicking her hand and allowing the utility untenable to unfold from her multi-tool along with a microspectrometer.

“Well, you’re in for a treat. I’ll have someone come out in a second and give you a generous serving,” he said, and stepped around the fuming medical tech and walked to the front of the restaurant. He smiled wide, revealing slight tusks, and spread his arms wide in greeting.“Shadi! My you look as ravishing as always, but I’m pretty sure you’re still on duty so I cannot but wonder why you have come to Porkies this fine day?”

Shadi missed the exchange between Percival and the blueshirt; she had been all eyes for Mazarin, who slithered along arm-in-arm next to her. Upon Percival's greeting, she extricated herself from the strong coils and met the man in a sweaty embrace.

"Percy!" she hissed with glee through closed eyes. "We have a ssspecial guest today!" She withdrew a step to introduce her new friend. "This is Mazarin from the Myriad vessel. We're supposed to show him the sights, and not exchange intelligence. I couldn't think of anywhere better than Porkies'!"

Mazarin flicked his tongue through a curved mouth. His keen emerald-filled obsidian eyes took in every motion, his smooth and earless head inclined at every sound. Percival's argument with the MedTech had been all but impossible to ignore.

"I am told you are a purveyor of meats," he said at length.

"Sir, I mean no affrontery to your words but you have been fed a falsehood. A lie! A terrible slander!" Percival roared, before grinning wide with merry joy in his eyes. "I bring you spiced meats that will make your mouth water, meats that have aged, cured, and prepared to a likin' that young Shadi here prefers. Now I dopn't rightly have a chair for you, given you seem to be new and all...huum."

He waddled over to a LCAR's panel and using a rubber tipped stylus typed out a series of commands. Within a moment a holographic chair had appeared near one of the tables, more of a slide with padded rests for arms and legs along its length.

"Now, you tell me if that's to your likin' and then I'll go out back and get to preppin'."

Mazarin sprung upon the sliding lounge chair and coiled around it three times before coming to perch in a scaly pile. "It is satisfactory."

The slithering, sensual display made Shadi quiver in all the right places, and perhaps a few of the wrong ones.

"P-percy..." she stammered as she came back to herself. "Bring us some smoked vole and pickled Ceti eel larvae." She slurped her tongue at Mazarin. "Trust me, you'll love it."

The serpentine visitor flicked his forked tongue back at Shadi. "I will try anything once," he said. "More than once, if amenable."

Percy trotted away and left the dragon and the salamander to do whatever it is they do. Percy's Fine Eatery was not exactly first or second date material. Maybe it didn't even rank as a plan B for a failed date. But it was quiet even on an evening.

Quiet, that is, until now.

Voices echoed into the eatery.

"I mean it! I smell dragons!"

"Shut the hell up, Meth. If I've told you once, I've told you a thousand times! There's no such thing as--"

A robust and hairy Amican barged into Porkies with a smaller Ktarian reluctantly on his heels. Both of them laid eyes on Shadi and Mazarin.

"Oh," said the Ktarian.

"See, Hayk?!" shouted the Amican called Meth. He jumped up and down as he pointed. "I told you I smell dragons!"

"Well, fuck me running," muttered Hayk the Ktarian. "You were right this time. Now stop pointing before you make it angry and it decides to make a pork pie out of you."

Hayk heard his own words echoed back in his ears. "Strike that. Keep pointing, and maybe growl a bit."

There was no response from Mazarin, aside from the flick of his tongue as he observed these uncanny creatures.

"Exxxcuse them," Shadi hissed in embarrassment. "They... were just leaving." She glared at them and spoke through gritted teeth. They were being a bigger buzzkill than the Vulcan who had accompanied them. At least she had the good sense to keep quiet!

Meth's eyes bulged out. "But we just got here! I'm hungry!"

"Did I hear someone say the magic word?!"

Percival returned with a large tray held in his trotters, upon which were small plates of glistening tissues in a variety of colours and spices. He frowned at Meth and Hayk, and nodded at a table on the far side of the restaurant.

"I thought I gone tell you two you're only allowed in here when Meth's wearing a bib! I know we work on a ship with near enough unlimited power, but I got mop twice as hard when that fella gets his craving's on..." he sniffed, his snout twitching. "You two did remember to wash up before you came here? Cause I can smell the decomposition."

Meth sat with his soiled and stained bib wrapped around his burly belly. Dried chunks of meat clung to it like mold on bread. In fact, there may have been some of that as well.

"Oh my god of shit, Meth! When's the last time you washed that thing?" Hayk pinched his nose in disgust.

"I was going to," Meth shamefully whined, "but then I thought I could roll in it first. Back home when I was a pup, my mum--"

"Nobody cares about why your bitch mother let you roll in your own refuse, Meth!" Hayk's angry voice sounded nasally through his pinched nose. He pointed toward the rear of the establishment. "Now go throw that shit in the reclamation chute and put another one on before the ship's sensors label you a weaponized biohazard. So help me, if that happens I will put you in the incinerator myself."

Meth's eyes grew large and svelte as his whine turned to a persistent whimper.

"Nothing doing, Meth." Hayk resolutely crossed his arms.

The whimper picked up its tempo a staccato beat of pathetic bitching.

"I mean it, Meth!" Hayk raised his fist which was still half a meter shy of Meth's face. "Throw that culture-ridden bib down the disposal or I'll throw you with it."

"Fine!" Meth wandered back to the reclamation chute with his tail between his legs.

"I'm sorry you had to be party to that," Hayk said to the others.

But Shadi and her guest were gone.

"I wasn't that attached to the 3-star food hygiene score," Percival sighed, and then noticed his two prized guests were gone. "Aww dammit, it all to hell! Is it wrong I hope that big old mutt chokes? Does that make a bad person?"

There a thud from behind him, and Percival turned to find the MedTech who had come in full of bluster and scorn was face down on the table, her left hand buried in the half-eaten bowl of chilli.

"...Make that 1 star now."

 

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