Chapter Nine

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My first meal on the Pinion felt exactly as excruciating as the first lunch at a new school. By the time I had navigated us back to the mess hall, with a stop by my quarters to retrieve the cooler bag containing my food, the other crew members had already gathered and were eating their meals. As I entered, carrying my neatly packaged lunch on a tray, there was a noticeable hitch in the flow of conversation and the soft clatter of cutlery against plates. For an instant I stood frozen at the intersection of nine different gazes, some indifferent, some unfriendly.

With an equally noticeable effort, the crew of the Pinion collectively went back to what they had been doing before I arrived. There were three tables in the mess hall, but only two of them were occupied. I followed Zey to a pair of vacant seats at the nearer table, trying not to drop anything on the way. Maybe I shouldn't have been so quick to veto Max's idea about eating in my quarters.

I put my tray down and settled onto the low stool beside Zey. Opposite me was the dark-haired programming specialist, Sohra, who smiled warmly when I caught her eye. At the other end of the table were the man who'd called me a nivakhVethna?—and the operations officer, Khiva. Vethna met my curious look with a challenging stare. I glanced away quickly. He didn't like humans, or he didn't like me, I wasn't sure which. It was a question to be answered. Later. I fixed my eyes on my tray and didn't look up again until I'd finished the turkey and avocado sandwich and the fruit salad—no honeydew, extra mango—that Max had packed for me. Still unsatisfied, I emptied my bag of trail mix directly into the yogurt that was meant to have been my afternoon snack and devoured that too. When I tore open the bag of trail mix something fluttered out of it: a scrap of paper. I picked it up. It was a handwritten note. Food is life, it said. Bon appetit. Max. I smiled.

As the signals of satiation reached my body, I began to relax. I'd let myself get too hungry. I was going to have to be careful about that. I looked around the mess hall with renewed interest. It was a trove of cultural data, from the fine wood grain of the table—real or synthetic?—to the oddly shaped Vardeshi cutlery to the food itself. Zey had left some of his portion untouched, and I studied it curiously. It looked like black rice with green stew ladled on top of it. Pushed to one side was what I took to be a garnish, thin slices of something yellow and radish-like. None of it looked especially appetizing to me, but my companions had eaten heartily. As I watched, Zey picked up the long-handled triangular spoon next to his plate and scooped up another bite. "What is that?" I asked.

"A spoon," he said thickly through the mouthful of food.

I laughed. This triggered another of those little pauses as everyone at my table—and probably most of the people at the next one—darted quick assessing looks in my direction. I tried to ignore them. "No, I know what a spoon is. What are you eating?"

"Oh. It's—" He rattled off a couple of words I didn't recognize.

"I have no idea what that means."

Sohra spoke up. "It's a cooked grain. And a soup with vegetables and . . . a type of seed that's high in protein."

I pulled out my notebook and lifted it inquiringly. She took it and the pen I handed her and began to write. "Are you vegetarian?" I asked while she worked.

"When we're starside we don't eat much meat, but it's for practical reasons, not philosophical. Meat is harder to process and store, and it can't be produced on board ship." Sohra nodded at her plate. "All of this was grown in the Pinion's hydroponics bay." She passed the notebook back.

"Hydroponics?" I said to Zey. "I don't remember seeing that."

"We can swing by before the evening briefing." He rose and picked up his tray. "Let's go. We have a lot to do."

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