Hard Luck Hermit

Farsus enjoyed many things about the Wild Card Wanderer compared to the Hermit, but what he liked most was the kitchen. The extra storage space for more tools allowed him to create more varied, and more elaborate, meals -a worthy endeavor for any man of culture. It also gave him room to work when there were other people in the kitchen, even Doprel.

“Farsus. What’s cooking?”

“A variation on a recipe I acquired from the human ambassador,” Farsus said. “Heavily modified, naturally, to accommodate the different tools and resources available to me, but it should be a rough approximation of a human dish called ‘Peking duck’.”

Peking Vorvid Mountain-Fowl, to be more exact, but a bird was a bird. Farsus vaguely recalled earth chickens having only two wings, but he was pretty sure the extra four would not affect the taste too much.

“More human food, huh? You’ll have to let me know how it tastes.”

“I shall endeavor to try,” Farsus said. Due to his different biology, Doprel could not eat the same food as the rest of the crew, nor did he have any direct comparisons on taste. Farsus was the only one with the linguistic skills to describe what their food tasted like in a way that made sense to Doprel. “Did you want to make use of the kitchen, in the meantime?”

“No, I’m fine,” Doprel said. His mandibles clicked slowly. “I don’t have much of an appetite right now.”

“You looked at the pictures.”

“I looked at the pictures,” Doprel admitted. His curiosity had become too much to bear. “I’m not usually that bothered by gore with you guys, but that…”

Doprel’s alien anatomy also made it a little harder to empathize with physical pain. He had no idea what it felt like to have a broken bone or a torn muscle, so seeing such things didn’t spark a reaction in him. Even so, the brutality he’d seen in those crime scene photos had shaken Doprel to his core. He’d crushed people to death with his bare hands, but that was at least quick, if messy. The things he’d seen in the photos had been deliberate, meticulous, and according to the reports, very slow.

“It is difficult to imagine how or why someone would choose such methods,” Farsus agreed. “The eyes alone-”

“Don’t,” Doprel said. His mandibles twitched with discomfort. “I don’t want to think about it.”

“Perhaps we should restate a warning to the rest of the crew,” Farsus said. “I would hate for Corey or Tooley’s curiosity to get the better of them.”

Kamak had the good sense to not stick his nose where it didn’t belong, but Farsus worried about the other two.

“We need to do more than warn them about the pictures, we need to- I don’t ever want to meet who did that,” Doprel said. “If this is really about us, connected to us, at all...what if they come after us next?”

“We will see. But I am not so afraid of them targeting us,” Farsus said. “Loben was a fool, a coward, and a weakling. We are far more capable of defending ourselves.”

“I don’t know if that’s going to be good enough,” Doprel admitted.

“Then be better,” Farsus said. “Be vigilant, not fearful. Panic only hurts us.”

“It’s hard not to be a little panicked when I’ve seen a man with his skin peeled off,” Doprel said. Just thinking about it made his spiracles quiver. “I just can’t stop thinking about that happening to one of you guys.”

“Even in the worst case scenario, that is unlikely,” Farsus said. “If someone wished to kill us, they would simply do so, not show their hand by eliminating someone unrelated first.”

“That’s...comforting. In an uncomfortable way.”

“Kamak is currently warning our known associates, and the universal authorities are on the lookout,” Farsus said. “We are taking precautions as best we can, and, with any luck, Kamak’s theory that this is an isolated incident will prove true.”

“I sure hope so.”

“Hoping is all we can do, at the current time,” Farsus said. “For now, you would benefit from a distraction. Wash your hands and help me season this bird.”

***

“Hot damn,” Kamak said. “Corey, you didn’t tell me Earth had food this good.”

“This is from another continent,” Corey said between mouthfuls. “I’ve never had this before in my life.”

“Well as soon as Earth is cleared for visitors, you’re taking us to that continent,” Tooley said, as she gnawed on a mouthful of Peking “Duck”. “If it’s this good made by a first-timer, I want to see how good the real deal is.”

She finished off her piece of the bird and then chomped down on the bone to suck out the marrow. Out of curiosity, Corey tried to gnaw on the bone and could not manage to even crack it. Sometimes he forgot Tooley was a natural carnivore.

“Not to temper your excitement, but remember that I was forced to improvise much of the recipe,” Farsus said. “While the techniques are similar, the ultimate flavor may be entirely different than the real deal.”

“Maybe you and Yìhán can do a cookoff,” Corey suggested. “We can see how it compares.”

“As long as I’m the one doing the comparing,” Kamak said.

“That is actually an excellent idea,” Farsus said. “I should contact her-”

His datapad buzzed with a notification before he had the chance to grab it. By the time it was in his hand, a second notification had come through. Then a third. Kamak’s buzzed next, then Corey’s, then Tooley’s, then Doprel’s, and in moments they were sitting in the middle of a storm of notifications.

“Oh no.”