Chameleon Chapter 6

“I don’t like leaving Vaughn here,” Jackson said.

“Isn’t he safer here than on the ship?”

“I suppose so, but the elements here are not as honest as they should be. How about this?”

Tom and Rianya stopped in front of a storefront on the restaurant deck of the space station. People, and others, aliens, crowded the walkway, wandered in and out of doors and halls, some fast, some slow, one of them bumped into Tom; he checked his pockets to be sure his credentials hadn’t been lifted.

“What do they serve?” she asked.

“Let’s find out.” He ushered her in, out of the corridor of crazy, and a soft illumination calmed his nerves. A strong scent of salt, onions, butter, and baking bread unmistakably wafted from the kitchen to the foyer. They waited for service. Tom picked up a menu written in a scribe he didn’t recognize. He rifled through a few until he found one translated into English.

Beginnings:

Grilled green squash and caviar

Triticale biscuits with caldig jam

Quail eggs, raw or cooked to order

Entrees:

Poultry on bread with spices

Egg sandwich with pickled scratch

Moon trout with fruit sauce

Endings:

Grapefruit ice with carbonated sweet wine

“This looks exotic,” Rianya said. “You think she will mind?”

“The Squidling? No, as long as you enjoy it.”

“Welcome to Europa,” a furry Kiian male said, toddling up to them with open arms. He wasn’t much taller than Honey, which didn’t stop him from moving hastily. “I have a table for two by the window if you prefer to look out, or one in the center if the view is disturbing for you.”

Tom and Rianya conferred with a glance and agreed on the window table. AS they made themselves comfortable the furry fellow continued his chatter in English, very good English to be honest.

“Servings are on the menu. Choose one from the Beginnings, one from the Entrees, and all go well with our grapefruit sorbet and sparkling wine desert. Jena will be here to get your selections in a moment. Water?” Another Kiian brought water to the table, and from a collection in the box he carried, he laid out forks and napkins for them.

“Yes, thank you,” Tom told him, knowing that water was precious and asking to avoid waste was as normal on Novissimus as it was on Earth.

“I would not have guessed that sitting close to a window would bother anyone,” Rianya said, looking out at the Milky Way. “So many stars.”

“Sure. You’ve seen how people don’t want to walk on the transparent part of Maria Mitchell’s bridge at the bow. Not everyone here is a seasoned pro like you.”

“Or you. So, tell me about Vaughn. Why are you so obsessed with him?”

Tom was sure that wasn’t an innocent question. Her voice was too assured, as if she already knew the answer. Maybe he was being paranoid, but maybe not.

“I don’t think obsession is the right word. Concerned, perhaps. After all, he’s the proof of human time travel. I know other species claim to have done it, but this is the first time we have a quantum dated ship and preserved body as evidence.”

“I think it’s time we let it go. It’s caused so much trouble.” Tom couldn’t argue with that. The extinction of a sentient species, the near extinction of a second species, the near death of Rianya, and the DNA secret Tom carried. He had an heir with Honey and it translated down several generations to Vaughn. He still couldn’t explain how his own and Honey’s genes were found in the time traveler. It spooked Tom.

“Gladly.” He tasted the water.  It was distinctly dead water, sterilized and demineralized and barely cool, a lot like the water on the ship. When he put the glass down, Rianya’s beautiful eyes were drilling a hole in him. “What’s wrong?”

“Is time for truth between us,” she whispered. Tom’s stomach leapt into his throat. He threw up his armor of confidence, with a little extra measure of swagger.

“Okay,” he said, feigning innocence with a shrug of ignorance.

“Doctor Adams and I were talking about the baby, how our babies will all be girls, if there are anymore, and he showed me something by accident.”

Had Doc broken his confidence? Was she guessing? He maintained his well-practiced façade of dispassion, shaking his head.

“Your DNA sequences are part of Vaughn’s.” Tom froze, knowing one wrong look, breath, or twitch might be his last. “Did you know that?”

“Did I know?” He had to decide fast: a lie, the truth, or somewhere in between? Think! If she had talked to Adams, about the new baby, she only found out in the last month or two.

“I didn’t know until Doc told me. I never thought to bring it up.”

“You never thought… Truth?”

“I didn’t want to alarm you, okay?” A Kiian waddled up with an expectant face. “Biscuits and jam,” he said quickly, hoping the furry fellow would be on his way.

“Alarm me? What’s to be alarmed about?”

“Stop interrogating me,” he said. “I haven’t done anything but stay silent about it.” He wanted to reach out to her but he could barely breathe. He rubbed at the back of his neck, every clink and jangle of dishware in the restaurant intensified with the silence.

“He said we only have girls, and Vaughn’s DNA is from your side.”

“Doc could be wrong. Maybe we’ll have a boy.”

“My DNA is not there. I’m not part of Vaughn’s ancestry, just you. And a boy.”

“I can’t give you an explanation. I haven’t a clue. I don’t have any other children. Just Zalara and the little squid. That’s it.” She hadn’t mentioned Honey York’s DNA as part of Vaughn’s sequences. Perhaps Doc hadn’t spilled the whole apple cart.

“Here is your desire,” the Kiian said. Tom startled at the voice behind him.

“I need some coffee,” he said to the steward. The urgency in his voice was reflected in the Kiian’s eyes.

“Yes, sir, coming up!”

“Why you not tell me?” Tom forced his shoulders down and took a long breath, let it out slowly, and pinched his temples together with one hand. If he could have somehow rubbed the expression off his face, he might be able to look her square in the eyes. He physically felt his pulse under his hand.

“Because I didn’t want to upset you. Doc doesn’t know when or how, and it could be something as simple as the malaria vaccine crisis.”  She sat back and raised her brows at him, whether in surprise, shock, or disbelief he couldn’t tell. “Most likely, since I never had the vaccine, I might be recruited for donations to the gene pool.”

“What?”

“It’s like when we gave Dr. Clarke what she needed to make the embryos, in the lab…?” He watched her recalling the memory from so many years past. “They need unaffected people to expand the gene pool. I don’t have any other reasonable hypothesis.”

“Evolution?”

“Not entirely. For instance, a small gene pool in Africa resulted in high incidence of albinism. Genes need to be mixed up, and we all have mutations. Mutations that help you live longer and have more kids, based on your environment, are needed. Think of Zalara. She can heal people by mixing her stem cells with someone’s injury. That is an advantage.”

“It takes some of her life, though.”

“Most certainly.”

The waiter returned with Tom’s coffee.

“Have you decided on your entrée for tonight?” Tom tipped the privilege to Rianya with a nod.

“Moon trout,” she said.

“Excellent choice. Of course, all choices here are excellent, but that is one of my favorite dishes.” He looked at them both. When neither replied he scurried off.

“It will not surprise me if on Earth, as the smoke clears from the gene mess, people will be recruited to add unaffected DNA back into the population.”

“You humans and your messing with things.” She looked out the window as the space station began to move into the dark side of the planet. “Hasn’t the modern world already thrown a wrench in natural evolution?”

“But what other explanation could it be, Vaughn having my DNA?” he posed. Was she going to mention Honey? He couldn’t imagine, under any circumstance, that he had done anything to procreate with a girl that could, in practicality, be his granddaughter. She was eight. He was, well, he was fifty something. He’d stopped counting a year or two ago.

Rianya took a sip of water but didn’t volunteer any conversation. She took one of the biscuits and mashed it into the shallow bowl of vibrant red jam then took a large bite.

“I imagine that will have to be satisfactory,” she said. His relief was evident when his blood began to circulate and the tips of his fingers defrosted. “Is that why you’re so attached to Vaughn? He is your ancestor?”

“I’m his ancestor. He is born in the future. And, yes, I have to admire what he tried to do, even if it appears it turned out badly for the Eta Cassiopeia system. The Plague was so devastating on Earth it was like the malaria vaccine. It came from the invading Mongols, and ran through Europe so fast, a third of the people perished, millions. It set back human progress. It defined an era, the ‘Dark Ages’.”

“He thought he could change history from eight hundred years before he was born?”

“The logs support that theory. Seems the cure didn’t match the bacteria of the time. The fact that he and his shipmates caught it and couldn’t cure it, even with the technology to time travel, shows you how virulent it was.”

“They probably didn’t bring a virologist back in time with them. Maybe they should have.”

“In their case, a disease wiped them out. In our case, the prevention of a disease is wiping us out.”

“Moon Trout, with sautéed zoo’kinni, roasted infant Earth tubers, and a rare sauce made from Earth fruit called plums.” The waiter set two plates on the table, and as he’d described, a whole fish, baby potatoes, and zucchini stared back at them. Especially the fish.

“Um,” Tom began, closing his eyes. “Please take these dishes back to the kitchen and remove their heads. I can’t eat something while it’s looking at me.”

“It’s no longer alive; we thoroughly cook them to kill parasites. It can’t look at you. This way you know it’s fresh.”

“Thank you, but remove the heads anyway.” The Kiaan’s ever-present smile became a straight line as he picked up the plates. Rianya shuddered. Tom felt a chill down his back.

“Even when we were on your planet and eating everything in sight, I wasn’t going to eat a fish head. That’s what we used as bait.”

The two of them had a quiet laugh and finished off the breads and marmalade. When dinner returned, presentable, it was as delicious as expected and quickly consumed. The final dish was unique.

“I hope this will meet your satisfaction,” the Kiian said brusquely. He placed two stemmed bowls in front of them, each with a carnation ball of soft ice. He poured some sparkling liquid over it until bubbles filled the vessel. “Please, try. No one has ever turned this away.”

Tom was game. He used a spoon to mine a sample and tasted it gingerly, then finished the spoonful.

“This is excellent,” he told the waiter. His smile reappeared and the merry chap left them to their desert. “Even if it wasn’t, I couldn’t stand to see him frown.”

“I will ask Bailey if she can make this. It’s special. Ooh!” she jumped in her chair. She placed her hand on her middle. “Squidling likes it too!”