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“Here you are. Two bowls of garn and a shaker of our special seasoning.” The robot waiter sat the bowls in front of them and gave them each an eating utensil which looked a little bit like a Slurpee straw to Lili. It was metal instead of red plastic, but it had a little spoon-like scooper on one end and it was hollow, like a straw.
LJ-91 didn’t thank the robot waiter at all. He simply snatched the straw-spoon it was holding out to him and began eating.
Lili watched him closely, trying to see how this was done. The Dark Kindred took a few bites with the spoon part of his utensil, then stuck it deep in the middle of the bowl and sucked hard. Clearly he was both eating and drinking the garn—which seemed really weird to Lili, though of course she didn’t say anything.
She stuck her own spoon-straw into the blue-gray mush and got a tiny bite to try. She was afraid it might taste fishy, like the weird black ink and kelp sandwiches that f’loon had given her to eat on F’rith Three.
However, when she brought the bite to her nose, she smelled nothing. And when she tasted it, she tasted the same thing—absolutely nothing. It was like someone had shredded a whole ream of copy paper, added water, and stewed it down to a bland, mushy paste. Even with the emotion damper in her neck, the taste made Lili want to gag.
LJ-91 didn’t seem to have a problem with the food, however. He was eagerly eating his blue-gray mush, stopping every once in a while, to sprinkle some of the special seasoning over the soggy surface. After a moment he looked up and frowned at Lili.
“What’s wrong? Why are you not consuming the garn?” he asked. “Don’t you find it excellent?”
Lili wanted to say she found it bland and disgusting, but she recognized that probably wasn’t a smart thing to say.
“It is…different from the garn they serve on the Med Barge where I live,” she said. “I am not certain I find it to my liking.”
“You just need to try their special seasoning blend. Here.” LJ-91 handed her the small white shaker. “Go on—it makes all the difference,” he urged.
Hesitantly, Lili sprinkled some of the tiny white crystals on her blue-gray mush. Then—only because the Dark Kindred guard was watching—she took a large bite and chewed it.
“Well?” He raised his eyebrows—or the one she could see anyway, since his other eye was taken over by the telescopic sight.
Lili swallowed.
“It’s salt,” she said flatly.
“What?” LJ-91 frowned.
“Their ‘special seasoning blend’—it’s just salt,” Lili repeated. “You know? Sodium?”
“Sodium?” LJ-91 repeated, still looking confused.
“It’s a common seasoning where I come from,” Lili told him.
And it hadn’t done anything to liven up the bland paste they were eating either. Instead of just eating stewed paper mush, it now tasted like she was eating salted paper mush, which wasn’t in any way an improvement.
“How common is it?” LJ-91 wanted to know. “Can you find it anywhere?”
“Well, pretty much. It’s?—”
Suddenly Lili saw what she hoped was a way out. Finally most of the customers in line had gotten their food and now the back of the Garn House was clear except for one or two Dark Kindred warriors.
“Excuse me,” she said to LJ-91. “I really must relieve myself. I’ll be back momentarily.”
Getting up without waiting for him to answer, she made her way to the back of the restaurant and found a door marked, “Fresher.”
Stepping inside, she saw a long metal urinal that took up an entire wall. There was a single warrior standing at it, urinating loudly. He paid Lili no attention at all, which was a relief, but the bathroom still wasn’t a pleasant place to be.
Lili wrinkled her nose against the masculine reek in the small room. How could their pee smell so bad when they lived on the bland garn mush? Honestly, it was horrendous!
Scanning the walls, she saw that someone had left a window open above the urinal. They might have been trying to air out the room, but it wasn’t helping much. Lili wished some air from outside would blow in—even the smell of motor oil and noxious chemicals would have been better than what was assaulting her nose right now.
She glanced down at the tracking screen on the inside of her left forearm and felt a sliver of panic slice through her artificial calm. The two little red dots that represented Dark and Light were so far away! She shouldn’t have let LJ-91 take her all the way down here, so far from her destination, but what else could she have done? And now he was probably waiting for her and wondering why it was taking so long for her to come back and finish her disgusting garn.
The big warrior finally finished urinating and tucked his large cock back in his trousers. Without a look at Lili, he left. Finally, she was alone—though probably not for long. How was she going to get out of here without LJ-91 seeing her?
Her eyes were drawn to the open window again. It looked like a tight fit, but Lili thought she could make it.
