Khar did not understand.
The dish was so hot he had wept black tears after a single bite, his inner glow dimming with the pain. Shameful, pitiful, but hehad tasted it first to be safe. He could not be too obvious. If there was an inquiry, he needed plausible deniability.
It had to be edible for him. Barely, and crying, but edible.
By the time he collected his thoughts, Lily had finished the entire plate.
Oh no.
What have I done?
He was already calculating how fast he could drag her to a med station for immediate treatment after so much harmun.
Then Lily made a sound he had never heard from her before.
Khar shut his eyes, accepting that his life was over.
He had murdered a colleague whose only crime was making him feel threatened. There would be an investigation. The station would buzz about the cowardly Divani. The thought flooded him and closed like a fist around his throat.
“Khar, sorry, I started hiccuping. I will drink some water. It will pass.”
He stared.
She had to be delirious.
She had eaten a full serving and nothing?
A horrible suspicion dawned.
“Human female, how does your digestive system work?”
“Um, I don’t know exactly. Sometimes spicy food makes me hiccup. I think it has to do with stomach acid, but I am not sure.”
“Stomach… acid?”
“Yes, that. You know, hydrochloric acid and the like. It’s so corrosive it can make metal smoke if you drip it on, but a layer of mucus protects the stomach so it doesn’t digest itself. I’m no expert, but it’s one stage of human digestion.”
Khar sat there and tried to process the new brick that had just been mortared into the impenetrable wall in front of him.
A being that looked like something a Divani child might invent to ward off night terrors, yet stronger and faster than the mostfamous Divani warrior. With puny claws. With skin that behaved like armor.
And hydrochloric acid sloshing around inside.
In that moment Khar accepted he had been defeated. He needed no further proof from Lily to know his claim to superiority was gone, irrevocably.
He scooped up a spoonful of his own now-cold meal.
Black tears ran down his cheeks as he forced himself to eat every last bite.
Chapter 7
Shared Quarters Protocol
Lily
“The outbreak of the KRIO-223 virus was one of the most defining events of the last thirty chrono-decades in the IMPERIUM. We believed that with the state of modern medicine there was nothing left to fear. We were wrong.”
Documentary series on the KRIO-223 virus (After watching, Lily rated it a solid ten out of the usual twelve on the Galactic Entertainment Scale)
