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‘Soon,’ Noah replied. ‘You would do well to rest for a while and start out refreshed. There is sufficient time.’
I saw Pitr nodding, but I wanted to get away, to move on. I was so excited that there was no way I was going to sleep.
‘You will sleep,’ assured Noah, perhaps picking the thought out of my head. ‘Crew rest area bunks have optional sleep inducers.’
Noah put a picture in my mind of where I needed to go and I pushed Pitr’s shoulder to get him moving. We went out a different door to the one we had come in through, down a short corridor with a couple of corners, then into a room. The rest area wasn’t as big as Commons, but there was a table with eight chairs around it roughly in the middle and to the left was a wide shelf with cupboards beneath and machines sitting on top. To the right were six alcoves built into the wall, hidden behind whorled and translucent screens. Noah spoke into the room and we both jumped.
‘Would you care to eat before you rest? Only emergency ration bricks are available, but in the cupboard beneath the dispenser you will find suitable utensils and containers. I have also replicated a selection of flavour tubes.’
Pitr was looking confused again. I grabbed his arm, and pulled him towards the dispenser.
‘You are not going to believe this,’ I said.
From one cupboard we pulled out plates, glasses and eating utensils, then I opened the other cupboard with a flourish and stood back. On one side, row after row of little tubes and on the other a smaller selection of cubes. Pitr just stood there and looked blankly at them, and I took a second to realise that he hadn’t understood what Noah had said. I grabbed a handful of each and took them back to the table, then stared to read out the labels.
‘Tomato, chicken, hamburger, cheese, potato, tea, coffee, orange, cola, apple.’
Pitr, who was still standing by the cupboard, wasn’t getting the point. They were just random sounds to him, but for each word I spoke Noah pushed an image into my mind to show me what it looked like. I could have made it easy for him, but my head was spinning around with the new information and I wanted to be dramatic. I took a plate over to the dispenser and pushed the button I knew would drop a food brick through a slot, then filled a glass with cold water before pulling Pitr to the table and making him sit.
‘Eat. Drink.’
Pitr was giving me a look that clearly told me he thought I was losing my mind again, but humoured me and took a mouthful of each.
‘Same old same old?’ I asked.
‘Its food and water, stupid, what else?’
I took a cube labelled ‘orange’ and dropped it into the water, then took a tube with ‘Chicken’ written on it and squeezed the contents over the top of the food brick.
Pitr pulled his plate away and yelled ‘Hey’, then froze and watched as the food brick greedily absorbed the goo from the tube, and the cube in the water fizzed as the water turned orange. Two totally unfamiliar scents filled the room.
‘Try them now,’ I said, taking up my own utensil and slicing a piece off the end of Pitr’s food brick. He looked at me with shock on his face for daring to take food from his plate, but then took a piece himself and, slowly, we simultaneously put the utensils to our mouths.
I closed my eyes and rocked slightly as the new and indescribable flavour drifted across my tongue then filled my mouth and my nose. I had never tasted anything other than water, food bricks, and the oily miasma that hung in the air at home. This was pure and complex and wonderful and I felt if I died right now I could go happy.
I opened my eyes, and it must have only been a second or so later, just in time to see Pitr spit the food out onto the floor and grab for the glass. He took a mouthful of the orange fluid, then spat that out as well.
‘What are you doing?’ I half-yelled, somehow outraged that he would treat such a wonderful thing in such a terrible way.
‘That’s disgusting,’ he said, retching, as he stumbled to the dispenser and grabbed another brick. Ripping the cover off, he took a big bite from the corner. ‘I have to get that foul taste out of my mouth.’
‘Foul?’ I was lost for words. I took another piece of the chicken-flavoured brick, closer to where Pitr had eaten, and cautiously tasted it. It was wonderful. I took up the glass and sniffed it, and found the odour appealing and refreshing. I took a sip, and closed my eyes again in wonder as my mouth reacted to a whole new set of invigorating flavours.
‘Do you want to try a different one?’ I asked, but Pitr waved an almost panicked hand back at me.
‘No. Never. How can you eat that? It makes me feel sick.’
I felt hurt, as though somehow Pitr was blaming me for how he felt. Or maybe I was feeling bad because I liked these new flavours so much and Pitr obviously didn’t. But there was no way I was not taking some of these along with me. Not now I knew that there were other flavours in the universe than the three I knew.
We finished our meal, such as it was, in silence. I wanted to try out more of the flavours, but Pitr was so quiet and he looked so withdrawn as he munched stolidly on his plain brick that it didn’t feel right.
‘Noah?’ I said, inside my head.
‘Yes, Garret?’
‘Is there maybe another bag or something lying around I can borrow? I don’t think Pitr will want to mix our stuff up.’
‘I am taking care of your travel requirements while you rest. I will arrange suitable diets for each of you.’
‘Do you know why Pitr doesn’t like the flavours?’ I asked. Noah hesitated momentarily before answering.
‘Not without further investigation. He may simply be afraid of the new stimuli, or perhaps his neurophysiology has changed such that he processes flavours in a different way. Both suggestions are purely speculative.’
I gave the mental equivalent of a shrug, then rose from the table and dropped the used utensils down a hole that said ‘recycling’ before moving towards the cots.
‘Guess I’m going to try this sleeping gadget, then.’ I said.
Pitr nodded and joined me, but he didn’t say anything. I climbed onto a cot at the bottom, and he took one in the middle, but on a different stack. The cushion was of the same moulding material as the couch in the control room, and was unbelievably comfortable. I’m still not sure if Noah needed to help me get to sleep.