Chapter Four

 

The live recording isn’t going well.

Jimena looks all of twenty years old, with large innocent dark eyes, though the restaurant experience on her resume implies she’s closer to thirty. I’m only twenty-four. Which is probably why she’s been blowing me off and doing things however she wants. She won’t even take her headphones off.

She bumps into one of the Zantite production assistants and drops the entire bowl of pitted cherries – produce Brill had carried from Earth.

My fuzzy brain sees it in slow motion, unable to adapt. I’d been up half the night, tag-teaming with Mamá to get Minda ready to do this and the other half partying. With Jimena. Which makes it my fault, if she’s too slypered to work. Ay-ay-ay.

There’s a wet squish, and Minda says an unfamiliar Zantite word that I’m guessing is a swear. I look over and see cherry juice staining the side of one of her pale silk slippers.

I feel the same way. Cherries take forever to pit, and I can’t just substitute something else. Minda has already advertised that we’re kicking off the tour with mi mamá’s choctastic Black Forest Cake.

Brill calls my sublingual. He was in the audience, pero his seat’s empty. Don’t worry, Babe. There’s more to that shipment. Be right back.

I turn to Jimena, who finally has the headphones off.

“Lo siento, boss.” She doesn’t look sorry, though.

I don’t have time to take that personally. “Happens to the best of us.” I grab two blocks of HGB dark and toss one to Jimena.

She catches it, holding it out away from her like it’s radioactive. “What do you want me to do with this?”

“Melt it.” I try my best not to, pero I roll my eyes. She’s supposed to have had more experience in the kitchen than me. I’m starting to wonder.

“Fast,” Minda adds, in Universal. “Or I’ll have them take you back to the spaceport.” She nods towards that same group of policemen, here today as crowd control.

Jimena blanches and the block starts trembling in her hands. “No, por favor. We have to make it to the capital.”

Which is the show’s last tour stop.

I don’t get it. What’s with the implied or else? It’s not like Minda said, Or we’ll show them how to cook you as an entrée.

Minda whispers, “Is there something wrong with that chocolate?”

I blush. Like all HGB products, that chocolate is laced with an addictive substance.

I wish I could tell Minda that. But if I did, I’d find myself back home and being prepped for execution before Minda could even lodge a protest.

“No, chica. The chocolate’s standard.” Which isn’t actually a lie.

I talk to the camera in slow, careful Zantite about how tempered chocolate has a snap to it, shaving off a piece and then breaking it to prove it. Just in time, Jimena brings the pot of melted chocolate over and lowers it towards the table.

Minda says a close approximation of, “Muchas gracias.”

Startled, Jimena jostles the pot as it touches the table, and chocolate sloshes onto her arm, and splatters up onto her face. Gasping, she says something in dismay, but all I hear clearly is, “semilla de la muerte.” Seed of death.

“Que?”

“Nada.” She retreats, wiping furiously at her eye with a towel. What is wrong with that chica? Why would she sign up for this gig if she’s that nervous on camera?

I forget about my prep chef’s problems when Brill shows up Krom-fast, hauling another crate of cherries in his arms. He puts them down in the prep area.

Brill opens the crate. Jimena takes out a bowl, fills it with cherries, then starts attacking one with a knife.

I hand Minda my spoon. “She’s going to cut herself.”

I gesture Tawny over. “What did you do with that pack of drinking straws?”

She digs in her bag and pulls out the package.

I snag the straws, then walk over to Jimena. I take the knife away from her and hand her a straw. “Watch.”

I push the straw into the cherry, and the pit falls out onto the prep table. I drop the cherry into the bowl. There’s one. All I need is about two thousand more. I sigh.

I reach back into the bowl, and a male human hand reaches in from across the table. Our fingers touch as he scoops out a handful of cherries. I look up into beautiful, smile-crinkled gray-green eyes, lighter than his cool-toned black skin.

“Kaliel?” My heart starts thudding overtime, even though I had promised myself that the next time I saw him, I wouldn’t let it do that.

He takes a straw from the pack. “Looks like we got here just in time to help.”

“I thought you guys weren’t coming until next month. What about Kayla’s graduation?” Kayla. As in my former roommate and mejor amiga. His girlfriend.

He pits a few cherries, dropping them into the bowl, staining his hands. He smiles and leans closer to me – whispering distance. “Don’t tell her I told you, but Kayla’s going to graduate here. With you. Minda’s getting special permission from your school.”

His face is so close to mine, I back away.

I’d kissed Kaliel, just twice, but that’s enough to remember what his lips felt like on mine, his hands running confidently along my arms, my fingers against his stiff super-short hair.

But I’m back with Brill now, and Kaliel is with Kayla. And… this is going to be a long tour.

 

It’s incredíble that Kaliel and Kayla wound up together at all, since they’d only met because he was on trial for blowing up the SeniorLeisure galactourist vessel that had Kayla’s grandparents on board.

Brill had helped me and my friends prove that Kaliel had been set up to take that shot. The gritclip we’d found as evidence showed another vessel for a few frames, an inky black ship outlined against a lighter background. The com array on the cruise liner had been disabled, and the mystery ship had made Kaliel think he was being pursued and fired upon.

In an area where space pirates often disable ships to take cargo – after spacing the crew – Kaliel’s fear was reasonable. Especially because he’d been working for HGB, carrying a load of chocolate that was worth more than the equivalent weight of gold bricks would have been, back before First Contact.

The liner wouldn’t respond when he’d tried to clarify who he was – an official HGB pilot, and no threat to them – so he’d scuttlepunched it.

HGB had had no choice but to allow Kaliel to go to trial for the manslaughter of everyone on board. If he’d been found guilty, the media and the public would have demanded his head in a basket. Pero his innocence barely made the news. And the existence of the black ship was never made public.

For Kaliel, skipping the shave was enough. He didn’t care who had set him up.

I wish I could move on so easily. At the same time Kaliel had been counting down days to his trial, HGB had threatened mi familia in an attempt to get me to give them back their precious unfermented cacao beans. Frank had come close to murdering mi mamá, on the grounds that he always follows orders – even if they are personally distasteful.

HGB isn’t just the company that controls chocolate production and distribution. They’re the face Earth shows to the galaxy, and they have a huge amount of influence over Earth’s Global Court. Even though I can prove Frank killed my father eight years ago, I’ve got to play nice, because with the threat of invasion, a power vacuum right now – or the descent of my world into another internal war over who gets to control chocolate – would be disastrous.

“Here, hun.” Kayla comes up behind Kaliel and hands him a white apron. The juice leaves clear handprints near the hem as he takes it. It looks like blood

Kayla pulls masses of her curly brown hair away from her milk-pale cheeks and stuffs the locks up under her favorite green knit hat. She’s wearing a bright pink tunic top and jeans, with an apron that matches Kaliel’s. “Just point me at the prep sink.” Her wide-set, intelligent dark eyes glitter with happiness. She can’t wait to be on camera.

Minda comes over and peers into the bowl. “Bring the cameras. This looks like fun.” She looks out into the audience. “Who wants to be on the feeds?”

Half the audience raises their hands, and Minda calls people down to help, until we run out of straws.

Brill’s studying me and his smile looks tense. He knows I kissed Kaliel. I’d apologized for the betrayal, but it had nearly broken us up for good. Later, Brill had said he was over being jealous, and I’d said I was over Kaliel, pero this is the first time we’ve seen the pilot since he got reinstated with HGB, and Brill and I were obviously lying to each other.

Minda spears cherries all the way up her straw and pushes eight of them into the bowl at once. “We should keep this as a regular feature. You show us a fun food prep hack, and audience members get to try it.”

I nod. “Sí, sounds perfect.”

I look over for Brill, pero he doesn’t like cameras. I’m not surprised that he has melted away. Pero, I hope that’s all it is.

With so many hands, it doesn’t take long for us to get the cherries re-prepped, and Jimena gets them cooking down behind us at the quaint gas range. Minda assembles the cake batter and I pop it into the top oven – then I pull the completed, baked, cooled cake out of the bottom oven. We start discussing frosting. I might just make it through this.

By the time we’re handing out cake slices to the audience, I have forgotten the cameras. Right up until Jimena sinks to the floor, holding her arms across her stomach.

I rush over to her – and so does a camera drone. I try to bat it away. This is, after all, live. “Jimena!”

“No me siento bien.” I don’t feel so well.

Hot, sticky guilt fills my gut. I’ve been criticizing her while she’s ill.

Unless – panic replaces the guilt – it’s food poisoning. I look around. I don’t see a cake plate, pero that doesn’t mean she didn’t have one. Or that she hasn’t been sampling the ingredients. Nobody else is showing any signs of getting sick. If I can get her out of here quietly, maybe this will all be OK.

Jimena throws up. Loudly. The pleasant chit-chat that had filled the room goes silent.

Someone says in Zantite, “The Earthlings have brought disease to our planet.”

I bristle at the insult, pero it could have been worse. At least they’re not claiming to have been poisoned.

“Wait,” someone says. “What if she’s accidentally poisoned herself? These aliens are angry about our expansion into their solar system. Who knows what she might have added to our food.”

And… now it’s worse. I can’t make out what any one Zantite is saying in the chatterclash that follows. Mertex is making his way over to me – presumably to keep me safe if this breaks out into a mob. So is Dent Head. Dent Head gets there first, pushing me behind him, close to the oven, which somebody turned on to bake Minda’s cake.

“Wait a minute!” Minda shouts, her voice commanding in the large space. “Shouldn’t we consider what the Earthlings will think if one of their delegates has contracted one of our diseases?”

The dead silence is broken by a lone female voice, from the very back of the audience. “I’m a doctor.” The Zantite makes her way down the stairs, pulling up a holo that looks like an anatomy course. She looks around Dent Head at me. “I’ve never studied humans, but will you consent for me to examine your friend?”

Bang! We both jump. Cake batter’s dripping down the inside of the oven door.

En serio? I’d watched Minda mix that batter myself. How did she mess it up?

I glance over at Minda, who is peering with dismay at the oven.

“Bo,” Mertex prompts. “She asked you a question.”

I nod. “Sí. I’ve been treated by a Zantite doctor before myself.” Besides, it’s not like we brought a human doctor with us. Which, in retrospect, seems like bad planning on HGB’s part.

“You have to say you have no complaints,” Mertex says. “You’re waiving liability in case the treatment doesn’t go well.”

“I have no complaints.” Is Jimena’s condition that serious? Or do they ask that from everybody?

“There’s a cot in one of the dressing rooms.” Mertex picks up Jimena, who is conscious but in no condition to walk. Dent Head gestures for me to go with them.

As soon as we’re out in the hall, Mertex asks me, “Seriously, what is the deal between you and Fizzax?”

I glance back at the doctor, who is only two steps behind us. “It’s complicated.” We’ve reached the dressing room by the time I think to ask, “What is the deal between you and Dent Head?” Fizzax. His name’s Fizzax.

Mertex places Jimena in the oversized cot, then moves aside so we can let the doctor work. “Fizzax considers me a coward.” A green blush grows on Mertex’s cheeks. “He’s not wrong.”

The doctor places a blinking band around my wrist. “I need a baseline comparison of vital statistics. Try not to move too much.”

“I’m not a good baseline,” I protest, pero nobody’s listening. “Murry, you’re not–”

“Please sit down, Miss Benitez,” the doctor says. She turns to Mertex. “Refusing a duel is not the mark of a coward. It is a sign that you respect the preciousness of life.”

“Thanks, Sonda,” Mertex says. “But that’s not how most people see it.”

This must be a muy muy small island if these two not only know each other, but Sonda knows Mertex’s business. She turns back to Jimena.

I ask Mertex, “What did Fizzax want to fight you over?”

He shrugs. “He claims I dishonored his sister. He was mistaken. Why should I die for something I didn’t even do?”

I put this together with the story he’d told me on board the Layla’s Pride. “So to get out of it, you volunteered to crew a warship.”

“Something like that.”

“After he gave his entire life savings to his cousin so she could start a squidriding and boat tour business.”

Mertex nods. “It was worth it. She’s the only one who wrote me the whole time I was stuck on the Layla’s Pride.”

Sonda turns back to us. “There’s no sign of any of this area’s more common poisons, but if I’m reading the standards for Earthlings right, your friend has a high fever and rapid heart rate. I don’t know what’s wrong with her. It doesn’t seem life threatening. Still, I’d like to keep her under observation until tomorrow, just in case I’ve missed something.” She points at me. “You, on the other hand, have measurable organ damage and a cocktail of toxin residue in your bloodstream. What exactly happened to you?”

“She got bit by a Myska,” Mertex says, that horror-happy gleam back in his eyes.

Sonda’s round eyes go even wider. “How are you even alive?”

“The guy gave me an antivenin.” I shrug. “We’re friends now.”

“And she took the Invincible Heart,” Murry adds.

Sonda’s mouth gapes open.

Mamá calls my handheld. I hold it up, grateful for the diversion, pero a little worried. She never does that unless she has gran news and wants to see my face. Por favor. Tell me she’s not eloping with Frank.

I step into the hall. “Hola, Mamá.”

She’s a bubble away from the kind of domed-in megamall you find on spaceports across the galaxy. People crowd the street behind her. Most of them have long, thin necks and heads shaped like peaches, with narrow beaks in the central dent.

Frank walks across the frame, heading towards the building. I stiffen. He has Botas, the corgi he rescued, on a leash. The dog starts sniffing, and Frank smiles down at it as it takes its time to find a spot to do its business. Mamá follows my gaze.

“What will it take for you to forgive him, mija?” Mamá looks like an older version of me, with the same wide mouth and slightly hooked nose. Which means we have almost identical frowns.

“I don’t hate Frank, Mamá.” It’s been a long time since Mamá and I have been this honest with each other. “Frank was doing his duty, pero, that duty was killing mi papá. I can live with the logic of that. Pero, he can’t step into the family he tore apart and find a place to belong.”

“There is a big difference between not hating and forgiving. You are going to wear the past like a bag of rocks until you figure that out.” She wags a finger at me. “Carry it long enough and you will break your back.”

I blink at her, glance over at Frank, who is now bagging dog poop. “After he admitted we were just part of his assignment, how can you trust anything he says?”

Mamá smiles. “How did you forgive Brill for using you to get closer to what he wanted from Earth?”

She has a point. Brill did lie about meeting me by chance, when in reality he had sought me out because he thought I could help him claim chocolate as a Krom “discovery.” I’d broken up with him when I’d found out – and it had taken a lot for us to patch things up.

How had I forgiven Brill? “He proved to me he wasn’t using me anymore, that he could be the hero I needed. Pero, Frank’s still working for HGB, still putting our familia in danger.”

“You should try getting to know Frank. Maybe you will see he is more than what you think he is, too.”

I sigh. “Just promise me you’re not going to elope with him. Wherever you two are headed.”

“Oye!” Mamá looks offended. “Elope? If I get married again, it’s going to be the media event of the season.”

I let her go and check on Jimena one last time before leaving her with the doctor. Sonda wants to transfer Jimena to the hospital to keep an eye on her for a couple of days. When Jimena’s better, I am going to have to ask her what she meant by seeds of death, and who the we are she’s so intent on getting to the capital with. Because it didn’t sound like she meant me and Minda.