Honor - Kevin Killiany [7]
His reverie was interrupted by a trencher of hearty stew, thick with meat but steaming with the scent of walnuts and cinnamon, appearing at his elbow.
“I thought this was supposed to be a soufflé,” Stevens said from his symmetrical position at the other end of the oval table.
There was an elongated mass on the platter that had been set before him. It looked to Bart as though an indifferent artist working from a verbal description had molded a fish out of pudding.
“Either it fell or it’s an omelet,” Bart agreed. “Though it’s possible the UT just used soufflé as the closet approximation of the name.”
Stevens sighed.
Calling the server back, Bart inquired into the dish’s preparation. This involved a particularly Bundinalli explanation of growing seasons and traditions, but before his stew had cooled he had the gist of it.
“It’s a half-dozen eggs from our friends over there,” he explained, indicating the snake-birds he’d been watching earlier. “The whites—that’s the green part—and the yolks—that’s the grey part, are separated and whipped into a froth. Two froths, I guess. The bits of purple, burgundy, and blue are a mix of fruit, finely diced, which is called rastentha. The fruit involved change with the seasons. Alternating layers of whites, fruit, and yolks are then poured into a mold—fish-shaped for reasons I didn’t follow—and baked. Technically, I suppose soufflé comes closer than omelet, but it’s somewhere between the two.”
Stevens sighed again and eyed Bart’s stew with obvious envy.
“At least give it a try,” Bart urged.
Choosing a forklike utensil, Stevens carefully pared off a sliver of the mass and popped it into his mouth.
“Whoa.”
“What?” Bart asked.
“This,” Stevens swallowed and scooped a large forkful from the soufflé, “is marvelous. We have got to figure out how to replicate this stuff. We could make a fortune.”
Bart grinned at his friend’s change of mood and attacked his own stew. Not the rousing sensation Stevens’s soufflé evidently was, but it was still pleasant. Chicken, mostly, he decided, with walnuts and celery. That he tasted no cinnamon despite the aroma confused his palate, but not unpleasantly so.
The Bundinalli network of canals and aqueducts had worked well for centuries until the Breen swept through the system. Intent on more significant targets deeper in Federation space, the Breen had simply bombarded Bundinal in passing, a side jaunt to upset a bit of Federation infrastructure rather than a campaign of invasion. One of the Federation historians had called it a drive-by shooting. Abramowitz had appreciated the cultural allusion, though its significance escaped Bart.
Whatever the Breen’s purpose, the effect of their raid had been to throw Bundinal into agricultural chaos. Flooding and drought had cost them years of growing seasons in both hemispheres.
Repair of the irrigation network had been a priority.
A straightforward retro-engineering of existing foundations and structures, it had been repaired by the S.C.E. within months of the war’s end. But even though everything was in place, the system hadn’t worked. The aqueduct network was so large and complex it had been subject to coriolis effects and lunar tides—a complex consideration on a world with two moons.
Generations ago the Bundinalli had installed tens of thousands of locks, but never a centralized control. Village lock masters had known that when the sun was here and the first moon there and the second moon there they should open the lock. Or, in different positions, close it. Thus thousands of individuals, faithfully attending their singular duties without communication with any others, had kept the waters flowing.
It was a balance almost impossible to regain once lost. But finding that rhythm again was why the da Vinci was here now.
“I should have gone with her,” he said again once his soufflé had disappeared.
“What would you have done?” Bart asked. “Useful to the mission, I mean.