Lost and found_ a novel - Alan Dean Foster [113]
Water he could draw from the fragment of lake. Food would probably prove more problematic. As it turned out, he needn’t have worried about that, though he was less than enchanted with the results. In response to his request, a circular hole opened in—he should have expected it—the ground. On a small square platter were three all-too-familiar food bricks and two food cubes. Shaking his head slowly, he walked over, sat down, and took a bite out of one of the cubes. It tasted exactly like its Vilenjji counterpart. Something else the Sessrimathe had gleaned from the surviving records of his former captors. He sighed.
After eating and drinking his fill, he experimented by asking for something sweeter. An hour later, two very small food cubes presented themselves on the platter. One was almost salty, but the other had pleasing overtones of the fynbos honey a well-traveled friend had once sent him from Cape Town. Encouraged, he tried again, this time requesting a different flavor. Thirty minutes later one half-sized food brick offered itself up that tasted of roasted almonds. This time he almost smiled. Steak and lobster might be out of the question, but he felt that with trial and error, the building’s synthesizer might eventually be persuaded to manage something that tasted like chicken. Or rather, chicken-flavored food brick. After months surviving on the unvarying diet the Vilenjji had provided for him, he was more than willing to settle for the latter.
Nor, true to Cheloradabh’s word, were the building’s abilities limited to food modification. He got rid of the tent. In response to the preprogrammed chill of a Sierra night, the ambient temperature was easily stabilized at a comfortable seventy-two degrees. Dividing the fragment of lake, he had one half heated for cozy bathing while leaving the other cool for drinking.
A request for a large bed, however, resulted in the delivery three days later of a king-sized version of his venerable sleeping bag. It was apparent that solid objects required more detailed description on his part, more work (and possibly outsourcing) than simple adjustments to food and water. So it was nearly two weeks before the satisfactory approximation of an air bed arrived. When it finally did, however, he settled down on the first gentle, cushioning surface he had enjoyed in months and slept for ten hours straight. Awakening, he felt more rested than he had since leaving Chicago for the Sierras, all too many months ago.
But he did not necessarily feel more relaxed.
Some days the four of them were left alone, to explore and play with and learn from their new surroundings. Other days (and only after polite requests, never demands), they were taken to visit the discussion bubble, or presented to the curious and often important in person, or escorted on sightseeing tours of Seremathenn that were eye-opening and mind-boggling.
It was a beautiful world, not just one that happened to be home to an immensely advanced society. Adjusted, preserved, modified, sanctified by its enlightened inhabitants, Seremathenn was as cultured an example as one could find of civilization. In the course of their travels over the following weeks and months, Walker and his friends (sometimes including even the recalcitrant Sque) were introduced to marvels of sophisticated technology, innovative art, and curious visitors from other worlds both nearby and distant. Galactic civilization, they learned, was not a monolithic alliance of developed worlds and sentient species, but rather an idea, a notion of mutual civility and respect that precluded the need for rigid governmental ties.
It was, perhaps of necessity, not perfect, as testified to by the activities of individual rascal elements. The professional association of Vilenjji responsible for the abduction of Walker and his friends was one example of the latter. There were, a discomfited (if a dwelling could be discomfited)