“Is there food? Meat and vegetables?” I start to walk toward the kitchen, beneath rounded pillars which seem to me to mark the way to a great paradise. My kitchen on Earth was outfitted in avocado and sunshine yellow. It was my pride and joy. But this space is something altogether transcendent. Light streams in through leaded glass windows depicting scenes of alien events and plays across a polished white stone floor. This kitchen is the size of my entire house on Earth.
"I hunt, so yes. There is meat. And there are vegetables in the pantry.” Tusk gestures toward a pair of doors which I assumed must lead to some other room, but which led to the greatest and most ordered store I have ever laid eyes on.
"You have a separate pantry! You have a walk-in pantry…”
I do some quick mental domestic math. He has a pantry the size of my old kitchen. The kitchen is the size of my entire house. This is obviously a building designed to house a very large family and probably servants too.
"Who else lives here?”
He looks at me curiously. "Why do you assume others live here?”
“Because it is so large.”
He growls for a moment before deciding to answer. “My sons were born in this house. They have all since left Megaris.”
“And your… wife?”
“My wives perished.”
“Wives…”
"I had three wives, in a time when it was considered permissible and ideal to court multiple females. I have nine sons. Three are generals. Four are mercenaries. One is a poet.”
“And the other?”
He growls and says nothing. It is obvious that there is some tension around the ninth son. I am immediately curious, but one does not simply ask a brutal, monstrous, alien master about the black sheep of his family.
“So there's nobody here now except you?”
“And you, Margaret.”
And me. In a mansion of unspeakable beauty. I wander back out of the kitchen with a flutter of excitement and joy in my heart. There is no part of this home where care has not been taken to accentuate natural beauty. The foyer is grand, with great arches and pillars, with finely woven tapestries draped from many of them. A gentle breeze plays through complexly framed windows opened at the very tops. A grand staircase leads up toward a balcony filled with cases of treasures, and doors leading to interior delights.
“I have never, in all my life, been anywhere as beautiful as this,” I breathe, staring around myself. This is what a palace should feel like. “Did your wives weave the tapestries on the walls?”
“One of them did. Elara. She was a very talented crafter. She died fifty years ago.”
I am impressed. I have sewn samplers, of course, but nothing compared to these words of art. I can feel Tusk’s wives, and almost hear the echoes of nine boys. They must have made this house ring with laughter and joy.
“I’m sorry for your loss.”
“Are you?”
“Of course.”
“Why?” He is being gruff, and I know from even limited experience that means I am close to some kind of nerve he wishes I was nowhere near.
"Because it is sad to lose someone you love.”
“How do you know?”
“We all know.”
“Do we?”
I do not know if korabi are incapable of empathy. It would explain some of Tusk's behavior, but I get the impression that even among his people he is a particularly hard-headed specimen.
"I'm going to make you a nice meal,” I say. “Well, at least, I hope you think it is nice. We call it a cottage pie. It is made of ground meat and mashed potatoes and…”
“Do as you will, human. Amuse yourself in the food stores as much as it pleases you to do so.”
Tusk is seated at a table made for thirteen, pretending not to care about the outcome of my culinary adventures, but I see the way his nose twitches at the scents emerging from my dish. It was not easy learning the ways of an alien kitchen, but cooking is somewhat of a universal process. You take the food, you heat the food, you flavor the food.
“May I serve you?”
He glances at me, and I see that softening about his eyes and mouth. He is so tense all the time, poor Tusk. He has the weight of this entire world on his shoulders. It cannot be easy for him.
“Thank you," he says, his voice gruff with the words, as though he hasn’t used them very much before.
I take a large spoon and portion a generous amount onto his plate. I have no idea what the korabi usually eat. Meat seemed to be a safe bet, but what if he does not like the root vegetables I discovered? They tasted like potato to me, but sweeter and richer. But who knows what they will taste like to him? After an hour of blissful kitchen creation, I am suddenly assailed by fear and doubt of the very worst kind.