Page 9 of Escape Velocity

After stuffing her old clothes into the refuse chute, he led the way to the galley where he watched her take in the metal table bolted to the wall, the narrow counter, and the synthesizer.

She gave him a skeptical look. “This is where you prepare food? I see no chopping block or cooking fire. Cooking is different on a spaceship?”

“Yes. I can syntho what I need.”

“How?”

“I’ll show you. What do you want?”

Her eyes took on a faraway look. “My mother used to make a kind of cake, with honey, spices, and jobo nuts.”

“I can manage honey. I don’t know jobo nuts.”

She lifted one shoulder. “Of course not. It is okay.”

“Let me see what I can do.”

He was thinking about a confection that was sometimes served on Danalon—one of the heirloom dishes from old Earth. It was made of ground nuts and cinnamon bound together with honey, then layered between thin leaves of dough. It was called . . . He struggled for a moment to recall it, then asked for “baklava.”

The syntho unit did its thing. Thirty seconds later, a plate with a triangular serving of the confection appeared behind a glass door. He opened it and held out the plate.

“That is how you make food?”

“On the ship. And in my unit in the city.”

“They do that all over Danalon?”

“Some people in the city would call this slop. They only eat what they call ‘real food.’ High-class restaurants would never syntho anything. And there are people living out in the swamps who don’t have those choices.”

“You mean they cook with fire?”

“And get their food by hunting and fishing. They live in houses on stilts, so they won’t get flooded out.”

She switched back to the rectangle of layered dough and filling on her plate. “Perhaps I should not have asked for dessert first.”

“How long has it been since you’ve had dessert?”

“A long time.”

“Then I hope you like this.”

He set the plate and a fork on the table, then turned back to the synthesizer. When he joined her with his portion, she was staring at the baklava.

“You don’t want to try it?”

“Is it okay to start?”

“Of course.”

“You go first.”

She watched him cut into the confection with the side of his fork, then lift a portion to his mouth.

She did the same thing. As she caught the flavor, her eyes widened. “This is so good.”

“Like what your mother used to make?”

“Similar. It did not have the thin parts or quite the same taste.”

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