Nothing that mattered to us. I dropped Penny’s emergency food brick into the hopper, and the machine accepted it with a horrible grinding noise. The calorie-dense stuff would keep it going for a while as long as we kept our demands basic. The water filters still worked, as did the heaters, so I brought her a glass of warm water while the maker shuddered and groaned. She pulled a face but drank anyway—I sympathized.
“Once the maker’s digested your food stash, we’ll have access to flavorings. Until then, hot water is all I can offer.”
“Don’t worry.” She waved away my concern and downed the rest of the glass. “I should have thought to bring coffee.”
The empty glass clattered off the table as she rested her head on the cool stone surface. I rescued her glass before it rolled off the table—we had little to spare.
“I’ve hidden in worse places.”
The human laughed. “I’ve stayed in worsehotels, honestly. But I guess that’s growing up on Earth in the aftermath of the Uplink Wars.”
I shuddered. “I’ve heard stories, all unpleasant. I never knew which to believe.”
Behind me, the foodmaker settled with a last squeal of protest. Either it had finished assimilating the brick or it had broken down for good. “Perhaps you can tell me while I make us something to eat?”
15
PENNY
Watching Varok cook was an unexpected delight. Most people left their foodmakers to do everything—getting uniform and uninspired, but tasty, results. The silver alien took a different approach, using it to make ingredients to cook with. Soon the room filled with delicious smells.
He didn’t make anything particularly fancy, but the plate of scrambled eggs and fried vegetable slices had my mouth watering when he pushed it in front of me. And the first forkful tasted like heaven. The delicately spiced eggs were perfection, and while I didn’t recognize any of the vegetables, their crunch added texture and flavor.
He laughed, not unkindly, as I devoured the plate of hot food and felt the warmth sink into my bones. Attacking his own plate with ruthless efficiency, he cleared it before I’d finished mine, despite how high he’d piled his food.
“What is this?” I asked once I’d finished chasing the last morsel around the metal plate. “And is there more?”
He laughed, and his silver face reflected a glow I didn’t see anywhere else in the room.Is he blushing?
“It is nothing much, my best approximation ofn’cha.Grandmother would probably smack me with the pan for daring to call it that.” He sighed, shutting his eyes for a moment, looking as calm as I’d seen him. It looked good. “I’m afraidn’chais one of the few dishes the foodmaker can provide the ingredients for. It was this or take our chances with whatever the Wardalians ate. Would you like to tryscronch? Bsalcha,or maybepergomlag?”
I shuddered. Without some idea of Wardalian biochemistry, I had no way to guess if their food was toxic to humans.
“I’ll stick with n’cha, thank you very much,” I said. “It’s delicious, whatever it is, and I’d prefer not to take my chances.”
“Thank you, though you think too highly of my cooking. You’re starving and half-frozen, hardly an unbiased position to judge a meal from.”
“Then you’ll have to cook more,” I said, grinning. “So I can give it proper consideration.”
Perhaps there were advantages to being stuck with Varok?
The next fewdays passed quickly, and they weren’t bad. They were, however, frustrating. Here I was, cooped up with an alien hot enough to weld steel without tools, and refusing to touch him. Therehewas—arrogant and rude and thoughtful and kind, messing with my ability to focus.
Cooking incredible food, even if he could only manage three recipes with our limited resources.
His worst habit? Stalking through the half-lit corridors of the vault like the caged predator he was. Dangerous, sexy, and bored. There was nothing to do down here, nothing to divert us from our predicament.
Dangerous as he was, I didn’t fear him. I feared my reaction to him, the way my body tingled when he looked at me. If we stayed here much longer, I worried that I’d do something I’d regret.
Every ten hours, I took Debbie up to the surface and sent her out for a quick scan. Risky, of course, but we needed to take risks if we wanted to escape Wardal.
“Nothing. No change to the forcefield.” I glared at the hologram the drone projected onto the kitchen table. That had become our de facto meeting place. Our stolen vault had a dedicated conference room which was, in theory, better suited. In practice, using it felt like disturbing a tomb.
The kitchen was different, safe and somehow cozy despite being larger than most apartments I’d lived in. And it made it easy for Varok to make snacks while we tried to plan. I’d be lying if I claimed that wasn’t an important factor.
I’d also be lying if I claimed the food was all I wanted to sink my teeth into. Watching him fry up dough-like disks into a kind of cookie, the air filling with the scent of alien spices, I couldn’t help staring. He wouldn’t catch me, not with his bare back to me and him focused on his task. But seeing the iron cords of his muscles moving beneath his silver skin was dangerous in its own way.
His body called to me, and every day spent down here made it harder to resist.
