Alienist by Laurence M. Janifer

Author:Laurence M. Janifer
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: science fiction, sci-fi, space, adventure, series
ISBN: 9781102339243
Publisher: Wildside Press LLC
Published: 2014-03-17T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

The Master said gently: “Thank you, Hilda. Would you see about the dinner? It should be in preparation for about half an hour from now.”

I am not a big fan of machine cookery. There exist people who claim that, given good machinery and good programs, it is impossible to tell a machine-prepared meal from one made with human hands, and the Master is one of them. I’ve always been able to tell the difference, but it’s not a subject I’d want to bring up with him at any time—if we’re going to argue seriously, it’s going to be on a subject the size of the heat-death of the universe.

And that evening, I might even have agreed with him. He’d set up an interesting vegetarian meal—tailored to Euglane, which meant not only that there was no animal material involved, but no tubers or roots—and it was absolutely edible, though artichokes vinaigrette will never replace the old standard with drawn butter.

He’d remembered my fondness for chili, and had come up with a vegetarian version, as a main dish, that surprised me by being edible—I think. The truth is, I wasn’t paying all that much attention to the food, and neither was anyone else—Hilda just possibly excepted. One day I will have to try that chili with artichokes vinaigrette as an accompaniment; it doesn’t sound like a possible combination, but that dinner was no time to test it. I ate without noticing much what I was eating—which is unusual.

Euglane tried to get more details from Hilda over dinner, the four of us seated around the Master’s dining-room table. He worked gently, carefully and very, very effectively. He got one, and a beaut, but it took a while

What had Dube sounded like? It wasn’t a real voice, it was a voice in her head, even in the dream. What had he looked like? She hadn’t seen him, exactly, though in her dreams she did see normally.

“He was just an invisible voice in your head, in the dream?” Euglane said.

“No, I’m sorry, Mr. Euglane,” Hilda said. He’d tried telling her just to call him Euglane, with as much success as I would have trying to get her to call me Knave instead of Gerald. The Master called me Gerald, so that was my name. Euglane was an honored guest of the master, so he was Mr. Euglane. He didn’t press her, after the one try.

“He was something else, then?” Euglane said gently. “Not simply invisible?”

“I knew it wasn’t how he would really be,” Hilda said. “I don’t know how he would be. He said it wasn’t important.” She looked worried. “It isn’t important, is it, Mr. Euglane?” She turned toward the Master. “Sir?”

Euglane let the Master take it. “It’s perfectly all right, Hilda,” he told her. “You are doing very well. You should be proud that you remember so efficiently.”

She looked almost persuaded. Euglane said, after a second: “How did he appear to you, in your dream? What did he look like?”

She gave us that spasm of a smile.

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