Analog SFF, May 2010 by Dell Magazine Authors

Author:Dell Magazine Authors
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Dell Magazines

Novelette: FISHING HOLE by Rick Cook

Remember this the next time you're not sure you understand the menu....

I don't see why we couldn't have gone to Fillipo's,” Gary Farber grumbled. “They have wonderful pasta."

"Talk about sending coals to Newcastle,” said his wife, Joan, whose taste for culinary novelty considerably exceeded his. “Professor Sforza can get good pasta at home. We ought to show him something that's what Seattle food is all about."

Which is why they had settled on a sushi bar down in the International District with a reputation for the best chefs, direct from Japan. They dutifully waited in the ground floor lounge for over an hour until they were called and had climbed the narrow stairs to the second floor dining room with a magnificent view of the Space Needle and seating for perhaps a dozen people at the scrubbed pine bar. Now their grinning host directed them to three narrow stools squeezed in among the others.

Joan Farber turned to their guest. “You have sushi in Italy, don't you, professor?"

Professor Pietro Sforza shrugged. “In Italy, not so good. We prepare it differently."

"Well, you're in for a treat tonight,” Gary Farber told his guest. “Tomi has the best sushi chefs in Seattle."

"On the West Coast,” their host corrected with a grin.

"What's your special tonight, Tomi?"

"Very special indeed.” A machine-gun burst of Japanese to the sushi chef, who bowed briskly and set to work.

While Joan concentrated on the chef's preparations, Gary and Professor Sforza continued their conversation on their mutual interest. Gary was a petroleum geologist and Professor Sforza was an invertebrate paleontologist. The fields overlapped considerably, so most of the discussion was unintelligible to Joan. She bore the stereo technobabble with the good humor that comes from fifteen years of marriage and watched the chef turning something unappetizing and slimy-looking into a work of art. With a final flourish, the chef presented his creation to Joan with a bow.

Whatever it was looked and smelled delicious. It was some kind of shellfish with the tail curled over upright on the plate and delicately glazed with a soy and citrus sauce. While the professor and her husband continued their conversation, Joan picked up her chopsticks and sampled the creation.

"Oh, this is wonderful!” Joan Farber exclaimed around the morsel. “It's so wonderfully sweet. Here, honey, you have to try this."

Her husband didn't even look at the creation on her plate. “I'll stick with the shrimp, thanks."

Joan made a face at him. “Coward. Here, professor, try this.” She passed the plate across her husband to where their guest was sitting.

Professor Sforza smiled as he took the plate. Then he looked at it and his eyes bugged out. His face turned ashen and his mouth began to move soundlessly.

"Are you choking?” Gary asked.

"This . . . this . . .” Then he lapsed into Italian, getting faster and louder all the time. "Cretino!" Professor Sforza gasped. "Che avete fatto?" He yelled. "Questo é un peccatto!" He jumped up and thrust the plate of sushi under the chef's nose.

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