Chapter 18 Junk Food
Junk Food
Khoth watched Jace drink water. Jace drank and drank and drank until the bottle was dry. He lowered it and wiped his mouth with the back of his right hand. Khoth took the empty bottle from him.
“More, please,” Jace said. “I didn’t know I was so thirsty.”
“Indeed.” Khoth gave Jace another bottle which Jace cracked open and downed in two swallows this time. A third bottle was soon in hand.
Khoth glanced at all of the food and drink that Thammah had been able to find.
It wasn’t an auspicious selection. There was some old looking fruit, bags of “chips” with different “flavors” like “ranch”--which Khoth had thought was a type of home on this world--, not to mention long sticks of a meat-like substance in a plastic material, something called “Ho Ho’s” and varieties of hard, sticky substances with names like “Jolly Ranchers”.
When Thammah had dumped the armful of “food” and the case of water down on the nearby table, Khoth had looked at it skeptically. Thammah had blued.
“What?! It’s all I had in my locker!” Thammah had answered. “It’s good!”
Khoth’s lips had pursed. “I believe some protein paste would be--”
“Space paste?” Thammah had laughed as she’d used the derogatory term for the perfect mixture of nutrients on every starship. “I had Jack try some of that. It was not a good outcome.”
“It is perfectly acceptable for human biology,” Khoth answered crisply. “It has all the nutrients--”
“He vomited, Khoth. Profusely,” Thammah interrupted. “And even after his stomach was empty, he continued to retch. It was a bad time.”
“Can I have a Slim Jim?” Jace asked after another swallow of water, which brought Khoth out of his thoughts but not away from the food.
Khoth picked up the meat-like substance formed into a stick shape. There was a dark red oil surrounding the stick that stained the plastic. He turned to the ingredient list and began to read. Every ingredient had his frown deepening.
“Khoth! C’mon, don’t read the ingredients!” Jace whined.
“Why not?” Khoth’s frown was becoming permanently etched into his face as he went down the list of chemicals in the Slim Jim.
“Because no one wants to know what’s in them!” Jace laughed.
“Why would you eat something unless you were certain of its nutrient value?” Khoth was tempted to throw this Slim Jim in the trash.
“Because it tastes good!” Jace gave him huge eyes. “And I’m hungry. Please? C’mon, throw me a Slim Jim.”
“I would not feed these to my worst enemy.” Khoth sent the Slim Jim flying to a trash receptacle that had appeared.
“No!” Jace cried as both of them watched a small robotic creature take the trash and disappear through an opening in the far wall that slid silently shut. “What have you done?”
“Saved you,” Khoth stated simply.
He was scanning the fruits--grapes and a package of blueberries--and he frowned again. These had traces of pesticides that were cancer causing agents. Jace should not be allowed to eat these either. And the bottles the water were in contained--
“Khoth, I’m starving!” More big eyes at him.
Perhaps the vomiting had been a unique reaction of Captain Parker’s so Khoth suggested, “I have an emergency supply of protein paste--”
“Don’t do it, son,” Captain Parker said as he came into the room with a plate piled high with bread, meat and other condiments that the humans called “sandwiches”. “I didn’t recover from a mouthful of that vile substance for a week. Don’t you remember when I was constantly running to the bathroom?”
Jace blinked then laughed. He pointed at his father’s chest. “Oh, my God, I do remember! And Mom said you just had a touch of the flu, but it was really alien food!”
“Some alien food is good,” Captain Parker said. “But protein paste…” He didn’t finish the sentence but just shuddered.
Captain Parker put the plate down on the cabinet. Khoth immediately began to scan the sandwiches, but Jace grabbed the whole plate and turned his back to Khoth, blocking the scanner. He then began to stuff them into his mouth.
Around meat and bread, Jace mumbled, “Not taking this away!”
“I brought some full sugar Coke as well,” Captain Parker said as he placed six red and white aluminum cans on the counter.
“Oh, God, yeah!” Jace mumbled around more sandwiches.
He was dropping bits of crust on the ground as he couldn’t quite close his mouth around his big bites.
Khoth wanted to tell him to slow down, but Jace was curled protectively over the sandwiches and when Khoth went to scan the “Coke” Jace made a growling noise and curled an arm around the cans.
So Khoth backed off reluctantly. He would scan the dregs later and stop Jace from having more after this meal if it was filled with the toxins and cancer causing chemicals that seemed to be in everything else.
“Has the food police been at it again?” Thammah asked as she came into the room and saw Jace hovering protectively over his meal.
Jace nodded and sent Khoth a narrow-eyed glance as if he didn’t quite trust him to let Jace eat this terrible meal.
“He threw away a Slim Jim!” Jace cried after swallowing a mouthful of sandwich.
“No!” Thammah looked stricken. “Where is it?”
“There was this little robot guy that took it away!” Jace told her.
“The Osiris must agree with me that this food--and I only call it that lightly--is filled with toxins and is not fit to eat,” Khoth stated stiffly.
Captain Parker, who had been opening a bag with the word “Fritos” printed in colorful yellow lettering, quickly dropped it back on the counter and tried to pretend he hadn’t been about to poison himself.
“It is called junk food for a reason,” Thammah agreed, which shocked him, because she had been the one to bring it.
“Junk is a very apt description of it,” Khoth said with a nod even as he watched Jace eat more of it with growing concern.
Jace purposefully stuffed another sandwich in his mouth and opened a plastic bag that had the word “Doritos” in bright red lettering on it. These junk foods all seemed to use bright, primary colors that reminded Khoth of children’s toys. It certainly attracted attention like a toy.
Thammah gestured towards the Cokes. “Can I have one or do you need them all?”
“Go ahead. Drink away.” Jace opened one of the cans and there was a pop and then hiss of carbonation. He chugged half the can. After swallowing, he let out a moan, allowing his head to tip back. “Sugar. Caffeine. So good.”
Thammah followed suit. “So bad, but so good.”
“I know, right?” Jace laughed.
“Thammah, you have called this food and drink junk yet you indulge in it as if--”
“It’s like a drug, Khoth. A wonderful drug. You should try some!” She thrust a can of Coke at him.
He recoiled, which had both her and Jace laughing. Even Captain Parker snorted as Khoth smoothed down his exo-suit, trying to pretend he had not been afraid of a simple can of Coke.
“Don’t worry. If you don’t want it--yet--that just means there’s more for us,” Thammah said.
She then slung an arm around Jace’s shoulders.
They leaned into one another companionably and Khoth was surprised at his Xi letting out a pain of jealousy.
He knew this was illogical. Had he not been able to rub Jace’s temples earlier?
Had the young man not reached out to him after the duel?
So what that Thammah could hug Jace! He could do it too.
As easily. If he wanted. Thammah wiggled her eyebrows at him, noticing his stare.
He became still as stone and just as impervious to her barbs of amusement at his expense!
But Khoth’s annoyance with Thammah bled away as he saw that Jace’s cheeks had a warm color.
His eyes sparkled again. Food and drink seemed to have been the problem.
Khoth wanted to run tests on Jace to see if his systems were fully functioning.
But Jace’s violent reaction to being tested--an almost angry horror at it--stayed Khoth’s hand.
Whatever he could discover through scanning Jace was not worth the young man’s fear.
He will trust me. In time.
But the moment he thought that, he saw his mother’s face.
He could almost hear her telling him that making Jace Parker trust him would be good for the Alliance.
That he should do whatever was necessary to get Jace on their side.
His hands curled into fists. These were the compromises that his mother had to make in order to move the Alliance in the direction she thought was best. It had been determined early on that Daesah, and not himself, were better suited to command at the highest levels, because Khoth balked at taking certain actions.
“Do not take Mother’s assessment of your nature as a criticism,” Daesah had urged him.
“But is it not a criticism?” He’d tilted his head at her, keeping his voice as neutral as possible.
Daesah had sighed. “Only if one thinks the highest good is where we end up and not how we get there.”
“One should try to get to the proper ends by the proper means,” Khoth had responded stiffly, but he already knew that was the “wrong” answer.
But his sister had smiled sweetly at him. “Yes, Khoth, that is a good way of seeing the universe and one’s part in it.”
Khoth thought of his sister’s ultimate fate then.
If he could have saved Daesah by doing something underhanded, something improper, would he not have done it?
Who cared about acting properly if one lost at the end!
That was his mother’s point that he had not understood until the stakes were so very high.
Yet when he looked at Jace he wanted to be proper.
He did not wish to be underhanded to win this young man’s allegiance.
But to not gain it, to have Jace as an enemy or even an unwilling ally, would be a disaster as much as losing Daesah was to the Alliance cause.