Total pages in book: 165
Estimated words: 159487 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 797(@200wpm)___ 638(@250wpm)___ 532(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 159487 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 797(@200wpm)___ 638(@250wpm)___ 532(@300wpm)
Besides, cooking gave her something practical to focus on and Cassie had always been good at practical things. She’d raised three boys, survived twenty years with Mitchell, escaped to the Kindred Mother Ship, married a lizard man, lived five years on a planet where all the women had tail-holes in their dresses and dry sandy slits instead of pussies, and had somehow managed not to completely lose her mind.
Surely she could manage to make the Visskous equivalent of beans and rice—or whatever staple foods the pantry was stocked with.
She looked more closely into the cupboard and began taking inventory.
There were several sealed bags of something that looked like pearly gray lentils, each little bead perfectly round and faintly iridescent, like tiny BBs made out of moonstone. The label was written in Visskous script, which Cassie could read after five miserable years on Visslick Prime, though she still hated the way the letters curled and hooked around each other like little snakes.
Kareth pearls, the bags said.
Not bad. Kareth was a staple grain on Visslick Prime, though calling it “grain” was probably a generous interpretation. It grew in long, hanging pods from squat, ugly bushes that smelled like wet dirt. When dried and boiled, the pearls softened into something vaguely like rice—if rice had a slightly nutty flavor and a faint blue tint. Cassie had eaten plenty of it during her marriage to Sskarth, mostly because it was cheap, filling, and didn’t taste like insects—which put it above a surprising number of Visskous foods.
Next to the kareth pearls were flat bricks wrapped in dull silver foil. She pulled one out and turned it over in her hands.
Dried thessa mash, the packaging read.
Cassie made a face. Thessa mash was sort of like refried beans, if refried beans had been invented by someone who hated joy and thought food ought to have the texture of wet cement. Still, it was full of protein and it kept forever, which was probably why the bunker had an entire shelf of it. Once rehydrated with water and heated, it turned into a thick brown paste that could be eaten with grain cakes or used to stretch soup.
There were also several tall jars of preserved loompa root, which was a purple tuber that tasted a little like sweet potato crossed with turnip. Cassie actually liked loompa root, especially if it was roasted or pan-fried with salt. Unfortunately, the jars appeared to hold it in some kind of briny green liquid, which meant it was probably going to taste like pickled dirt, but beggars in secret underground bunkers couldn’t be choosers.
She moved on to the next shelf.
There were packets of dried sserka strips, which looked disturbingly like strips of old leather and smelled faintly smoky even through the sealed packaging.
Sserka was a domesticated herd animal on Visslick Prime that looked something like a cross between a goat and an armadillo, if God had been drunk and angry when He made it. Cassie had never liked to see the creatures alive because they had too many legs and made a wet clicking sound when they walked, but the meat itself wasn’t terrible once it was dried and seasoned heavily enough.
Beside those were several small tins of salted fen pods, which were basically alien beans. They were pale yellow, kidney-shaped, and packed in oil that solidified when the room got too cold. Cassie picked up a tin and shook it thoughtfully. Beans and rice—or fen pods and kareth pearls—might be possible. Not exactly gourmet, but definitely edible.
There were also translucent cubes stacked in a clear container, each one about the size of a bouillon cube and glowing faintly orange from within. Cassie recognized those too—they were broth stones. Drop one into boiling water and it dissolved into a savory broth. The Visskous preferred theirs flavored with insect shells and mineral salts, but this container had a South Continent supply mark on the lid, thank God, which meant they were probably going to taste much better than the kind she’d usually gotten in the Crystal City.
Southern Continent broth stones were usually rich, salty, and comforting—almost like chicken stock, though not quite. Cassie had eaten plenty of chicken soup growing up, and for the first time since she’d been dragged into the bunker, a rush of homesickness went through her.
But it wasn’t homesickness for Earth, exactly. What she actually felt was homesickness for the Mother Ship—the first place she’d lived after getting away from Mitch that actually felt like home.
She felt homesick for the clean corridors and kind people…for the steady hum of the ship beneath her feet…for the cute little restaurants and shops around the parklands. Most of all she felt homesick for a place where no one looked at her like she was a defective mammal because she had breasts and skin instead of scales and got sweaty at night when she had a hot flash.