Despite Laura's objections, Koen had gone ahead and ordered the lotus roots. She didn't comment on them now, and neither did he, although Koen thought it most politic to hide them in the soup with the taro.

Peeling taro was not like peeling potatoes. The inner flesh was slimy and Koen had to concentrate to keep the peeler from slipping. He'd done this work often enough, though, that he could make it look easy.

"Peel the taro root, skin a ghost," said Laura, looking up from her growing piles of chopped onions and ginger.

"Fling would like these things," said Koen. "It's slightly dangerous. How are those water caltrops coming, Mark?"

"Reminds me of lobster claws," said Mark as he dug nut-meat out of the horn-shaped shell.

In Laura's opinion, he was mangling the nuts. But what did it matter? They were going in the soup anyway. Koen had known what he was doing when he gave them these jobs. It was nice, for once, to be given clear instructions she could easily do, and feel proud of herself afterward. To trust in Koen's skill.

"I'm glad we could do this," she said.

"Me too," said Koen. "Now, pumpkin."

Laura looked around, somewhat sloshily. A term of endearment would be too much to hope for.

And indeed, Koen was holding what appeared to be a large squash. Surely, he would want to tell her about its biology.

"Is that a real pumpkin?" Laura asked.

"It seems to be," said Koen. "At least, it falls within the normal distribution of the squashes I've worked with before."

"The color is a bit strange." It was striped white and dark green.

"That actually makes sense, since it was domesticated by the Greaves. They're procyonids, which lost one of the ancestral pair of mammalian cone cells.1"

When Koen dug his peeler through the rubbery rind, the pale orange flesh began to weep sticky, sweet-smelling ooze.

"Humans have three cone cells, so we can distinguish red from green, and birds of course have four, so they can see a fourth, ultraviolet primary color, but raccoons and such can only distinguish black and white from everything else."

"What does that mean? What do they see?" Laura thought about birds. "What does General Graa see?"

"It's impossible to imagine," said Mark.

"I don't think so." Koen leaned on his cleaver, forcing it through the dense flesh of the pumpkin. More muscle power yielded cubes. "I think it's just very hard."

Laura really wanted to squeeze those arms.

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"Alright, Laura, give me some of your stuff."

The smell of frying garlic and ginger rose, so good it pained the back of her mouth. The pumpkin cubes got enough frying to brown them up before Koen poured soy sauce and rice wine over them. Koen added water and sugar and covered the pot.

Koen moved to another pot, where bean paste was frying in oil. "Okay! Now the snails! Laura, the refrigerator?"

She found the bowl of little pink-gray curls of meat.

"Are these real snails?" She handed him the bowl.

"Probably." He dumped the little curls of meat to the sizzling oil. "I mean, they could be shelled land-squid or something. Okay. Stir them until they change color, then add wine and water and let them simmer."

Twice now Laura had passed something to him without managing to brush fingertips. It was very frustrating. But now they were standing next to each other, Laura stirring snails and Koen sniffing what smelled like soup with ginger, garlic, citrus skin, and wine.

"Okay," he said. "Mark, get the marinated prawns out of the fridge, please.2 Something like prawns, anyway."

"Whoof!" said Mark. "What did you marinate them in, gasoline?"

"The strongest brandy we had."

Laura was reminded of her wine, and took a sip. "Stronger is better!"

Koen had already moved on to a forth pot, where he'd melted rock sugar and bean paste. The plesiosaur ribs went into the bubbling sauce, along with dark soy sauce.3

"Hurry up with those water caltrops, Mark."

"I was getting the prawns."

"And now I need the caltrops!"

"I keep telling you I need help and you keep turning up the pressure." That was more true than he'd intended. Mark hitched his control back up.

"The meat is searing." Koen added water and whirled around. He snatched the water caltrops Mark had managed to shell and dumped them in along with the taro and lotus root. That brought the temperature down, and he could just let the soup simmer.

"You can do the rest for garnish for tomorrow," said Koen.

Mark didn't like to be given make-work. "Or the guests could open them themselves, that would be fun."

"Don't be lazy, Mark." Koen leaned in toward the soup. It gave off an alarmingly muddy smell, but Koen had done all this before. He kept going, knowing the smell would clear.4

Mark chewed on the inside of his lip, fighting the urge to scowl. Alright, enough goofing off in the kitchen. Time to do some real work. The mission he'd come here to accomplish.

It wouldn't do to just say, "It must be nice to have Earth to look forward to." That re-framing might be too strong even for Koen, and Laura would certainly recognize it. Best to avoid placing too much weight on her. Best to be subtle.

1 Peichl, L. & Pohl, B. (2000). Cone types and cone/rod ratios in the crab-eating raccoon and coati (Procyonidae). Investigative Ophthalmology and Visual Science 41, S494.

2https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8Z7Z3ZGN14

3https://www.thestar.com.my/metro/metro-news/2022/10/01/cantonese-stewed-meat-with-mid-autumn-flavours

4https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=296&v=7yT6oyR4s30&embeds_euri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2F&source_ve_path=Mjg2NjY&feature=emb_logo