"Smells delicious!" Mark turned from the sounds of egg-scrambling and cocked an eyebrow at Laura. "You sure you don't want some?"

"No, I wasn't…" Laura sniffed and her pupils dilated.

"Make that two orders, garcon!" Mark called, and in a lower voice, "You thinking good thoughts about the cargo accelerator?"

The cargo accelerator was being built in western Australia. Congruent to accelerators on both the Quotidian and Tensor versions of earth, it would increase the volume of human trans-world shipping by a factor of a thousand. It was also over budget by approximately the same factor. At this point, given the skepticism of a vocal minority of humans on the entire subject of trans-world traffic, the only way the cargo accelerator was going to get built was if the Convention agreed to pay for it.

"I don't see how feeding the Pick ambassador's pet man-horse will get us our accelerator," said Laura.

"Neither do I, yet." Mark spread his hands like a stage magician showing there was nothing up his sleeves. "But who knows. Maybe we start a fashion. Graa's steed loves the omelets that Koen makes for him. Omelets become a fad. Cheese exports…" He waggled his fingers. "Closer ties can't hurt, is what I'm saying."

Koen arrived with the second omelet, which he set in front of Laura with a silent smile and a bow. She smiled back.

So did Mark. "You've eaten already?" he suggested to Koen.

And now that they were all together…

"Lots of opportunity," he said. "Still, it is going to be hard to work with General Graa."

Koen had just relaxed into his chair next to Laura. Now he stiffened. "What do you mean?"

Unfortunately, Mark had taken a bite of his breakfast, and was busy having a religious experience. Those creamy layers! That scent of butter!

He was therefore too late to stop Laura from remembering she was pissed at Koen.

"Of course he means the tantrum you threw at the Pick ambassador last night."

Koen winced. Hadn't he been brought to the Zogreion precisely to help understand and entertain nonhumans? And everyone had seen him storm off in a huff. He wasn't supposed to be the angry, volatile sort of chef.

"It was hard for me, too." Mark was back on his game, exercising his empathy. "It was hard to see Graa treating a human being like that."

Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

Koen felt obliged to correct Mark. "He isn't actually a human being. Mr. Grumbles is something like a Homo erectus."

"None of this matters," said Laura. "We have more important work to do. Or at least we should."

"But it does matter, he's an erectus and not a sapiens."

Mark had finished chewing by now, but he was in a self-indulgent mood. It was always interesting when people forgot you were there and fought in front of you.

"It's as if the Monumentals were angry at us for eating pig," Koen was saying, unwisely.

The two had had turned in their chairs to face each other, unconsciously squaring their shoulders. I need an ally to reassure him that I'm right, and instead you're threatening me! thought each of them at the same time.

"There's a difference between a pig and a person," said Laura.

Koen laughed at the joke she'd set up for him, which was unfortunate.

"Don't pretend you don't know what I mean," she said. "You're the one who wants to be cold and logical about this."

"I never said that," said Koen, which was true in the literal sense, but false in the context of this whole conversation, which he still hadn't figured out. His rational processes were all still bent on the goal of winning this argument (on which they were both on the same side) and punishing Laura for being mean to him (although Koen would not admit that to himself).

"What I meant," continued Koen, "was that pigs are much more closely related to the Monumentals than they are to either Mr. Grumbles or us. But would the Monumentals get mad if they found out we eat pork? Hell, there are members of the Convention more closely related to lettuce than us.1 Even being vegan wouldn't be enough."

Laura shook her head, mouth pursed as if she'd been fed alum. "What the hell are you talking about?"

"Eating people! You think what Graa does to Mr. Grumbles is bad? Because tomorrow the Convention might make contact with some species that eats hominins. Maybe there's some giant spider or something that tortures things that look like us to death, and we'll have to grin and bear it because that's Convention law."

"Stop it! Stop telling me these horrible things."

"You have to stop being so squeamish. We can't make decisions based on what doesn't feel icky to us."

When in fact, precisely the opposite was true. Laura was making decisions based on what did feel icky to her.

And much more. Laura was disgusted, angry, and horrified at the thought of imaginary humans being painfully eaten by spiders. Her hypothalamus, under the impression that these images coming from her neocortex were real, filled her blood with the adrenaline she would need to escape.

"Ga!" Laura pushed herself away from the table, rose from her seat, and stormed out of the canteen.

"Wait, you didn't finish my, I mean your…" Koen realized he was also standing, and saying something stupid, and Mark was watching him.

He looked at the other man, vacillating between anger and apology.

Mark nodded at him in an understanding way. "You said you wanted to take a walk. Mind if I come? Just let me get my raincoat."

1 These include the Sprocket (the colonial spore of a kind of horsetail) and the Roridum (related to kiwifruits). The Pneumaticons evolved from brown algae, but Koen might have used them in his argument with the substitution of "kombu kelp" for "lettuce."