"We have been busy," Secretary crowed from an iron branch near the kitchen door.

"I can tell," said Koen.

The room was now a bit less forge and a bit more kitchen. It was mostly the smell, which was almost free of industrial chemicals. Had the Pick cleaned the place up for the benefit of mammalian noses? Or would that be giving them too much credit?

There had certainly been some attempt to accommodate their guest cook. The Pick had placed a table there, identical to the ones at the UN Embassy, along with cooking utensils. These were less faithfully-reproduced. Or perhaps they were purchased from some other species. One knife had a thick blade and a ridiculously long handle. The rest were so small, Koen had trouble holding them. The pots were egg-shaped.

The ingredients, however, were mostly familiar: crabs, lobsters, shrimp. Some of the clams were clam-shaped, although others had and an uncoiled, stretched-out look that reminded Koen of rudists1. The fish were a bit stranger — with simple jaws and complex fins, and the shell-less, sea-turtle-sized creature must be some kind of plesiosaur. Koen stared at it, thinking how envious some of his old colleagues would be. He hadn't spoken to any of them in years.

Here he was in the Zogreion. Here he was outside of the embassy. In the home of a nonhuman.

This was good! This was an opportunity! Why hadn't he seen it before? Why hadn't Koen gone out on his first day and asked for this?

Koen stretched his arms and pressed his fingertips against the table. He took a deep breath. He was cooking. He could do this.

A shudder ran down Koen's body. It was shockingly outside of his control. Mechanical, like a ratchet releasing.

"I notice something!" came Graa's voice. "You were under stress."

"Ahoy, General!" cawed Secretary.

Koen turned to see the the Pick ride into the kitchen, perched on the carved staff of the Admirable Fling.

"Yes," chattered the Toxoplasmotic. "Fancy Death shudders just like that when I release him from his carrying case."

"Good morning," said Koen.

"My senses tell me it is afternoon, Human Koen, but I agree that it is good." The rodent turned enormous black eyes on him. "Or does your language center mean that this is a good time to wake up and begin to work? I agree."

"Work. Yes," said Graa.

"May I lend my body to you?" asked Fling. Her teeth were still pointed at Koen, and Graa wasn't responding. Koen supposed the question must be directed at him.

"Clarify?"

"Lend my hands and feet and teeth to your will, I mean," she said. "Help you."

"Oh! Of course!" For a moment, Koen second-guessed himself. How much help could a nonhuman be? What weird demands would she suddenly make of him? If Mark were here, he'd know how to deal with this problem, but all Koen could do now was say, "It would be an honor."

"What will we make?"

Fling extended her cane and hopped deeper in the kitchen. General Graa attempted to look dignified as his perch swung him forward and back.

Koen surveyed his ingredients. "With this seafood, I'd love to make a bouillabaisse or a moqueca. General Graa, I have requests for ingredients. "

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"Secretary!"

"Yes, General! Human Koen, I stand ready to refuse anything you ask!"

Koen let out a breath.

"All acts of creation are leaps of faith," said Fling.

"Um. Yes," said Koen, and proceeded to lean very hard on the translator network. "Do you have salt, pepper, lemon, red peppers, onions or leeks, palm or olive oil, garlic, tomatoes, and a fennel bulb, or coconut milk?"

"Yes. We have one and a half of those things."

"Clarify," commanded Graa. "Are the other things plant material? My guest is an aquatic carnivore, but I instructed my staff to buy seaweed as garnish."

"I have done so!" Secretary protested. "I have stashed piles of the heavy stuff here. I am anxious to be recognized. Human Koen, acknowledge the seaweed!"

"Yeah." Koen noted the pile of kelp. He didn't even try to ask about thyme and saffron. "I suppose I could do something Japanese."

"Clarify, are you asking for my approval of things I know nothing about?" asked Secretary. "You are a specialist meal-forger, are you not? Our sun-blocking commanding officer has given you an assignment and the tools to complete it."

Graa made grumbling noises. "I am pleased. You are submissive."

"What tools?" said Koen, who had been acting submissive for days now. In a kitchen, he felt he had the leverage to rise up against oppression and his testosterone levels rose. "What the hell am I supposed to do?"

"Human Koen," said Fling, "you are the only sophont here whose brain contains the information necessary to answer that question."

She took another hopping step forward, and General Graa fluttered atop her cane. "Bad steed!"

"What am I supposed to do?" Koen asked himself. And, looking at the ingredients, he answered it.

"Clambake."

Koen had never been to the United States, but he'd met several Americans in Brazil, and he'd read up on New England cuisine after learning that Mark was from Boston.

To make a clambake, one dug a pit in the sand of a beach, built a fire in it, and piled layers of seaweed, seafood, and corn on top. Koen didn't have a beach or corn, but compared to his earlier ideas, that wasn't bad.

"I need a big pot," he said. "The bigger the better."

"In that case," said General Graa, "You and Fling should search for one. I am dominant. Good bye." He took off, and Koen and Fling looked up at Secretary.

"I am dominant and anxious," he said. "Why are you looking at me?"

"I wonder if the Pick even have large pots," Koen said. "How would a bird carry such a thing?"

"My brain imagines them making trained steeds do it," said Fling.

"Of course. I am proud." Secretary hunched his shoulders and raised his crest. "We have pots that are far too heavy to fly with." He swooped from one perch to another and flipped his tail. "Behold a cauldron."

Fling hopped to the hulking, black device and ran a hand over its rim. "My eyes and fingers have found it."

"It is large enough to fit either of your bodies," said Secretary. "I am smug."

Koen checked to make sure that the cauldron wasn't actually a copper smelter or something. It smelled like the inside of an oven, at least.

"Okay," he said. "First, we'll line the bottom of the pot with seaweed. We'll layer them in order of what takes longer to cook. Arthropods last, then smaller clams, then those big rudists, and at the bottom..." Koen turned to the plesiosaur. He considered chopping it up, but wanted to be braver than that. The image of serving the whole animal to his guests gave him a sense of masterly pride. "Secretary, when is the psychic coming over?"

"As the infant eye of heaven becomes dark with transparency, Venus will appear like an impossible egg."

"Clarify?"

"Around 6 pm."

"So, we have about six hours to steam this thing." Koen hefted it. The neck dangled and the blubbery flippers flopped. "About fifty kilos, I'd say? Half a kilo in half an hour...twelve and a half hours. Damn." He laid the plesiosaur back on the table. "I'm going to spatchcock this thing."

1 Rudists are uncoiled, stretched-out bivalves related to clams. On the human Earth, they went extinct at the end of the Cretaceous period.