Jaycen did not like needles. It's not that he had a phobia of them per se, but he'd prefer to never get another shot if he could avoid it; when he was preparing to take over Grandpa's farm, the Interplanetary Commerce Authority made him get damn near twenty vaccinations over the course of only a couple months. He had a bad reaction to one of them, which to be fair was a hell of a lot luckier than most. He'd heard some real horror stories about what some of the allergic reactions to the more exotic jabs could do to a guy; nerve damage, muscular paralysis, even infertility. And one of those weakened viruses they'd stuck him with, while not enough to kill or maim him, had still kicked his ass seven ways to Sunday and left him nearly bedridden for two weeks. So he's not exactly looking forward to Akhia's return, and he's definitely not looking forward to her shoving some weird alien nanobots into his bloodstream.

When Akhia returns though, rather than the plunger style injector he'd been expecting, she was holding some sort of curved, gun shaped device that ends in a circular depression. After a quick swab with some sort of disinfectant, she pressed the thing into his arm, there was a "chunk" sound and a small pinch as what he assumed was a needle punctured his skin, and then he was left with nothing but a small red splotch. No fuss, no muss. If anything, he found the whole thing anticlimactic.

So now he finds himself sitting on his bed again, watching as his captor studies her datapad, ignoring him completely.

"So..." Jaycen ventures, "If you don't mind me asking, Doc... what are you looking at?"

Akhia clicks again and keeps her gaze on the tablet. "Please refer to me by my name, Jay Sen."

Jaycen huffs in consternation, but he couldn't honestly say if she even notices it. "Okay, Akhia, what are you looking at?"

"I am checking to see if we're getting usable readings from the transmitters," she responds after another of her clicks, "and so far, everything looks... steady."

"So... Anything in particular you're looking for?"

For a long moment, there's only silence. Jaycen briefly considers if she heard him, but sure enough she speaks up before he can commit to interrupting her thoughts. "We need to see how compatible your biochemistry is with what we're already set up to handle. My first priority here is knowing what you can eat and drink." She finally lowers her datapad, looking at him directly for the first time since his shot. "How familiar are you with amino acid chirality?"

Jaycen shrugs, but quickly realizes she probably has no idea how human body language works. "As much as any exocolonist, I assume. It's on the basic aptitude test the ICA gives us, after all. They don't want anyone getting sick from eating weird dextro food. Though if anyone is stupid enough to chow down on unidentified alien life, they're probably dumb enough to get themselves killed sooner or later anyway."

She gives him a small nod. Jaycen has no idea what that means, but the fact that she's attempting to use non-verbal communication could be a good sign. "I am pleased to report that your biology is compliant with the food stores we have available. All of our current staff and crew are levo-amino, so our dextro-amino offerings are limited to the nutrient paste that the ship's replicator system can generate."

"Eugh. Doesn't sound very appetizing."

"I have been told it is not particularly enjoyable, no."

"So is the levo food also made by the ship's systems?"

"No, we have a full service kitchen on board. As we are... were on a long term mission, we were approved for a few additional amenities over a normal research craft."

"Oh really? Like what?"

"To name a few, we have entertainment suites with a selection of games and videos, expanded crew quarters with additional display and storage space, and full water based hygiene stations."

Jaycen gives another noncommittal shrug. "Sounds nice, I guess." Not that I'm gonna be seeing them, he mentally adds. "Anyway, if you've got the info you need, is there any way I can get something to eat? I haven't had anything since breakfast and I'm starving."

There was another long pause as Akhia shuffles uncomfortably before she responds. "Yes, now that we have these scans we should be able to provide you with something you will find palatable. I will speak to the kitchen staff and have them bring you a meal."

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Kyxoro taps away at her datapad, her eyes massive as she read the data in front of her. "I can barely believe what I'm seeing here, Akhia. His muscle fibers are ludicrously dense, the oxygen carriers in his bloodstream are far too numerous, and have you seen his immune system? He seems to have cells devoted to retaining a memory of prior infections! His species must get infected constantly to have evolved such a thing."

Akhia shuddered. "And now he's saying he's hungry already. He's already eaten this cycle, and he already wants to eat again."

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Kyxoro shook her head. It didn't make any damn sense! How would a creature like that even acquire enough food on a death world to eat multiple times in a cycle? "You've already placed the order, I assume."

"Yes, Doctor. I really don't want to see what happens if he goes too long without eating."

"You've both been observing it in person at its home, I must assume you've seen it eat before. Do you have any useful observations here?"

Sheilyn taps on her tablet to pull up the notes from earlier that day, her tail swishing back and forth. "Here's the notes from earlier today. Subject cracked a few hard shell eggs and placed the albumen and yolks in a flat bottomed pan over a heated surface. Subject then added a pile of vegetation and some strips of unidentified meat once the eggs had begun to solidify. Subject also mixed into the suspension some granulated minerals, likely sodium chloride. Once the mixture was finished, he ate the result using a dull knife and a pronged stabbing implement." She drops the tablet unceremoniously back onto the table. "Or, y'know, a fork. If you're not being overly pedantic."

Kyxoro started to turn purple again. "Eggs. Ugh, how disgusting. I can't even imagine what it's like to eat something like that. But... informative regardless, I suppose. Thank you Sheilyn."

"Is it really that strange?" Sheilyn protests. "My people raise several egg laying reptiles. The eggs aren't half bad once you get used to the flavor."

"Well no, I imagine you wouldn't find it strange, but you're an obligate carnivore," the Doctor replies, phrasing the word carnivore like it was something she had scraped off the bottom of her heel. "But to one of my people, the idea of eating meat, or the fates forbid, animal products, sounds positively horrific."

Sheilyn grumbles, but keeps her thoughts to herself. Damn Xoruun, always acting like they're better than everyone else. They're not that special just because they're the only council species that can photosynthesize. If Sheilyn was back on Zharas, she'd challenge someone high and mighty like the doctor to a wrestling match on the spot, knock her down a few pegs. Then she'd see how special the Xoruun were when they were forced to eat dirt.

In the adjacent room, one of the panels on the wall suddenly slides open, drawing the attention of the three scientists with a shuff noise. Jaycen quickly makes his way over and begins to pull out the provided supplies.

"Ah!" Akhia yelps with a trill as her palps vibrate. She quickly grabs her tablet off the table. "Everybody get ready to take notes!"

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Jaycen sits himself at the collapsible table he's set up in the center of the room and inspects the tray of... well, it's at least probably food? At least they were kind enough to provide him with a plastic cup of water to wash all this weirdness down. At least he assumes, or more accurately, hopes the clear liquid was water. On one side of the tray there's a washed out lavender colored mass of something with a texture like mashed potatoes. Next to that was a collection of long straight strips of some green vegetable, kind of like bell peppers that had been cut up for fajitas. And topping it off was what he assumed was the main course; a slab of roasted meat. More than anything, it looked like an uncut hunk of London broil, even down to the coloration.

Luckily, they were kind enough to provide him with a knife and fork, though he does note they seemed to be made of a hard plastic, like his cup, rather than metal. He cuts into the meat first, which is indeed juicy like the regular beef he's used to. He hasn't had proper beef since he left Earth, but that's not important right now. Oddly, the meat on the inside of the roast was not, in fact, the reddish pink or gray of a beef roast that he was expecting, but a much lighter shade, sort of like the white meat of a roasted chicken. He gingerly takes a bite of it, and to his surprise, it... it tastes basically like beef. Maybe not exactly the same, and the texture is a bit off, but it's close enough. It's not bad, though it could use some decent seasoning.

Next, he gets himself a forkful of the purple mash. For a moment he considers asking for butter, but seeing as he has no idea what if these aliens even know what butter is, he decides against it. Upon tasting the stuff, he finds that it's actually quite pleasant, like halfway between a yam and a red potato. Probably some kind of starchy tuber. So far, we're two for two.

He spears one of the space peppers, which kinda looked like a miniature green two-by-four; it was far straighter and more rigid than any bell pepper strip he'd seen, not that he's a connoisseur or anything. Oh well. He pops it into his mouth... and immediately regrets taking the whole thing. It indeed seems to be some sort of pepper, and he can feel the burn of the capsaicin assault his mouth; he's had a few peppers in his time, but this one was far beyond the level of heat he could comfortably handle. He feels his eyes tear up a bit as he quickly spits the offending stick from his mouth, and tries in vain to wash the taste out of his mouth with water.

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Akhia glances up from her datapad to see Jaycen desperately gulping at his glass of water. "Should we be concerned?"

Kyxoro keeps her eyes on her own tablet, the readings from the nanotransmitters spiking rapidly. "Well, it doesn't seem to be in any serious danger, but it's certainly experiencing some discomfort. It seems its body can't safely process the chemicals present in the fruit, or at least not without significant pain and irritation."

Sheilyn gives a short chuckle. "I guess the human's not so tough after all." But a moment later, she looks up at Jaycen and cocks her head to the side in confusion. All three of the scientists stare at the odd alien, as he scrapes a small amount of the pepper stick with his knife and adds it to a strip of meat he's cut from his roast. He pops the strip of meat in his mouth, and chews on it thoughtfully as he considers the flavor. After he swallows and takes a moment to wash it down with another drink of water, it seems he enjoys it just fine, as he does the same thing again before enjoying his next bite.

"Why is he doing that?" Sheilyn asks nobody in particular, though Kyxoro is more than willing to answer her.

"It seems it's intentionally adding the chemicals from the vikan pepper to his yshaan roast. Strange. Perhaps the initial readings of its pain receptors was..." She once again checks the readings on her tablet, only to also cock her head to the side in confusion. "No, this is all correct. The readings are stable. Why is the human doing that?"

Akhia simply stares at the subject as realization dawns on her. "Is he... is he intentionally inflicting pain on himself because he likes it?"

There's a moment of silence in the room as they all digest this newest observation. The three of them stare at Jaycen in an odd mixture of awe and fear as the human continues to enjoy his meal in blissful ignorance.