Phoenix Café Read Free Page A

her miracles of Old Earth cuisine. Peter, her human son, was sharpening knives.
    “Maman?”
    But her foster mother (breast as flat and hard as if she was an Aleutian now: it was a long time since she’d suckled a child) had refused for years to acknowledge that Catherine had ever been her baby.
    “Yes, Miss?”
    Catherine could taste the stinging tinker-reek of Peter’s work box. The smell of cooking made her dizzy; Leonie’s rebuff brought her to the verge of tears. But Leonie herself was visibly shaking. Peter kept his eyes on his work in an unnatural pantomime of unconcern. She stood between them, human blood dry-smeared on her clothes and in her hair. She’d forgotten they hated her missionary work worse than Maitri did. She lifted her shoulders in the gesture that meant a smile in Aleutian, an apology in human body-language; spoke earnestly and kindly.
    “I know I look terrible. The blood, I know the blood looks bad.” She tried to laugh. “Don’t worry; I’m not going to try to convert you!” She gestured, with the flowers that she’d brought in. “I picked these for Maitri. Could I have a vase?”
    Peter kept on madly sharpening. Leonie stared in wondering pity.
    “You can’t have those indoors,” she said. “They’re poisonous.” But she brought a vase, and filled it with water from the hydrobiont pump on her kitchen counter. “Lord Maitri’s waiting for you in the atrium.” She swallowed. “Maybe you should get washed first.”
    “No, it’ll wait. Maitri won’t mind.”
    The atrium was a large and splendid square hall, colonnaded around the sides. A dome of the marvelously transparent local glass, stained in sweeps of green and gold and ruby, rose above the central space. Pieces of ancient machinery, beautifully restored, stood among troughs and tubs of native plants. The centerpiece was an examination pit from a motor garage, which Maitri had had transported here, and let into the floor. It held a small fountain (fed from the “burst main”) with cushioned seats beside the pool; and gave off from its blackened walls a faint romantic whiff of engine oil.
    Lord Maitri was alone, resplendent in one of his antique morning robes. “My dear,” He put the potato flowers aside and gripped her hands. “I hope the police have been nice to you. They’ve been being very polite to us. Now tell me all about it.”
    Maitri spoke “formally,” in English. When he and his ward were alone they always conversed this way. Catherine had learned to manage very well in the Common Tongue, but she was still at a loss sometimes, deprived of the living traffic of the air. He shrugged ruefully, waving a hand to indicate the rest of the Aleutian household. “I thought I wouldn’t subject you to ‘the zoo,’ so early in the morning. But everybody wants you to know that we’re glad you’re safe.”
    “There isn’t much to tell,” Catherine said. She recovered her hands, folded her arms under her breasts, delivered her report in a firm, level tone. “I was attending a conversion ceremony. It was in an apartment belonging to one of our proselytes—belonging to his family that is, but the rest of the household were away for the evening. I was alone with the candidates. I tried to keep them indoors but they kept rushing out again. I warned them that we could be in trouble if we invaded a public space, but they wanted to bear witness to the good news. It was chaos, I admit. But no one was getting hurt…that didn’t want to be, I mean. It was almost over when the orthodoxers arrived. They had heat guns, I don’t know where from: totally illegal. They fried everything in sight, the building turned on the powder-sprinklers for the whole landing and then the police turned up. They arrested me. Me, not the orthodoxers, of course. They put me in solitary in an unmonitored cell, and refused to charge me. So I refused to eat, and that was embarrassing I suppose. So this morning they decided to throw me out and