I smiled and brushed my fingertips over my cheek. “Walked into a wall.” I refrained from opening my shirt, where my chest was still a mess, because I didn’t think she’d believe that the wall had retaliated by walking all over me. “They’re keeping you very busy, aren’t they?”

Quam laughed. “And we thought you capable of seeing more than the obvious, Sam. Aprons are over there, gloves next. Mix these mushrooms into that stuffing, then fill those game hens.”

“Yes, Commander.” I complied with his order and began to work. Bianca wandered in and out, not so much giving orders as just encouraging people to work together. Quam explained that half the staff were volunteers like me, drawn from the clientele, and the others, who handled most of the cooking, were students at a local culinary school, or apprentices with some of the restaurants that had been put out of business.

I frowned. “If the attacks on IceKing put those places out of business, how is it that the shelter here has food?”

Quam smiled. “Fine restaurants will not serve food that has survived a bomb blast. It still eats fine, but be careful. If you feel any shrapnel in the stuffing, set it aside.”

I thought he was kidding, then I noticed a couple of pieces of jagged metal in a small pile on the table. They looked like pieces of nails, which would be in keeping with nail bombs. While such devices were fairly easy to make and therefore quite common, the nails generally indicated something that was meant as an antipersonnel weapon.

Bernard, while using my game plan, was improvising on the means of execution.

“What’s the reaction been to your pieces about the FfW hits?”

“They vary from sympathetic outrage, to those who want to know why I’m covering that instead of puking their press release about some new food product into my reports.” He glanced up. “You read them. What did you think?”

“Pretty brave.” I pointed to the nails. “No telling when someone on the other side might take umbrage and make you a target.”

“True, but how can I let that stop me? My job is to write about food and life on Basalt. These strikes are affecting both. Moreover, so many people here are willing to turn a blind eye to things, and yet that is not what our parents and grandparents did in establishing The Republic. If I don’t stand up against tyranny the way they did, am I a worthy heir to this life?”

“You clearly think the answer is, ‘no.’”

“And you don’t?” He brandished the knife. “You can say you don’t, but you do, Sam. You’d not have given money to the Foundation if you didn’t. You’d not be here helping.”

“I gave money because that was our deal, Quam. I’m helping because you have a knife.” I shrugged. “And even if you’re right, I don’t know that it’s worth my life.”

“I know it’s worth mine, but mine is not in jeopardy.” The fat man smiled ruefully. “I am Quam. Hard to forget, but easy to dismiss. When the Journal decides that with no nightlife there need be no Quam, I will fade. Even though my words should be taken seriously, they aren’t and won’t be.”

“You don’t think so?”

He laughed and his jowls quivered. “In this madhouse world? No. The government has made people angry, and likewise Emblyn has made them angry. Now, are the angry people a part of the government striking at enemies, or angry people striking at enemies, or hunks of both? The latter has to be true, because while angry people might protest and even riot, not many can field BattleMechs.”

“That’s a point the press seems to have missed.”

“No, it’s a point that the Constabulary has asked the media to back away from. They don’t want to start a panic.” He waved the knife toward the dining area. “Two weeks ago, two sittings would be almost full. Now we turn people away. There already is a panic.”

“More astute observations.”

“I’ll give you one more to mull while you stuff those birds, Sam. This is going to get a lot worse before it gets better. The ’Mechs that attacked the Palace aren’t the last we’ll see on Basalt. When the real shooting starts, it will be bad. Instead of feeding people, this place will be turned into a charnel house. And if that doesn’t make you lose your appetite, nothing ever will.”

Manville, Capital District

Basalt

Prefecture IV, Republic of the Sphere

22 February 3133

I stuck around and helped serve the meals I’d prepared. I guess, in part, it was because I was feeling guilty over the trouble I’d instigated. The people who came in were grateful for the food, and many were the offers to help clean up. In fact, the last seating helped clean the room, stacked chairs, and there was no segregation. A cynic might have noted that trouble makes brothers of us all, but I tended to think that some people were able to put aside petty and benign differences to help each other. That was what I would have expected from reading about Basalt, and here I saw it. Bernard might be pushing divisive ideas, but his sister was unifying people.

Once things had been cleaned up, the staff sat down and had leftovers, of which there was not much. I did get a bit of one of the game hens and the stuffing. There was no shrapnel in it, which would have been the only thing that could have marred perfection. Not only could Quam write about food, but he could cook as well.

I looked at him. “You cook so well, why don’t you have a restaurant of your own?”

He laughed at me. “Your innocence is refreshing, Sam.”

Bianca smiled and got up from our table. “I’ve heard this lecture before, so I’ll go get us some dessert.”

Quam waited for her to leave, then interlaced his fingers and settled them over the curve of his middle. “In running a restaurant, one has to give lots of orders, which I can do, and prepare many meals, which I can do. What I cannot do, however, is subject my genius to the know-nothing-but-ready-to-share-their-ignorance customers and critics who will come to my establishment. People who dine out want two things: good food and different food. They will hunt down the latter before they settle for the former. I could create a menu of the best dishes ever created on Basalt or in The Republic, and people would still quest after the new thinking, quite wrongly, it would be better.”

I gave him a smile. “Well, it could be better, couldn’t it?”

Snookums, seated on a stool beside Quam, growled.

The man hushed the dog. “He’s innocent, remember?” Quam regarded me with half-lidded eyes. “On a good day, on the chef’s best day, perhaps. That is immaterial, however, because there is a second, greater reason to avoid it: I would be bored. Doing the same thing, day in and day out, even allowing for innovation, would kill me. Better to venture in the wilderness seeking that magical meal that approaches the divine than to dish up Olympian fare every day. I mean, Sam, would you want that sort of wretched, stable life?”

I hesitated. There were times when the idea of settling down with Janella did strike me as perfect, but more often I liked the challenges of what I did. The hunt, as he described it, was fun, and the victory, better. I had the luxury, perhaps illusory, of believing what I did helped people. Quam could make that same claim and, on a daily basis, he had a stronger case than I did.

I shook my head. “No, I guess not. Still, it would be great to have a place where one could get food this good when I wanted to.”