The Light-years Beneath My Feet Read Online Free

field he could see the invited guests. The majority were tripodal, three-eyed, triple-armed, beige-tinted Sessrimathe, elegantly and colorfully clad, but here and there other, even more outrageous shapes could be discerned. While his efforts at culinary artistry had not made him famous, they had at least gained him a certain notoriety. If nothing else, he was certainly the best human chef on Seremathenn. He was also the only human on Seremathenn.
    This unsought exclusivity did not diminish the satisfaction he felt at what he had accomplished over the course of the preceding months. His unsophisticated species notwithstanding, he knew what he could do. In the space of a couple of years he had grown more than competent: he had become good.
    At his command he was enveloped by a dust storm of different spices and seasonings. A few onlookers voiced astonishment in the gentle, muted tones of the Sessrimathe while a single loud, sharp whistle was emitted by an unseen representative of the curious Kyalrand who were paying their first visit to Seremathenn. His vision momentarily obscured by the aromatic whirlwind he had called forth, Walker was not able to identify the individual whistler.
    No matter. He was busy enough, trying to control the active components of the incipient sifdd. With dexterous strokes of his cooking wand and concomitant verbal commands to the ever-alert processing instrumentation, ingredients were combed, combined, conflated, and cooked. A ring of ground flowers not unlike flour coalesced around him. Eddies of puff pastry began to take shape, rising and expanding in carefully controlled suspension. Spice flares burst in and through the emerging ring like sharks attacking a strung-out school of bait fish.
    When the perfectly crisped pastry had absorbed the last of the flavorings, Walker brought forth miniature waterspouts of liqueur and fruit juice. Under his guidance, these began to twist and coil about one another, serpentine shapes already subtle of flavor that he further imbued with essence of t’mag and surrun. When all was combined, he shattered the ring of pastry into a hundred individual shapes, each slightly different from the next, so that they orbited his waist like so many miniature moons while a constrained ring of pale pink liquid swirled lazily about his vertical axis.
    He paused there for effect, letting the impressed audience savor the last moments before final processing. Then, with a flourish of commands and wand, he made the final adjustments to temperature and individual constraining fields.
    The arc of pink fluid splintered, prompting murmurs of appreciation from several in the audience. Attracted to the fields being generated by the individual pastries, independent drifting globules of the customized liqueur that Walker had lovingly hand-tailored to his own specifications proceeded to englobe each and every puff. When the last portion of pastry had been encased, an appropriate collection server rose from the assemblage of instrumentation behind him. Following a rising spiral course, the device proceeded to swallow each of his flaky creations one by one. Once gathering had been completed, the server returned to its charging base, the demonstration sphere powered down, and Walker settled gently to the floor. The alien equivalent of applause that ensued was notable for its enthusiasm.
    In the course of the reception that followed, he readily elaborated in some detail on the intricacies of his newly honed talent to visiting Sessrimathe who had traveled from many parts of Seremathenn. In between knowledgeable questions and casual conversation, the visitors who filled the greeting chamber in the human’s home edifice were treated to samples of the very gastronomic concert they had just seen performed.
    Having mastered a modest familiarity with the basics of Sessrimathen conversation, Walker participated in these discussions with verve and ease. By now he was as comfortable around the three-legged