I had never seen a house so neat which gave such an impression of clutter. There were inane and placid pastoral landscapes on the walls. In one room there was a large fire contained in a stone annex, with implements and ingredients for its maintenance stockpiled next to it. There were things that resembled Mother's elegant spun-glass figurines, but they were short and round, opaquely white and garishly painted. These were all over the place, arranged in tableaus.
There were vertical swaths of white cloth, gathered closed in their middles, hung on the windows. I assumed that they were there to provide shade, but they would be, I judged entirely ineffective. Perhaps, though, this world's sun was not so strong. The walls themselves were made of a yellow wood with dark-stained knots. They made me uneasy.
There was a wooden table in the middle of the room. Something had been carved on it, but the sheen of the glass slab atop it, and the book on top of that, prevented me from seeing what the carving was. The book was about the size of my forearm from elbow to fingertips, and was leather-bound with gilt-edged pages. It had no author, it was simply called 'The Book,' only the word 'book' was in a variant of Latin. I found this to be a pretentious title. It looked well-thumbed. I was curious about its contents, but I did not wish to touch the leather covering.
The couches were prickly. I sat on one anyway, that I might not be the only person standing. Lady Kirk appeared with a med-kit, and looked pointedly at Jim's hand. He cast me a venomous glance, which I pretended not to see, but surrendered the hurt hand. The import of that glance disturbed me. It should not have existed at all, unless he was aware of my rapport with him. It would not have been poisonous if he had been at all happy with that rapport--or at least, the anger would have been mixed with familiarity. Events did not bode well.
I hoped I would be able to give him his present. I had brought it from Vulcan with great difficulty and inconvenience, and I did not wish to go home with it. On the other hand, I did not wish to leave him feeling sourly obliged to me.
I suffered through the evening. Lady Kirk and Captain April were invariably kind and pleasant, and I was grateful to them. Kirk himself had no idea what to do with me, or Jim, or his namesake, really. The brother kept trying to show me his science projects. They were competant, but uninspired. I assumed he was trying to be a gracious host, and so did my best to be a gracious guest. I kept shooting glances at Jim when no one was watching.
He had regained some weight; his cheekbones no longer stuck out so prominently. I was glad to see it. He had felt birdlike and hollow in my arms, and I had been certain that his weight estimate was vastly inaccurate. His shoulders had expanded slightly, and his features were softened. That is, they would have been, had they not borne an expression that belonged on T'Pau.
I picked up the knickknack closest to hand, and contemplated what a good target that straight nose would make.
"That's a Hummel," Lady Kirk said helpfully, and I looked at her while everyone else looked at me. "Isn't it sweet?"
I looked at it. It was a representation of a small Terran child. The child was dangerously overweight and seemed to have the mumps. "Indeed," I said, and put it down.
Dinner was... interesting. The brother kept complaining about the lack of animal protein until Jim kicked him under the table. I was grateful, but I would have been more so if I had been winked or nodded at. There was hot soup which I enjoyed more for the temperature and texture than the flavor. Lady Kirk replaced the bovine milk with an excellent citrus juice once she had been convinced that I was something called 'vegan' as well as vegetarian.
I enjoyed the sweet crispness of corn, but I was laughed at, albeit in a friendly manner, for cutting the kernels off with my knife instead of tearing them from the cob with my teeth. I endured the laughter: Vulcans do not touch food with our hands, once it has been prepared. To do so would show a lack of dignity, and a lack of respect for both food and cook. I could not bring myself to eat the Brussels sprouts. Their shape and color was disturbing.
Jim seemed to enjoy them. I was glad he was eating again, but the vigor with which he bit into them, his eyes playing over my face as I watched him in my peripheral vision, was disquieting. The brother asked why they'd skipped the salad. Lady Kirk said the salad was coming next. The brother said that was mixed up. He got glared at. This, I did not understand. Salad is a palate-cleanser, used before the endmeal.
The salad was good, and its flavor was enhanced by the dressing. Jim exhibited the same behavior towards one of the salad's ingredients that he had towards the Brussels sprouts. This ingredient was called 'cucumber.' It manifested as a number of translucently thin green-rimmed disks with very little taste but a pleasant watery crispness. I understood the Brussels sprouts, but not the cucumber disks.
There were other disks in the salad. These were orange, and called 'carrot coins.' Jim did not savage them. Nor did I, but I did eat them with relish. They were good, with a distinctive flavor I had not previously encountered. Jim glared at me when he thought I wasn't watching. I cannot imagine why.
The endmeal, on Terra, seems to be called 'dessert.' It also seems to be predominantly sweet. I watched the table become loaded with fruit, a plate of small brown disks, three paper containers of colored stuff, and a short brown cylinder, as well as containers of yellow, white, and orange liquid and a pitcher of what I assumed to be water.
Without looking at me, Jim pointed. "Fruit: safe. Cookies: dairy. Sorbet, chocolate, orange, lemon. Chocolate comes from beans, orange is the same fruit as your juice, and lemon is its cousin." He looked at me suddenly and smiled. I tensed, and pushed back slightly in my chair. I had seen that expression before, but never on anything with only two legs. "I'm sure you'll like sorbet." He returned to his previous colorless expression. "Good with fruit and each other. Cake: dairy. Wine: alcoholic. Milk: dairy. More orange juice. Water." He looked at me again. This time I actually pushed my chair back several centimeters. "You like water, don't you?"
"And if you look at the window on your right," the brother droned, "you will notice that we are passing New York. Observe carefully and you'll see the Statue of Liberty. Well, I'll be darned. Somebody's stolen the old girl's torch."
Jim slumped into his seat, crossed his arms, and glowered palpably.
For the first time, I had a kindly thought for young George. Although his speech made no sense whatsoever, he had saved me from responding. He had also refocused Jim's ill-humor, and for that I was positively grateful.
As a peace offering and much against my better judgement, I permitted Lady Kirk to spoon some of the lemon and chocolate sorbet onto my plate. Reluctantly, I lifted a spoonful of it to my mouth and bit down.
And nearly spat it out. I felt my eyebrows crawling under my hair. In the midst of my shock, I abandoned discipline and glared at Jim. He was biting into a round white fruit with red skin and snatching one of the cookies from the plate, but he had stopped to regard me with interest. They all had.
"Is something the matter?" he asked innocently.
"Cold!" I exclaimed.
"Ohhhh," he exclaimed, wide eyed. "Desert planet, right. Oh dear, how stupid of me. Whatever could I have been thinking?"
"I know exactly what you were thinking," I returned. "I did not deserve that and I do not appreciate it."
His eyes narrowed. "Wanna bet?"
"Vulcans," I said, "do not gamble."
"Boys!"
We both closed our mouths, leaned back, and looked guiltily at Lady Kirk.
"No fighting at the table."
Captain April snickered. Jim's hand darted to the captain's plate, and hovered. He glanced briefly at his mother's narrowed eyes, and withdrew his hand.
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