Page 8 of Time Traveling Space Bastards
“Oh, fine. If I’m introducing you to Earth food, we’re doing forbidden donuts. I’m not surewhatyou did with all my food, but you put my chocolate oat milk in things it doesn’t belong in and raisins don’t go in that. The meat seems edible unless you got freaky with my spice cabinet and got into the pumpkin spice.”
“I grilled the meat,” Torrek said. “I can scent which spices won’t work. I told Kuka the brown liquid didn’t smell right inthat, but he did it anyway. What animal on your planet makes brown milk?”
“Um, it’s chocolate, and it’s not from a mammal. I like the taste of oat milk better. I’ll get the plates and order the donuts.”
I guess now that I had four million dollars in my bank account, I was a little less mad someone had made mac and cheese with chocolate oat milk. I mean, they followed the recipe on the box, they just used the wrong milk. And people from this planet put raisins in shit it didn’t belong in all the time.
After I ate, I could focus on the fact that someone wanted to murder me. This wasn’t an Everclear step, but I had been pretty heavily disassociating since I’d heard I was going to get murdered in two days.
Ihadn’t meant to ruin her food. As the prince, I grew up with chefs who cooked me whatever I wanted. When my parents kicked my brother and I out of the palace to compete for the throne, Torrek took me in and informed me he was my bodyguard, not my butler. His younger sister was also living with him and she was probably scarier than he was, but she tried to teach me to cook a little.
I was usually fine if I had a recipe and instructions. Which I did on the box. She had ingredients that matched the names on the box. I should have trusted Torrek’s nose when he said there was something more with the milk than just it being brown. You could buy milk from different kinds of animals back home, but we didn’t put whatever chocolate was in it.
Torrek grilled her meat, but I figured if she was going to show us food from her planet, we could let her try some of ours. Enix had the best information because he could access all the data. If we could eat her food, she could eat ours. If something was toxicon our planet, it was universally toxic to everything, so I didn’t think we needed to worry about poisoning her.
“Want to see Big Daddy?” I asked.
I hadn’t touched the bottle she’d been drinking from, but drunk was universal in every galaxy. So was the look she was giving Torrek.
“Hell, yes. Oh, you mean your spaceship.”
So, I guessthoseparts of the holy texts were true. Torrek would feed her and tuck her into bed, but he wouldn’t touch her like that when she was drunk. It was time for a little tour.
I blew literally most of the money I was given for the contest for the throne on this. My brother would say I was copying him, but I wasn’t. I was trying to stop him. I knew he was trying to find the Devouring Mother to prevent her texts from ever ending up on our planet. We’d get to all of that when she was sober.
But first, I wanted to show off my toy.
The holy text mentioned several things on this planet, so I had my time machine modeled after one so that it would blend in. I knew enough to know people would react badly. It was a feat of engineering. I had most of it parked outside her house and the rest of it cloaked in the time stream where it wasn’t taking up any space.
She walked around it.
“What is all of this painted on it?”
“Logos for Torrek’s favorite bands. He’s very into the local music scene on our planet.”
“Ooh, me, too,” she giggled, stroking his arm. “But I picked Bumfuck, Alaska to get away from everyone I knew and I have to drive three hours if I want to see anyone good.”
I guess this planet was just like ours. WomenlovedTorrek. I stuck the key into the sliding panel that looked like a wall. I opened it and gave her a slight bow.
“After you.”
She stepped inside and screamed. Was that a good scream? Usually when women screamed around me, they were mad at me, but couldn’t hit me because I was royalty.
“Coolest shit ever!”
Yeah, I guess she was impressed with my toys. We stepped in behind her and I locked the door. I didn’t need any other humans sneaking inside. Before I could even try to offer her a tour, there was a thump. Someone was in here. It couldn’t be another human because the keyhole was hard to find, and I locked the door.
Torrek went into kill mode and pounced. That’s what he was here for. He eventually came back out with a hissing and spitting Saki woman scruffed by the neck.
“Omi?”
What was Torrek’s little sister doing here? She was an adult and just a few years younger than Baxter, but Omi was in the last year of residency learning to be a surgeon. It was a complicated job that not everyone was capable of doing. Competition to get into the program was fierce. I didn’t know why she threw all that away to stowaway on my time machine.
“She used her medical knowledge to mix herbs so she could hide her scent from me. Mom is going to murder me and then she’s going to murder you,” Torrek said.
Torrek and Omi were scary, but not as frightening as their mom. Their dad had died right after Omi was born and she never remarried. She raised them on her own and she was a fierce woman.
Torrek was a trained fighter and Omi was a doctor, but Omi could handle her own in a fight. She slammed the heel of her foot down and then elbowed him in the gut. Torrek just grunted and let her go.
