But What Will The Gods Eat Tomorrow?

"I’m about eighty-percent sure there’s no surveillance devices in there, Jonny."

"Trusting sort, these cultists."

"Probably just don’t think anyone’s dumb enough to visit them. The Cult of Timay has a reputation for killing trespassers in the most unpleasant ways." I almost thought he was done, but then he added, "But they’ve obviously underestimated the incompetence in the Stellar Fleet."

I laughed, and regretted it instantly. It wasn’t a good idea to encourage Tempest. "It’s not hard to overestimate the Stellar Fleet."

I moved around the warehouse slowly, getting good pictures of the machinery. One wall was scored with black streaks, as if there had been an explosion. A ray of light beamed through a tiny hole in the wall, and a few chunks of trix-polymer littered the floor. Carefully, so Tempest couldn’t see, I stooped and picked up a piece. Maybe if I offered it to him as a present, he’d get off my case a little.

"Go to the center of the room," he ordered, and I complied. We scanned the conveyor belt, and Tempest was surprisingly silent. "Let’s go to the end of the line," he said, and I spun in a circle slow circle with a blank look on my face. "Oh, for crying out loud!" Tempest snapped. He gave me directions, interspersed with comments concerning my intelligence, to the end of the machine.

The place was clean. Whatever it was they were making, they didn’t leave it lying around. "There!" Tempest exclaimed, and he had to verbally guide me to what he saw. "On the belt. There’s a small amount of orangish powder. Get a sample for me."

I traced a finger through the residue and put it on the mini-scanner’s analyzer. There was a quiet humming. "Touch your finger to your tongue quickly and tell me what you taste."

"Are you crazy!"

"I can’t tell you to do anything which will endanger you, remember? Just do it!" There was a note of urgency in his voice so, reluctantly, I did what he asked.

"It tastes like rose petals and creme soda."

"Those bastards!" Tempest said. "They’re making Ambrosia!"

"The food of the gods?"

"The highly addictive drug!" Tempest replied. "I don’t think anyone suspected it was a trix derivative."

I wiped off my finger and turned to leave. "Well, I guess we got what we came for."

"You’re just going to leave?"

"Our orders we’re pretty clear. Don’t do anything unless you discover a trix-weapon design complex."

"Do you know what Ambrosia is?"

"A highly addictive drug," I replied smugly.

"It’s the highly addictive drug. Beings all across the galaxy are getting hooked on it. It’s probably how the Cult managed to turn a Fleet Officer traitor. This facility can manufacture at an incredible rate. If they aren’t stopped, who knows what they’ll be capable of?"

I wasn’t impressed. I started for the door. "Personally," Tempest said, "I could care less if the entire FEDs got hooked on Ambrosia and wasted away into mindless, skeletal zombies, but I don’t abhor the other species of the universe as much as I do you."

"I’m sure," I said quite doubtfully.

"I mean it, Jon!" I had to admit he sounded sincere. "You Humans may think I’m a monster, and I’ll be the first to admit that you might be justified in holding a grudge. But what I wanted to do to your species is no different than what your species wanted to do to me.

"But I bear no malice toward the other lifeforms in the galaxy," Tempest continued, and his speech was heartfelt. Which was ironic since he had no heart. "At least not yet! I’ve seen what Ambrosia can do. They were studying it in the Bohrstein Research Center where I was created.