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"You won't find anything over there," I said in the dark, then switched on the desk lamp.

He was dressed in a blood-covered chef's outfit, complete with that silly hat. He stared at me like a green baboon had just materialized in front of him, then his eyes widened in recognition, from the pub the night before. "Dunsmuir? Jim Dunsmuir?"

"That's the name. Don't wear it out." I waved the vortex blaster at him, gesturing him toward the chair in front of me.

He moved there slowly, like a machine stuck in first gear. "How -- how did --"

"Guy breaks into every bakery and restaurant in Torquay but one, not difficult to figure out where he's going to show up next."

"Dammit, Dunsmuir -- I had to know. I had to know if they ... had the secret."

I nodded. The pieces were all falling into place like a puzzle dropped from a dirigible by my cousin Tim.

"Master chefs and bakers." The scorn dripped from his lips like blood from a wolf's chops. "To claim that these -- these -- were the finest Britain had to offer."

"It's 1909, Prentice," I told him. "Want to tell me why you've been killing cooks wholesale before it hits 1910?"

"I -- I --" The contempt drained from his features like malaria from a swamp, leaving a broken, sobbing man. "There was once -- so much more than this -- this crap. The food they serve us every day in so called restaurants across Edward(approve sites)'s England. I know we've -- lost something. I just can't --"

"The best food in the world," I urged him. "Stuff that'd make your mouth water like a dog's just to smell it."

"Yes! Yes, that's it! Dunsmuir -- thank God, you understand. You remember."

Remember? Oh, yeah. Like every meal of every day I lived. I'd never understand. "Trey Sauce Imperial," I said, softly. "Boiled Krin. Mashy Peas Diabolique on a bed of crispy Trathala?. Zestful Repton Broil Strips in Ginger Fractal Marmalade." Sipping Cetian Breakfast Tea with Suzanne at a Faringei club ...

He stared at me blankly, like I was spouting gibberish. I knew the look. They were only names to me, too -- except Suzanne. At least I still remembered the names. I was always good with names.

Yeah, Queen Vic had plenty of time -- like five centuries -- to get the finest chefs and creative whizzes, like Trey Parker, the Portsmouth Polymath, or the incredible Becky Price?, or even that crazy mad scientist, Doktor Zumm, to come up with some amazing recipes. Some of my brethren thought the Brits had simply forgotten all they'd once known about fine cooking, cuisine that had been acknowledged galaxy-wide as the best in human history. Rolled back out of existence, they thought.

I knew better. I'd been there. Excruciated. A cruel, cold word, for a cruel, cold world. Farewell to the whole concept of Haut Cuisine Britannica, much to the unknown joy of the Frenchies. It had happened right after Ol' Vicky had been bumped off. A going away present from the Pretty Boys. The old girl had loved her Krin. And now, nobody'd ever have any ever again. Nor know why, nor even know why it should haunt them.

"I don't -- don't remember," he said, tormentedly bewildered like a drunk coming off of a binge. Ignorant as a rock. He still thought fifty years of Victorian reign was impressive. Sad fool. "I know I should know those things -- but I don't." He picked up a baked, brown blob from the desk in front of me, right where I'd set it, stared at it in the yellow desk light, and then crumbled it in his hand. Dried bits and pieces rained onto the desktop like tears from dehydrated angels. "Scones, Dunsmuir. Scones. I still remember these. But why? And -- what happened to them?"

What could I tell him? Scones had never been proper food, anyway. They came with the Fairy Folk. Light, airy, sweet, mildly intoxicating, never fattening. The greatest food in creation. When the rest of the Limey tasty grub had been excruciated, they'd survived. But not after Entropy had booted the Fae back to the mythic. Without fairy magic, scones became hard, cold, crumbly pieces of crap. Sure, Elsie Borden, the Power of Dairy, had brought about clotted cream. That helped. A little. But scones still remained a pale, degenerate shadow of what they'd been.

Sometimes I wondered whether I was on the right side. Or if there was one.

I looked down at my vortex blaster. I wasn't supposed to have one of these any more -- nobody was. But I'd grown fond of its black bakelite, its platinum inlays, as smooth and familiar and responsive in my hand as a lover's curves. The Empress herself had given it to me, reward for some personal favor or another. This blaster and I had saved each other's lives a dozen times over. What's a guy supposed to do, let it just vanish from existence for the sake of keeping things neat and tidy? Neat and tidy are overrated.

"I had to kill them, Dunsmuir," he was continuing. "They all claimed they had secrets ... but they were lying. They knew nothing. I don't know how, or why, but somewhere out there is someone who remembers, who still knows how to cook -- those things. If I can just find them --" He paused, seized by some new horror to tell me. "They put icing on them, Dunsmuir! Over in the States, they're putting icing on scones! My God!" He dropped his face into his hands sobbing like a mother losing her kids.

That was almost enough to get him off the hook. Then I realized I wasn't doing him any mercy, keeping him alive, tormented by memories of the way things had been, like a vet reliving the same bloody battle over and over. Some days it was all I could do to get myself out of bed, when I remembered that day.

The vortex blaster growled once. Twice. His trunkless legs toppled to the floor, flopped under the desk, like a pair of boots dropped at the foot of the bed.

It was easier this way. For him. And for me.

I turned off the desk lamp as I left.

SEE ALSO: Trey Parker, the Portsmouth Polymath, Vortex Blaster

< Hadris Migration | Lexicon 500 GHI | HMS Coil >

This is an H entry in the Lexicon of the Lost 500 Years.