Robin peeked into the hold again just before dinner and found Koala frantically flipping through the piles of books. She was now quite obsessed with finding a language that resembled the Eucaly script.
Robin tried calling her to dinner, but Koala insisted that she would forgo eating in order to keep looking.
“You’ll be more efficient if you take regular breaks,” Robin reminded her.
“Thanks! I know!”
Yet even as she assented, Koala’s eyes continued to roam ceaselessly over the various texts scattered around her. Robin decided it was best not to pull her away, and quietly left the room. She understood exactly the kind of rush Koala was feeling.
When she was on Ohara, Robin had studied language with the same urgency and excitement. The first time she had deciphered an inscription, it felt like the world had opened up before her eyes. With more experience, she was able to discover the grammatical meaning of previously cryptic passages, and the sense of accomplishment she felt then was unparalleled. She could recall the intense feeling of being connected to people across time and space as vividly as if it had happened yesterday.
Figuring out ancient writing was like trying to swim the ocean in the dead of night—groping around in the dark, battling fear and the unknown, hoping that solid ground lay somewhere before you. You came up with hypotheses, tested them, failed, and tried again with that tiny bit of additional knowledge moving you forward inch by inch. The only companion you had on this lonely and perilous journey was the knowledge of your forebears.
Robin’s knowledge of archaeology was not hers alone. The scholars of Ohara and all of those who came before them were part of a single precious heritage. It was a noble tradition that made her proud to be an archaeologist.
Languages that people could no longer read or speak became ancient languages, holding their tongues, the vibrancy of their culture trapped within. But once an archaeologist discovered the method to decipher them, those languages and cultures came back to life with shocking intricacy and elegance. Records of famines, tax receipts, methods of pressing grapes for wine, poems sent to princesses in sandy deserts—you could find anything.
“I wonder how far Koala’s gotten,” Robin murmured to herself, sitting down in the mess hall. The tray before her contained mushrooms sautéed with roast pork and a side of rye bread. The mushrooms were an unfamiliar color, but they were probably a local variety that had been loaded in at their last port of call.
“Aaagh! I can’t do it anymore!” someone shouted.
She looked up to see a man on the other side of the room throwing his spoon down. He pressed his napkin to his mouth, pale and trembling. A large mound of the sautéed mushrooms sat on his plate.
“What’s wrong with him?” she wondered, picking up a slice of mushroom and bringing it to her mouth. She froze instantly; it was unbearably bitter.
The texture of the sauté was perfect. There was just enough bite left to provide a satisfying springiness. But the bitterness that was presumably a natural flavor of this mushroom made it practically inedible.
She refused to spit out her mouthful, and instead took a drink of water to help wash it down. This was surely why the man on the other side of the room had been so distressed and pale. As a matter of fact, many other diners in the mess hall seemed also to be losing the battle of the bitter mushrooms.
“What should I do with this?” she wondered, peering at the mushrooms on her plate.
They clearly weren’t rotten or damaged; they were just bitter. Food was a precious commodity on a ship at sea. She couldn’t simply waste what she’d been given just because it didn’t suit her palate. But the bitterness was truly unbearable. What to do? She was at a loss.
Just then, Sabo and Hack sat down across from her. Hack met her eye and said gleefully, “Only Robin could handle these sautéed mushrooms with a poker face like that.”
What he said wasn’t true. She was actually suffering quite a bit on the inside.
“They’re a little sharp,” she admitted. Hack threw a look at Sabo, who was sitting next to him.
“What do you want me to say? What’s done is done,” Sabo said, glaring right back at Hack. He sighed and said, “Yes, the mushrooms are bitter. There’s nothing to be done about it.”
Sabo was still wearing the green apron. To wit, he was this evening’s cook, and the culprit who had crafted the offending dish.
For a long voyage you needed a professional cook on board, but for short trips like this, the crew often took turns cooking. Just because Sabo was the chief of staff of the Revolutionary Army didn’t mean he was exempt—if anything, he despised being given special exceptions—so he took part in the routine.
“We got these mushrooms just before we left port, didn’t we?” Robin asked, slicing hers into smaller and smaller pieces.
“Yep. They’re called Rubery Shrooms, apparently. I saw the locals eating them without batting an eye, so there’s probably some way to counteract the bitterness. But however I sliced or diced or soaked them, the flavor stayed the same. Still, you can’t waste a speck of food while out at sea, right?”
“Indeed,” she agreed. She gave up on slicing the mushrooms any smaller, and finally took another bite. The bitter taste was still shockingly strong. “You don’t have to force yourself,” Sabo said helpfully, but she managed to swallow it.
Perhaps the fact that Sabo had cooked it was a silver lining. If someone new had made those mushrooms, the crew would have revolted. But this was the work of a trusted senior officer, so they had no choice but to grin and bear it. Maybe Sabo had known this would happen and had martyred himself by accepting the role of chef of the Rubery Shrooms.
With a quiet sizzle, the oil lamp on the table went out. Sabo added more oil to the reservoir, struck a match, and relit it. The lamp cast a soft orange light on them once again.
Robin rested her spoon on the table and stared at the flame. Behind the yellowing old glass shade, the fire fed on the meager bit of oil absorbed by the wick. The flickering of the flame cast a bewitching light that suited Sabo quite nicely. The fire that had burned Ohara on that awful day had been violent and cruel—and so very, very hot—but seeing the reflection of the lamp’s orange light in Sabo’s eyes made Robin realize for the first time in her life that the color of fire could be comforting, too.
“Your time on this ship is coming to an end soon,” Hack lamented. At the next port, Robin would be switching ships and heading for the Sabaody Archipelago.
Over the course of the evening, Robin slowly and carefully made her way through the entire portion of sautéed Rubery mushrooms, swallowing seven glasses of water to do so.