I decided the joke had gone far enough. “Not on a bet!” I admitted in a whisper. “If you watch closely, you’ll see that some of the food actually crawls out of the bowl.”
“I’d rather not!” Kalvin said, averting his eyes. “Seriously, Skeeve, if you aren’t going to eat anything, why are we here?”
“Oh, I’m going to try to get something to eat. Just nothing they would prepare for the natives. That’s why I was hunting for a place that served food from—and therefore, hopefully, stomachable by—off-world and off-worlders.” The Djin was unimpressed.
“I don’t care where the recipe comes from. You’re telling me you’re going to take something that’s been prepared in this kitchen and been in proximity with other dishes that stink the way these do, and then put it in your mouth? Maybe we should debate your qualifications as an intelligent being.”
Looking at it that way, he had a point. Suddenly I didn’t feel as clever as I had a few moments before.
“Cahn I help you, sir?’
The Pervect who materialized at my elbow was as stiffly formal as anything I’d seen that wasn’t perched on a wedding cake. He had somehow mastered the technique of being subservient while still looking down on you. And they say that waiters can’t be trained!
“Well, we . . . that is, I . . .”
“Ah! A Tah-bul for one!”
Actually, I had been preparing to beat a retreat, but this guy wasn’t about to leave me that choice. Chairs and tables seemed to part in his path as he swept off through the diners like a sailing ship through algae, drawing me along in his wake. Heads turned and murmurs started as we passed. If they were trying to figure out where they had seen me before, it could take a lot of talking.