Bite
by K.C. Shaw
The line was already out the door when Claire's group arrived at Bite. "We should have made reservations," Gary said.
"They don't do reservations," Jeannie said. Jeannie and Dave were Claire's sister and brother-in-law. They'd been offplanet once before but Dave still looked queasy from the bumpy trip to the surface in a crowded tender.
"Should we come back tomorrow?" Gary asked. He hated waiting in line.
"No, this is part of the fun!"
Claire looked around as they waited. Bite was a small restaurant on the edge of a touristy area, with native buildings visible between human ones. They looked a lot like termite mounds etched with angular carvings. Above the roofline, the twilight sky twinkled with strange constellations. The air smelled of cooking and sun-scorched mud, although the ground was actually spongy with moisture.
The line moved fast and it was only half an hour before they were inside the dimly lit restaurant. The square tables were crowded close together and the same angular carvings found on most buildings decorated the walls. It was just foreign enough to be exciting, not so foreign that Claire felt out of place.
Bite only offered one food item, but the server handed them drink menus.
The server was a native: tall and insectile with ten oddly jointed limbs of various lengths. His pebbled skin was ochre yellow and his elongated head had crevices for features. He wore a tag on what Claire assumed was his chest that said "Welcome to BITE! You can call me John."
"Do you need time to decide?" John asked. He spoke in a nasal, high-pitched voice that made him sound like a parrot, but with no discernable accent.
Claire tried not to stare at him. She hadn't expected the natives to look so unsettling up close. After they'd stumbled through drink orders and John left, Gary said quietly, "Monkey brain says nope." They all tittered uneasily.
John brought their drinks. "Your lassit will be out in just a minute." Then he gave a quick whistle that sounded slightly like "lassit."
You had to have names for stuff that everyone could pronounce, Claire reflected, even humans with clumsy mammal mouths. She sipped her margarita.
John returned with a platter, which he set in the middle of the table with what seemed to be his two main arms, while passing napkins around with another pair of arms at the same time. "It is traditional to eat with your hands, but if you prefer utensils I can bring them. The bowls are to wash your fingers."
Claire stared at the watermelon-sized mass on the platter, four small finger bowls around its edges. It looked like frog spawn, including black specks in the center of each gooey egg-like bubble in the mass. But unlike frog spawn, it pulsed rhythmically.
"This is food?" Gary said incredulously. Dave looked away, his face suddenly pale.
