"I'll have an order of… dumplings…"
"Um… could I have one of these steak-and-rice plates?"
"Sister Lilith, there's fruit too! There's fruit! Is this the fabled fruit?"
The succubi, one and all, were like children who'd never once been outside, standing before the serving counter in a fever of excitement.
Lilith looked at her people, and her heart ached.
Their orders placed, the succubi still stood at the counter, watching wide-eyed and waiting.
The kitchen staffer behind the counter laughed. "You can go find seats and wait; once the food's made, a robot server will bring it over."
At the staffer's words, the succubi turned back three times for every step as they made their way to the seats in the canteen.
A few minutes later, the first succubi's orders were ready.
"It really is rice!" A succubus looked in disbelief at the fragrant, steaming rice before her; and as she chewed it, a taste of happiness spread across her tongue.
The other succubi cast envious glances her way — but soon enough their own food was ready as well.
One after another they set to wolfing it down, savoring a joy they had never known.
By and by, some succubi began to weep even as they ate.
Lilith looked to one of the little ones and asked, concerned, "Why are you crying? Is it not good?"
"It's not that it's not good… it's… it's just… too good… but the thought that… someday we may never eat it again… I… I can't help wanting to cry. Sister Lilith, I don't want to go back to living the way we used to — hiding here and there, wandering, going hungry." The little succubus wept, her face streaming with tears.
Lilith held the little succubus wordlessly, and for a long while said nothing.
Sorrow, too, is a thing that spreads; before long, better than half the succubi were eating and quietly sobbing all at once.
A thin little succubus, holding a bowl near as big as her own face, stepped gingerly up to the counter and said timidly, "Um… um… could I… could I have another bowl?"
That bowl of hers had already been licked so clean it looked washed.
"What did you say?" Perhaps because her voice was too small, the kitchen staffer didn't catch it the first time.
The thin little succubus lowered her head in embarrassment and said softly, "Um… half a bowl… half a bowl would be fine too…"
"Oh, you'd like some more, is that it? No trouble at all — Miss Wan'er said earlier you can eat as much as you like today, so long as you don't waste it. Let me see… you ordered the beef noodles; go on and wait, it'll be ready in a moment," the kitchen staffer said warmly.
"Th… thank you…" The thin little succubus finished and trotted back to her seat, then craned her neck toward the counter, her eyes not straying from it for a moment.
A little over an hour later.
When Zhao Wan'er came back, she was met with an astonishing sight: the succubi, once dainty and lovely, alluring temptresses all, now each sported a little rounded belly, for all the world as though pregnant.
Several of them even wore looks of discomfort.
"What's the matter with you all…" Zhao Wan'er looked at Lilith, puzzled.
Lilith said, apologetic and a little sheepish, "Um… I'm sorry — they got a bit carried away and ate too much all at once… and a few of them have stuffed themselves…"
As she said it, she deliberately drew in her own faintly rounded belly.
"Urp… so this is what it feels like… to eat yourself to bursting…" One little succubus leaned back in her chair, her face a picture of pained bliss.
Zhao Wan'er couldn't help laughing. "I'll have someone bring you some digestion medicine in a bit; once your stomachs feel better, I'll take you to see your dormitories."
"Thank you, Miss Wan'er." This time Lilith's thanks came truly from the heart.
She knew full well the worth of a meal like this — it surely surpassed the total worth of all the food these succubi had eaten over the past several years.
"There's nothing to thank me for; it's only a meal." Zhao Wan'er had grown so used to the ship canteen's fare that she'd gradually come to feel it nothing special — as though people were simply meant to eat this natural food, not that artificial stuff.
"Do… does every crew member eat like this?" Lilith asked.
Zhao Wan'er nodded, then held up a finger. "That fellow Zhao Chen — my brother, that is — set a meal standard of 10 star coins a month for the crew aboard this ship."
10 star coins a month!
At this meal standard Lilith's heart gave a jolt — wasn't that far too extravagant?
When ordering earlier, she'd deliberately glanced at the price list; 10 star coins meant that, so long as one didn't go for great fish and great cuts of meat every day, one could order from this canteen every single day of the month.
Wasn't a life like this far too blessed?
"I have one more question. From earlier until now, everyone I've seen aboard this ship seems to be a crewwoman — and apart from you and that Captain Zhao Chen, every one of them a beast-folk crewwoman," Lilith said, voicing a thing she'd noticed.
Zhao Wan'er rolled her eyes and grumbled, "For that you'll have to ask that brother of mine. These beast-folk crewwomen are all slaves he bought off the black market."
"Slaves?" Lilith was astonished, looking at the beast-folk crewwomen laughing and chatting in the canteen, eating fine food.
These were slaves?
Since when did slaves get treatment like this?
Still, at the thought of a man's ship crewed entirely by women, she couldn't help harboring some doubt as to that Zhao Chen's purpose.
Once the several stuffed-full succubi had rested up, Zhao Wan'er led them off to the dormitories.
"There are 18 of you in all, yes? Then I'll set you up with five four-person rooms; the empty beds can stay empty," Zhao Wan'er said as she walked.
Lilith waved her hands again and again. "There's no need; one room for all of us would do. If it comes to it, a place just to sit would be enough."
Lilith looked at the clean corridor — in truth, resting even here would be no hardship.
For in the years of their flight, they'd been in far worse places than any underground conduit.
"No need to stand on ceremony; the one thing this ship of ours never lacks is rooms. This ship needs only 100 to crew it, but it can house a full 300; squeeze in a little, and 700 or 800 would be no trouble at all!" Zhao Wan'er said proudly, for all the world as though showing off her own home.
Before long they reached the dormitory district.
"This is where you'll be living from now on. Beds and bedding are all set up for you, and there are changes of clothes on each bed. These are temporary ID tags; from now on you can go to the bathhouse and the canteen on schedule each day," Zhao Wan'er explained.
Lilith looked at the dormitory before her, and found, of all things, that she couldn't make her feet move.
A room this clean and bright — this was to be where she slept?
And just inside the door, to the left, was a private washroom!
She'd never heard of a starship's single dormitory having a private washroom; generally a whole dormitory district shared one washroom, and the state of it was wretched indeed.
And the room itself was no small thing besides — a full 40 or 50 square meters — with four bunk beds set inside, the lower tier of each converted into a desk.
The aisle between the beds was a full meter wide!
Spacious, clean, tidy, convenient.
It was truly hard to believe this was a starship dormitory!
Lilith couldn't help but marvel yet again: just what sort of blessed, heaven-sent ship was this?