Following
How would it be thread
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DAVID BRIN
NATULIFE
I know, things taste better fresh, not packaged. Lembas clots your arteries
and hurts the rain forest. We should eat like our stone age ancestors, who dug
roots, got lots of exercise, and always stayed a little hungry. So they say.
Still, I balked when Sam served me termites.
"Come on, Master Frodo. Try one. They're delicious."
Sam already had the hive uncrated and set up by the time I woke up. Putting
down my cloak and walking staff Faramir gave me, I stared at hundreds of the pasty-colored critters scrabbling in grubbed up hive, tending their fat queen,
making themselves right at home again.
Sam offered me a stick to serve as a probe.
"See? You use this stick to fish after nice plump ones, like apes do in the wild!"
"How do you know apes do that? Oh, all right, don't recite any other verses... oliphaunt was enough...
I gaped at the insect habitat, filling the last free space between our
little fire and the sacks to the right.
"But . . . we agreed, we still have dried apples. . . and lembas too..."
"Oh, Master Frodo, I know you'll just love them. Anyway, don't I need protein and
vitamins for helping you to carry It to that land?"
Putting my hand over his swelling belly normally softened any objections he might
have. Only this time my own stomach was in rebellion.
"I thought you already got all that stuff from the nest back there... and the hollow too"
I pointed to the pieces of shell and bits of fur occupying half of Sam's pans, venting nutritious vapors from racks of tissue-grown cutlets.
"That stuff's not natural," Sam complained with a moue. "Come on, try the real thing. It's just like Gollum said, and he knows his staff, living in the Wild and all!"
"I . . . don't think . . . "
"Watch, I'll show you!"
Sam passed the stick-probe through a hole in the left side of the hive to delve after six-legged prey, his tongue popping out as he concentrated, quivering with excitement from his square nose down to his rounded belly.
"Got one!" he cried, drawing a twitching insect out the hatch and to his lips.
"You're not seriously . . . "
My throat stopped as the termite vanished, head first.
Bliss crossed Sam's face. "M-m-m, crunchy!" He smacked, revealing a still-twitching tail.
I found enough manly dignity to raggedly chastise him.
"Don't . . . talk with your mouth full."
Turning away, I added -- "If you need me, I'll be on the other side of that rook there.
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(to think dear Mr. Brin writes
articles about Tolkien
)