smelled that bad had a right to taste even halfway decent
. . . Well, it might not have the right, he discovered, but it
certainly had the taste. He should have remembered Limburger cheese.
These--he grinned and ate another--"Limburger berries" were sweet, just
tart enough to bring out their flavor. They could easily become a
trade item, a gourmet delicacy, if he managed to achieve a peace.

Back at his camp, Tarlac dug a shallow hole for the salvis roots
off-center of his cleared fire area, and covered them with a thin layer of
dirt. He wished he could bake them coated with mud instead, but he had
nothing to carry water in. He swore briefly at the tradition that
demanded a candidate spend the first night where he was dropped off,
but it was a minor inconvenience, and he'd be travelling the next day
anyway.

Scrapings of dry bark smoldered in the sparks made by his knifeblade
and the fragment of quartz, grew into tiny flames, and, with the
addition of large twigs and then branches, became a small fire that
would burn down into coals to cook his dinner. While he waited, he
could set his traps. Snare loops for small game would have to be
sturdier than on Terra, since like most things on Homeworld, the
rabbit-equivalents tended toward the large economy size.

It was dark when he reached camp again after setting the snares and
pausing to dig a small latrine pit. He pushed the coals of his fire
aside with a green stick and built them back into a blaze, which gave
him enough light to unearth his dinner--and he burned his fingers,
incautiously trying to pick up the roots by hand. He called himself
several varieties of stupid while he sucked his fingers and speared the
salvis roots with his knife, setting them on soh leaves to cool. By
the time they got down to eating temperature, his fingers had stopped
hurting, but he still wasn't too happy with himself. All right, it had
been quite a few years since he'd done any cooking, but that was no
excuse--he'd simply been careless. He'd also been lucky that there was
no real damage done.

What was done was done. Forget it.

He wiped his knife semi-clean on his shorts, scraped dirt and rind off
the roots, and ate. They might not be his favorite food, but they were
good enough, and filling. After a handful of Limburger berries, he sat
comfortably near the crackling fire, his thoughts wandering as he
watched the dancing flames.

Hovan. His sponsor. He still didn'