Shizuka could not stop looking. Oh, she did clean up well, didn’t she?
“Shirley.”
Shirley saluted.
“Mother. I apologize for disobeying your orders.”
“No. I should have listened … more carefully to your grievance. In the end, I was brought to my senses.” She glanced at Shizuka. “So I am now rescinding my order.”
“Thank you, Mother.”
“So, shall we return to the donut shop?” Her shoulders slumped slightly. “Windee does not seem to know the difference between baking powder and powdered sugar. So, let’s go home before Aunty Floresta kills her.”
“Is that a joke?”
“It’s figure of speech they use here.”
“These people can be strange sometimes.”
“Strange is putting it mildly.”
Shizuka coughed.
Lan glanced at Shizuka, and remembered their conversation.
“And, Shirley, we all miss you. I miss you.”
“Then, Mother, I will meet you back home.”
Then she turned to Katrina. “See you later?”
“Yes,” Katrina said.
The projector flickered, and Shirley disappeared.
Lan turned to Shizuka and bowed. “I am sorry for the trouble that I have caused.”
Shizuka felt a little flutter—Lan really did look great in a uniform. She then saluted and disappeared in a green flash.
Shizuka and Katrina stood there in the living room.
“You’re blushing,” Katrina said.
“No I’m not,” Shizuka replied.
* * *
Lanny had ordered Windee off of the computers and into the donut shop. She wanted Windee to learn some patience. She suggested it might even be fun.
How was any of this fun?
“Aunty! Heeelp!” Windee was caked in donut mix.
“You can’t mix that way. You need to be patient.”
“I aaam patient! How much time does it need?”
Seriously, the girl had no feel for this.
However, Starrgate was finally cooking donuts! Compared with replication, the task might seem daunting, but operating the kitchen was no more difficult than maintaining a starship engine room.
With their first batch, all talk of replicators and reference donuts had ceased. People started visiting the Starrgate not for the Big Donut, nor the kitsch, nor even a try at the vintage Stargate machines, but for the amazing donuts.
Were they adding steamed bun flour to the donut mix? Maybe they were adding butter? One rumor was that they added a little mayonnaise to the mix to keep the donut moist. Another suggested they brushed their old-fashioneds with just a little cider vinegar to bring out the sweetness.
Floresta smiled. These sorts of rumors were good for business. And some of them were even true.
Yes, Floresta was using steamed bun flour. But she also reduced the gravity in the proofing box for added fluffiness. She genetically modified domestic and wild yeast DNA to create a strain that worked faster, while producing optimum flavor, texture, and aroma. She installed lasers in the ovens; a twelve-microsecond burst gave cake donuts the perfect crunch around the edges, as well as creating a lattice of nanoperforations that let in just the right amount of hot coffee.
And then there was an amazing substance she had discovered on this planet: MSG. Just a little, and everything took on a whole new level of tastiness.
No, you didn’t have to be a rocket scientist to make donuts—but that didn’t mean being a rocket scientist didn’t help.
For now, the only worry Floresta had was her niece. Lanny was spending longer and longer hours upstairs in the donut. Sometimes she barely came down for meals. Lanny said focusing on the stargate was best for the family.
However, Floresta did not believe for a second that focusing on the stargate was best for Lanny. Her nightmares were getting worse. She was laughing even less than she had before. She hadn’t taken the twins to the movies in weeks. And when she wasn’t on the stargate upstairs, she was in front of the store, putting more quarters in those awful Stargate video game machines.
Stargate, stargate, Starrgate …
What was her niece thinking? Could she not see that the family was safe? She thought back to Markus pleading, begging to know.
Why are we building a stargate, anyway?
Why indeed? Why so many nightmares, so many sleepless nights, when her family was safe? Why was Lanny so obsessed with the stargate, when their lives were finally here?
* * *
Katrina’s online popularity continued to increase.
Every day, under Shizuka’s instruction, she became just a bit better. Every night, she took what she learned and channeled it into her next recording. With Shirley’s help and technology, the type of content they were producing began to outstrip anything Shizuka could have imagined.