Watching him eat is like watching a parrot in a cage. The fruits aren't quite like figs, they pull apart too easily and too neatly, and David is both analytical and awkward. She's surprised to see him actually put it in his mouth, and even more so when he doesn't take it out again but chews and swallows. She's worked with synthetics before, but never lived with one -- she expected him to poke at it, split it apart, make his best guesses with his encyclopedic knowledge.

Furthermore she was under the impression that eating was the sort of thing he wouldn't even want to be capable of. Realistic, yes, but -- practical?

"I won't ask you to show me how, but when you eat, where does it go?"

He gives her an overview, from olfactics and artificial taste sensors to oesophagus (which she is rather intimately familiar with, having pinched and glued its disconnected ends together where they had broken away) to a rather sad sealed container in his abdomen, which he indicates with the flat of his hand pressed just below where his ribs must be. Unlike the human equivalent, whatever is processed -- samples, not food, personal enjoyment was never the original factor. Too clever. Putting people at ease was the order of the day, and the capacity for a discreet chemical analysis was a feature only of later models. That is, evidently, how he's willing to feed her this stuff -- at least from a technical standpoint it's free from those contaminants with which David would be familiar. Better than nothing.

"How does it taste?"

It takes him only a moment, eyes shut and head cocked like a guest at a wine tasting, to produce an answer.

"It tastes like moss. I would say it's moderately pleasant, but I'll let you be the judge of that."

With extreme caution -- as if how she eats it will have any bearing on whether she gets explosive encephalitis or grows a third arm -- she follows suit. 'Moss' is about accurate, it tastes gently green -- not offputting, but only more alien after so long (how long?) drinking her sustenance out of a plastic pipe. And the flesh is sweet, in any case.

They have coffee ground for espresso, vitamin supplements, sweetener, salt, and even tea. She can't eat these things by themselves -- not even the supplements, unless she means to make herself ill and piss the rest out. But on top of something resembling food, they may be bearable. She's not a survivalist by any stretch, she already is petrified by how much protocol they've broken, but this is something on which she can see herself surviving.

David checks their course and Elizabeth busies herself cutting a more manageable length of cloth with her safety knife. The cut edge doesn't fray, which is a little unsettling -- it slides easily from one piece into two like a cut in flesh. It's uncertain how she's meant to make a garment out of this, beyond a rough cloak or something she can tie on to herself with more strips of the same cloth, but as it is it'll make a fine blanket.

She finds her alcove to curl up in, and David carries on doing whatever it is David does when he's not filling the place with light and sound -- sitting in his undershirt with his uniform peeled away, scrubbing the fluorescent lichen from his boots.

The fever comes back hard in the night. She wakes from a fitful sleep, her cross sticking to her throat with sweat -- she can hardly pry her eyelids open, tongue heavy and flesh on fire. She can barely think, barely breathe, struggling to throw the blankets off and unzip her suit. Her hair hangs in her face like a sweat-soaked veil; for long moments she can only lie there and shake.

The obvious answer is: alert David, now. He'd know what to do -- David, in whom she's been so quick to put her trust. David who would take her wherever she wanted to go, David who would place a rotten mess of pips and flesh in her hand and tell her it was entirely safe for human consumption. David who would tell her anything.

David rises from the control chair and slinks toward her.

Her throat feels like death; she manages to stand, stumbles a few steps, and vomits twice, all over her hands. It's nothing but water. Bent over on the ground she gags some more, aching like she's been punched in the gut, and can feel several of her staples work their way to freedom. Elizabeth Shaw knows more than a little about illness and about infectious disease, and even half-delirious in the twilit dark she knows something is very wrong.

"Elizabeth? Are you feeling well?"

"Go to hell, David--"

"Sssh, sssh, sssh," David is saying suddenly, catching her from behind in his arms and moving to pick her up. It isn't comforting. Whiteness floods into her vision and dizzy slackness crowds into her body; her head lolls against his shoulder.

"I am at your service. Let me serve you."

The last thing Shaw remembers is the weight of his hand on the back of her neck.