A regimented soul, he was capable of great violence when the world demanded it. He does not show it now, when he measures out the contents of the small bottles into the steel flask. Stirring quietly, the spoon does not hit the sides. "Here, try this for a change of pace."

Smoke, under miles of rock. Hint of oilsand, driftwood, pulverised crabshell, and dew. I choke back an appreciative, salty cough. "It's definitely nautical."

"Straits wine, fermented in granite barrels below the waterline, with a sliver of the continental shelf in each." He pours out some water from the carafe, which I down gladly. "Grenadine and port syrup to taste, served neat with range glass dusted on the rim."

"What is range glass?"

"Crystallised sand from the testing range at heart of Pulau Pawai, before the floods. They bombarded it flat for a century from fighters and gunboats, much like the one we're on. The best is mined from the centre of the target mark, though god knows there's much left at this point. Pretty slick, huh?"

I let the tang of it seep in. "Nuclear?"

"Conventional. Mostly testing. But explosive all the same. I think the nitrogen notes fill out the base nicely, don't you think?" Drily, he looks at me in a way that seems like he is searching for a smile. "But what do I know -- I'm just one lone sailor in this gastronomic sea."

"Eh, I guess it works. Some might find it problematic, after all. Digging up the old world like that, even if it is bloodless."

"Well, we don't know if they ever killed people there, to be fair, and no one ever thought to keep the records. What a nation that must have existed, huh? To cook up an ingredient like that over so many years, yet never living long enough to taste its perfection. What else would we kill a land for?" He mulls, convincingly. Then: "You must forgive me if I wax lyrical. We cared less about the past, in my time."

"I appreciate the generosity," I say. Hard to be unforgiving of these casual unkindnesses. He still wears his medals on the uniform, after all, the initials of the long-dead owner nearly faded on the tag.

I let the view past the deck accompany my senses as I finish the rest of it. The history of our fathers is a dead reef overgrown with mangrove and arrowroot, which rounds off the tip of the tongue to a single note of chalkburnt steel.