The third man's slight build and bushy black hair belied his mestizo
origins. "I still don't think much of those rations," he said.
Hagstrom laughed suddenly. "You aren't going to con me into eating
pickled fire bombs for four months."
"If I lived on prune soup and codfish balls I'd make no cracks about
Mexican food," Aréchaga grunted. "You squareheads don't appreciate good
cooking."
"You won't get any good cooking in zero gravity," the general said.
They got up and filed out the door, putting on their caps and military
manners.
* * * * *
Outside, trucks clustered at the base of a giant gantry. Aréchaga
shuddered as a fork lift dropped a pallet of bagged meat on the gantry
platform. The meat was irradiated and sealed in transparent plastic,
but the habits of a lifetime in the tropics do not disappear in spite
of engineering degrees. All that meat and not a fly in sight, he
thought. It doesn't look right.
Multiple-stage rockets had gone the way of square sail and piston
engines when a crash program poured twenty-two mega-bucks into a
non-mechanical shield. Piles now diverted four per cent of their output
into a field which reflected neutrons back onto the pile instead of
absorbing them. Raise the reaction rate and the field tightened. Those
sudden statewide evacuations in the early years of the century were
now remembered only by TV writers.
A liquid metal heat exchanger transferred energy to the reaction mass
which a turbine pump was drawing from a fire hydrant. Since the hydrant
was fed from a sea water still there was no need for purification.
The last load of provisions went up and an asepsis party rode the
gantry, burdened with their giant vacuum cleaners and germicidal
apparatus.
"They'll seal everything but the control room," the general said. "When
you go aboard there'll only be one compartment to sterilize."
"I still think it's a lot of hog-wash," Aréchaga said.
"They can't have us carrying any bugs with us," van den Burg said
tiredly.
"The Martians might put us in quarantine," Hagstrom added sourly.
"If there are any Martians--and if we get there," Aréchaga groused.
"Now boys," the general began.
"Oh, save it, Pop," Hagstrom said. "Let's be ourselves as long as the
public relations pests aren't around."
"Anybody going to town?" van den Burg asked.
"I am," Aréchaga said. "May be quite a while before I get another
plate of fried beans."
"Checkup at 0400," the general reminded.
Hagstrom went to B.O.Q. Van den Burg and Aréchaga caught the bus into
town and lost each other until midnight when they caught the same bus
back to the base.
"What's in the sack?" Hagstrom asked.
"Snack," Aréchaga said. "I can't stand that insipid slop in the B.O.Q.
mess."
"Looks like a lot of snack to eat between now and daybreak."
"Don't worry, I've got quite an appetite."
* * * * *
At 0345 an orderly knocked on three doors in Bachelor Officers'
Quarters and three young men made remarks which history will delete.
They showered, shaved, and spat toothpaste. At 0400 they walked into
the Medical Officer's door. A red-eyed corpsman reached for a manometer
and the three men began taking their clothes off. Fifteen minutes later
the doctor, a corpulent, middle-aged man in disgustingly good humor for
0400, walked in with a cheery good morning. He poked and tapped while
the corpsman drew blood samples.
"Turn your face and cough," he said.
"You think I'm going to develop hernia from riding a nightmare?"
Hagstrom growled. "You did all this yesterday."
"An ounce of prevention," the doctor said cheerfully.
"A pound of bull," van den Burg grunted.
"Now boys, what if that got in the papers?" asked a voice from the
doorway.
"Damn the papers!" they greeted the general.
"Do we get breakfast?" Aréchaga asked.
"You'll take acceleration better without it."
"Tell my stomach that."
"Bend over the table," the doctor said.
"Oh, my aching back," Hagstrom moaned.
"That's not the exact target, but you're close. And awaaaay we go," the
doctor chanted as he drove the needle home.
Each man received an injection of antibiotics and drank a paper cupful
of anise-flavored liquid.
"Don't we get wrapped in cellophane?" Aréchaga asked.
"You'll be pure enough when that purgative goes through you."
They dressed and rode in the general's staff car to the base of the
gantry. As the car stopped, the general said, "Well boys, I hope you
don't expect a speech."
"We love you too, Pop," van den Burg said. They shook hands and
stepped aboard the gantry platform. Hagstrom muttered and they faced a
telescopic TV pickup with mechanical grins until the rising platform
shielded them.
Each had his own control board and each was prepared to take over
another's duties if necessary. They took off the baggy coveralls and
tossed them into lockers. Aréchaga's made an odd clunk. He hitched up
his shorts and turned quickly. They checked each other's instruments
and settings, then went to their couches. A clock with an extra hand
ticked the seconds off backward.
"We're ready," van den Burg muttered into a throat mike.
"So're we," a speaker answered tinnily.
The second hand began its final revolution in reverse. With blastoff it
would begin turning in its proper direction. There was a clang as the
water hose dropped its magnetic nipple. The rumbling became louder and
the G meter climbed to 3.5. After several minutes the needle dropped
suddenly to 2. Aréchaga tried to lift his head but decided it wasn't
worth the effort. The rumbling stopped and he knew the sudden panic of
free fall.
He made the adjustment which controlled arc flights and free fall
parachute jumps had taught him and unstrapped. The speaker's tinny
voice read off numbers which they transmuted into turns of two wheels
with axes at right angles. Since the weight of the remaining reaction
mass could not be calculated with exactitude they spun by trial and
error the last few turns until a telescope parallel to the thrust axis
zeroed on a third magnitude pinpoint whose spectroscope matched the
tinny voice's demands.
"Why such a razzy speaker?" Hagstrom groused as he spun a wheel.
"A paper cone gets mush-mouthed in 3 G's," van den Burg grunted.
Aréchaga set the pump for 1.6 seconds at four liters. He nodded.
Hagstrom pulled the rods. Weight returned briefly; then they floated
again. Van den Burg belched. The tinny voice approved, and Hagstrom
dropped the cadmium rods again. "Anybody for canasta?" Aréchaga asked.
* * * * *
The first day nobody ate. Overtrained, blasé--still, it _was_ the
first time and the stomach had yet to make peace with the intellect.
The second day Aréchaga broke the pantry door seals and studied the
invoices. He gave a groan of disgust and went back to sleep. With
something solid strapped in on top it was almost easy.
On the third day van den Burg put bags of steak and string beans into
the hi-fi oven and strapped himself into a chair. He used chopsticks to
snare the globules of soup and coffee which escaped from hooded cups
despite all precautions.
"How is it?" Hagstrom asked.
"It'd taste better if you'd come down and sit on the same side of the
ship."
Human Factors had recommended that table and chairs be situated in one
plane and resemble the real thing. The sight of one's fellow man at
ease in an impossible position was not considered conducive to good
digestion.
Hagstrom dived across the room and in a moment Aréchaga joined him.
Aréchaga sampled the steak and vegetables and turned up his nose. He
broke seals and resurrected pork, beef, onions, garlic, and sixteen
separate spices. There was far too much _sancoche_ for one meal when he
was through.
"What'll you do with the rest of it?" Hagstrom asked.
"Eat it tomorrow."
"It'll spoil."
"In this embalmed atmosphere?" Aréchaga asked. He sampled the stew.
"Irradiated food--pfui!" He went to his locker and extracted a jar.
"What's that?" van den Burg asked.
"_Salsa picante._"
"Literal translation: shredding sauce," Hagstrom volunteered.
"Guaranteed to do just that to your taste buds."
"Where'd you get it?" van den Burg asked.
"Out of my locker."
"Not sterile, I presume."
"You're darn tootin' it ain't. I'm not going to have the only tasty
item on the menu run through that irradiator."
"Out with it!" van den Burg roared.
"Oh, come now," Aréchaga said. He poured _salsa_ over the stew and took
a gigantic bite.
"I hate to pull my rank but you know what the pill rollers have to say
about unsterilized food."
"Oh, all right," Aréchaga said morosely. He emptied the jar into the
disposal and activated the locks. The air loss gave the garbage a
gradually diverging orbit.
* * * * *
He began cranking the aligning wheels. When the stars stopped spinning,
he threw a switch and began reading rapidly into a mike. Finished, he
handed the mike to Hagstrom. Hagstrom gave his report and passed it to
van den Burg.
Aréchaga rewound the tape and threaded the spool into another machine.
He strapped himself before a telescope and began twiddling knobs.
Outside, a microwave dish waggled. He pressed a trigger on one of the
knobs. Tape screamed through the transmitter pickup.
"Make it?" Hagstrom asked.
"It began to wander off toward the end," Aréchaga said. He switched
the transmitter off. The temperature had risen in the four minutes
necessary to squirt and the sunward side was getting uncomfortable even
through the insulation. Hagstrom began spinning the wheel.
Aréchaga fed tape into the receiver and played it back slowly. There
was background noise for a minute then, "ETV One. Read you loud and
clear." There was a pause; then a familiar voice came in, "Glad to hear
from you, boys. Thule and Kergeulen stations tracked you for several
hours. Best shot so far. Less than two seconds of corrective firing,"
the general said proudly.
* * * * *
Hagstrom and van den Burg returned to their books. Aréchaga snapped off
the player and went into the pantry. The light dimmed and brightened as
the spin exposed and occulted its accumulator. He filed the information
subconsciously for his revision list and glared at the provisions.
Shelves were filled--meats, vegetables, fruits, all held in place by
elastic netting. The skin-tight plastic was invisible in the dim light.
Aréchaga began to feel prickly as the lack of ventilation wrapped him
in a layer of steam. All that food right out in the open and no flies.
It just isn't right, he thought. He shrugged and picked out three
apples.
"Keep the doctor away?" he asked as he swam back into the control room.
Hagstrom nodded and caught one.
"Thanks, I'm not hungry," van den Burg said. He put his book under the
net and began taking his own pulse.
"Something wrong?" Aréchaga asked.
"Must have been something I ate," he grunted.
Hagstrom eyed his half-eaten apple with distaste. "I must have eaten
some too." He threw the apple into the disposal and belched. Aréchaga
looked at him worriedly.
Two days passed. Hagstrom and van den Burg sampled food fretfully.
Aréchaga evacuated the disposal twice in six hours and watched them
worriedly. "Are you guys thinking the same thing I am?" he asked.