Hagstrom started to say something, then dived for a bag and vomited.
In a moment he wiped his mouth and turned a pale face toward Aréchaga.
"This is how it started with the others, isn't it?" he said.
Aréchaga began talking into the recorder. He killed spin long enough
to squirt. In a few minutes the razzy speaker again made them part
of Earth. "--and hope for the best," the general was saying. "Maybe
you'll adjust after a few days." The voice faded into background noise
and Aréchaga turned off the player.
"Any ideas?" he asked. "You know as much medicine as I do."
Van den Burg and Hagstrom shook their heads listlessly.
"There's got to be a reason," Aréchaga insisted. "How do you feel?"
"Hungry. Like I hadn't eaten for two weeks."
"The same," Hagstrom said. "Every time I eat it lays like a ton of
lead. I guess we just aren't made for zero grav."
"Doesn't seem to be hitting me as quickly as it did you two," Aréchaga
mused. "Can I get you anything?" They shook their heads. He went into
the library and began skimming through the medical spools.
When he returned the others slept fitfully. He ate a banana and
wondered guiltily if his _salsa_ had anything to do with it. He
decided it didn't. The other crews had died the same way without any
non-sterile food aboard. He floated back into the pantry and stared at
the mounds of provisions until the mugginess drove him out.
* * * * *
Three more days passed. Hagstrom and van den Burg grew steadily weaker.
Aréchaga waited expectantly but his own appetite didn't fail. He
advanced dozens of weird hypotheses--racial immunity, mutations. Even
to his non-medical mind the theories were fantastic. Why should a
mestizo take zero grav better than a European? He munched on a celery
stalk and wished he were back on Earth, preferably in Mexico where food
was worth eating.
Then it hit him.
He looked at the others. _They'll die anyway._ He went to work. Three
hours later he prodded Hagstrom and van den Burg into wakefulness and
forced a murky liquid into them. They gagged weakly, but he persisted
until each had taken a swallow. Thirty minutes later he forced a cup of
soup into each. They dozed but he noted with satisfaction that their
pulses were stronger.
Four hours later Hagstrom awoke. "I'm hungry," he complained. Aréchaga
fed him. The Netherlander came to a little later, and Aréchaga was run
ragged feeding them for the next two days. On the third day they were
preparing their own meals.
"How come it didn't hit you?" van dan Burg asked.
"I don't know," Aréchaga said. "Just lucky, I guess."
"What was that stuff you gave us?" Hagstrom asked.
"What stuff?" Aréchaga said innocently. "By the way, I raised hell
with the inventory getting you guys back in condition. Would you mind
going into the far pantry and straightening things up a little?"
They went, pulling their way down the passage to the rearmost food
locker. "There's something very funny going on," Hagstrom said.
Van den Burg inspected the stocks and the inventory list suspiciously.
"Looks all right to me. I wonder why he wanted us to check it." They
looked at each other.
"You thinking what I'm thinking?" Hagstrom asked.
Van den Burg nodded. They pulled themselves silently along the
passageway back to the control room. Aréchaga was speaking softly into
the recorder, his back to the entrance. Hagstrom cleared his throat and
the black-haired little man spun guiltily. Van den Burg reached for the
playback switch.
"It's just a routine report," Aréchaga protested.
"We're curious," Hagstrom said.
The recorder began playing. "--I should have figured it right from the
start. If food is so lousy the flies won't touch it, then humans have
no business eating it."
"What's the food got to do with it?" Hagstrom asked.
"Quiet!" van den Burg hissed.
"--got by all right on Earth where there was plenty of reinfection,
but when you sealed us in this can without a bug in a million miles--"
Aréchaga's voice continued.
"If food can't rot it can't digest either. Irradiate it--burn the last
bit of life out of it--and then give us a whopping dose of antibiotics
until there isn't one bug in our alimentary tracts from one end to the
other. It's no wonder we were starving in the midst of plenty."
"Wait a minute. How come you didn't get sick?" Hagstrom asked.
Aréchaga flipped a switch and the recorder ground to a stop.
"I reinfected myself with a swallow of _salsa picante_--good,
old-fashioned, unsanitary chili sauce."
A horrible suspicion was growing in van den Burg's mind. "What did you
give us?" he asked.
"You left me little choice when you threw out my _salsa_," Aréchaga
said. "Why do you have to be so curious?"
"What was it?" van den Burg demanded.
"I scraped a little salsa scum from the inside of the disposal. It made
a fine culture. What did you think I gave you?"
"I'd rather not answer that," van den Burg said weakly.