After leaving Baxter on his first watch, I went to the messhall and
waited for him to show up. The men knew what to do when he came.
It was rather pleasant to sit there savoring the odors. At times, they
still seem more like those of a chemical laboratory than a kitchen,
but I have become so used to associating burning starch products,
centrifuged tannic acid, and melting dextrose with food that I am
almost immune to the aroma of Prone food like juicy, sizzling steak.
Almost.
* * * * *
Charlie Baxter finally came through the hatch. He paused and seemed to
shake off what he must have thought was some olfactory hallucination
and started to sit down at the table with the rest of the men. He
looked rather pleased. He had probably decided being Accident Prone had
deprived him of much of the company he had every right to enjoy with
his shipmates.
"Get out of here!" Frank Peirmonte yelled, jumping up from the other
end of the oblong table.
"Why?" Baxter asked in astonishment.
"Baxter," I put in, "I'm afraid the men think they may catch radiation
fever from a pile driver like you."
"Catch radiation fever?" he repeated. "Men have been exposed to
atomics for hundreds of years. Surely you men must know any poisoning
in one individual can't be transmitted to another like germs. I
couldn't absorb enough radiation to be dangerous to you in simple
proximity and still be alive. Don't you see that?"
At once, all of my crew at the table covered their faces with their
arms.
"Don't look at us!" Bronoski screamed, his voice knifing toward the
higher octaves.
Baxter gaped in a daze from one of us to the other. "What do you mean?
Why shouldn't I look at you?"
"You've got The Eye! _All_ pile drivers get it."
"But I have to eat," he objected. "I'm hungry. Really I am."
I swung around and exchanged a few words with Tan Eck, the cook, at the
rear hatch. I took a steaming tray and went across the compartment,
averting my face.
"You will have to forgive these superstitious spacemen," I apologized
to Baxter. "You go right ahead and eat just outside the door. I won't
mind a bit."
"Thanks," Baxter said, accepting the plate. He looked down at the white
paste, black gum and cup of yellowish liquid fitted in the proper holes
and slots, then up at me. "What is this stuff?"
"You don't have to look right at me!" I snapped. "It is standard
spaceman's fare--re-reconstituted carbohydrates, protein and hot ground
roasted soya. This is stuff we had left over on our plates from lunch,
all set to go into the converter, but Tan Eck reprocessed it for you.
It's what regulations specify for an APD, j.g."