Dark Star

6

TALBY HAD FINISHED cataloging his new star. There seemed to be a whole new grouping coming up just a few degrees north of their course, but he couldn’t be sure yet. Best to wait a few minutes.

He could have made confirmation with the dome telescope, but that was for pleasure, for close-up peeks after the leg-work was done. Talby disdained using the scope. It was another way of degrading his work.

It would be a few minutes before the maybe-cluster hove near enough for dissection. His eyes strayed down to the viewscreen. Then the astronomer sat up a little straighter, forced his mind back down the parsecs.

What now showed on screen was a series of numbers, but they were as much his language as English. Rather more so, in fact.

“Doolittle, I have a malfunction indicated on this readout, but it doesn’t say where it is.”

“Glidin’,” Doolittle murmured softly, his eyes glazed. “Glidin’ down the long, smooth drop”

“Lieutenant Doolittle!” Talby said firmly.

Doolittle blinked. “Hmmm? Malfunction? Don’t worry about it, Talby. Getting ’em all the time, now. We’ll find out what’s wrong when whatever is malfunctioning gets bad enough for the ship to complain—or when it stops.”

That was quite true, Talby thought. Besides, he didn’t care if yet another minor malfunction afflicted the ship. He used little enough of its rapidly diminishing creature comforts.

But if it was something that could interfere with the Dark Star’s operation, it might also be something which could interfere with his star-gazing, and that could not be permitted to go unchecked.

“I really think we should try and locate the source of the trouble right away, Lieutenant,” he suggested. “It might be something vital—something affecting the ship’s capability to perform properly.”

“You know,” Doolittle mused in a faraway tone, “I wish I had my board with me right now. Didn’t have the sense to include it in my personal goods. They would have laughed at me, sure, but so what? Even though I can’t ride it, I could always wax it now and then, and stand on it, and kinda wriggle my toes around on it. You don’t know, Talby, the feeling you can get just standing on your board and thinking about the waves screaming in beneath you, screaming…”

Pinback was screaming. The elevator was moving up the shaft again. Just when he thought it might descend far enough for him to drop free, it clicked and started up.

Whatever random circuit was responsible for controlling its actions during this insane “test” appeared to be sending it up and down the shaft without rhyme or reason. There was no pattern to the jerky series of ups and downs.

There was the one normal doorway at the central level, but it was closed, of course, when the elevator was in operation. Every time they passed it, Pinback tried to swing his legs over far enough to give it a solid kick. Repeated contact might at least activate some emergency tell-tale up forward.

It didn’t take him terribly long to override his embarrassment at being found like this. That was preferable to being found dead at the bottom of the shaft. Boiler would probably get a laugh out of that, too, he thought grimly.

It gave him more strength to hang on. He still had a pretty good grip on the bar, but he couldn’t hang like this indefinitely. What were Boiler and Doolittle doing, anyway? Somebody ought to have missed him by now.

No, that was wishful thinking in the extreme. Privacy being the precious commodity it was on the Dark Star, no one would bother another unless there was work to be done that required his presence. Boiler and Doolittle might wonder at his absence, but they wouldn’t think anything was wrong.

Eventually it looked like he was going to have to judge the elevator’s lowest point of descent and drop free… and hope the impact wouldn’t be too damaging. That still left him with the interesting problem of what to do if the elevator then decided to descent all the way. He might survive the drop in fine shape, only to be squashed flat at the bottom of the shaft.

That didn’t seem likely, though. So far the elevator had shown no signs of dropping closer than twenty meters from the bottom.

But it was still too impressive a fall for Pinback to risk it, except as a last resort. He looked upward, examined the base of the lift his gaze settled on a small plate just to the right center of the elevator floor. It seemed to protrude slightly from the rest of the metal.

Four simple wing nuts were all that held it in place. Of course—emergency access hatch!

Damning himself for being a complete idiot, he braced himself for the long reach. Then, hanging on with one arm, he swung free and batted awkwardly at the first nut. A few twists and it was free. It clattered hollowly down the shaft.

He couldn’t hang like that for very long. It took a moment of holding on with both arms before he felt strong enough to try again.

Tightening his arm, he swung over and worked at the second nut. It came free with gratifying speed.

The elevator was rising again. His left arm felt like an old section of tire. No way he could hang on much longer. He tried the third nut. It moved halfway down the screw—and stopped. He had to get back on the bar again.

He wasn’t going to be able to do it. But the fourth nut flew off with a single swing of his hand. The plate was hanging loosely from one nut now. He let go, resolutely gripped the last obstacle, and turned it by hand once, twice… the nut came free, followed immediately by the plate, which clattered off his head and shoulder and almost knocked him loose.

A deep breath—he had just about enough strength left to try this once—and he swung free on his right arm. The other reached up and in, getting an unbreakable grip inside the elevator. A minute later and he had both arms inside—inside the warm, comforting, familiar elevator.

He was saved.

Pushing down on the floor, he brought his upper torso all the way in. He rested like that for a few seconds, catching his breath without fear of falling, and then pushed again—with no result.

His eyes widened slightly.

He was stuck.

He twisted and pushed, pushed and heaved, but either his arms were now so weak they couldn’t force him through or, more likely, his hips were so fat that no amount of shoving and grunting was going to break him free.

No, he as securely trapped—unless, of course, he wanted to sneak his fingers between belly and gap and pull himself down, and start all over again.

Not much chance of that. Better stuck half in than falling whole. At least he was safe. He could relax and think his way out of this. Plenty of time, now.

Unless, he remembered again, the lift suddenly did decide to descend all the way. He wouldn’t fall, but he’d have both legs neatly pulverized. It might also break him free, but the odds were not inviting. He thought of having his legs slowly knuckled up beneath him, cracking like chopsticks, and he looked around wildly.

There ought to be—yes, there it was, a red phone receiver on the interior wall, over by the foredoorway. The receiver was set just this side of a control panel; and lower down than seemed reasonable. For once it looked like things had been planned with his troubles in mind.

Leaning until it felt like the metal floor was going to cut him in half, he strained to reach it. Strained, grunted, struggling for each millimeter.

The phone stayed just out of his reach.

Meanwhile, the elevator continued its Carrollian jaunts up and down the shaft. It had been terrifying to hang by his arms, expecting to go crashing to the bottom at any second. Now his body was safe and only his mind was shaky. Since he couldn’t see below anymore, he had no way of knowing if he was within meters or millimeters of being crushed against the shaft floor.

Taking a deep breath and trying to get his internal organs on a vertical line, he somehow coaxed another centimeter or so out of the trap—just enough to fumble and knock the receiver off its latch. Breathing was difficult now.

But he had the phone. As he brought it near he thought once more of Doolittle and Boiler and their reaction when he buzzed them.

He could make up some kind of excuse. It shouldn’t be necessary to let on that he had let the alien escape. Might not sound too logical but, by God, he’d make it work! Yes, he would be cool and reasonable and just properly aloof about it all, and they would accept his explanation.

That would come later. Right now he was still quivering in abject terror. There was the familiar click; he could feel the elevator descending and now visualized his legs as a mass of compound fractures. The “Help!” he screamed into the receiver was loud.

Unexpectedly, there came an immediate reply. But it was not the one Pinback was hoping for.

“I’m sorry,” confessed a mechanical voice that was like but yet subtly different from the central computer’s. “This phone is out of order. Please use an alternate ship phone until the damage has been repaired. Alternate ship phones are located at…”

Pinback’s emotions rapidly ran the gamut from shock to hopelessness to outrage. Here he was trying to be the best member of the crew, and he found himself balked at every turn by sheer flight inefficiency. There was a conspiracy on this ship to hinder his efficiency.

Right now it was trying to render him not only inefficient, but inoperative.

He threw the phone receiver against the wall, watched it swing pendulumlike back and forth. “Please report the damage at once,” the phone concluded.

Sure, he thought wildly. I’ll just call it in through the nearest phone.

The control board! Fifty closely spaced buttons which would make the elevator do everything but return independently to Earth. They were set into the wall near the unmentionable receiver, but slightly farther away. That was one reason why he hadn’t tried them first.

The other reason was that he could not remember what any button but number one did. Number one started and stopped the elevator. And strain as he might, there was no way he was going to be able to reach that farthest bit of plastic.

Now he wished he had taken the time to learn the function of the other forty-nine. Or had he? If he had, he couldn’t remember them now.

Leaning toward the board, fighting at the constricting metal at his waist, aware that he might be only centimeters from smashing into the bottom of the shaft, he fought to reach the panel.

His finger fluttered over the ranked plastic, jabbed arbitrarily at one. Number forty-five. He felt it give under his finger.

There was a pause, then another voice began smoothly, “For your listening enjoyment, we now present excerpts from the Barber of Seville, by Gioacchino Rossini.”

And a full-throated baritone promptly blasted from the speaker overhead as the elevator continued to descend. At least, Pinback thought it was descending. All motion seemed downward to him now.

Straining again, he punched in another button. No effect. Another, and another. He kept punching buttons until he achieved his second concrete result.

The baritone shut up.

More buttons, and then another recording.

“Good for you!” said the sprightly voice in a tone not unlike his mother’s. “You’ve decided to clean the elevator. To clean and service the electromagnetic coils in the bottom, it is necessary to jettison the access plate in the floor. This may be done in slow or rapid sequence, depending on the required speed of cleaning.”

Cursing silently, Pinback was starting to wonder why he had ever wanted to join the Advanced Expeditionary Corps. Something in the back of his mind tried to answer him, but it made no sense, none at all. He shut it off. This was no time for filling one’s head with fog.

“To remove the floor plate for slow-sequence cleaning,” the computer voice continued, “follow procedures indicated in Ship Service Manual SS-forty-six, sections E-thirteen through E-fifty-six.”

“Great. I’ll just whip out my ol’ manual, here,” Pinback muttered sarcastically.

“To remove the floor plate for rapid-sequence cleaning, press button number forty.”

Well, that was more like it! Probably that would release the hidden catches and he could just lift himself completely inside.

He reached up, his hand flailing millimeters away from the indicated button. He grunted, twisted slightly. C’mon, Pinback, just another couple of millimeters boy, and you’ll be safe out of this…

Finally he hit the button, let out a gasp of relief, and sagged back into the grip of the opening. But the relief failed to last.

Something was nagging at him. There was something he half recalled from a cursory restudy of the maintenance manuals. The electromagnetic bolts in the floor panel (electromagnetic bolts? What about the simple catches he’d been thinking of?) were normally released only once a year… slowly. He couldn’t remember anything about rapid-sequence cleaning.

Only that there was some reason why it was rarely, if ever, done. Oh yes, that was it…

His eyes bulged.

“Attention, danger,” said the computer voice sternly. “Attention, danger. Automatic charges will now activate the small, explosive bolts in the plate unit for rapid-sequence cleaning, as slow sequence has not been initiated according to manual procedure directives. The plate will disengage for rapid cleaning in five seconds.”

Pinback shook his head, screamed a silent no!, quite aware that verbalizing it wouldn’t have any effect on the machine anyway. He shoved desperately at the floor plate, but he couldn’t budge it. And it was a little late to be wishing he had spent more time in the exercise room.

Four glowing arrows had appeared in the bottom of the elevator, conveniently identifying the placement of the explosive bolts. Of course, the plate had to be used again, so the explosion couldn’t be too powerful… could it?

He wished he could remember—and it didn’t do much for his state of mind to see that all four arrows were pointing inward, toward him. It seemed somehow significant.

“Please leave the elevator immediately,” the voice re quested.

“I’m trying, I’m trying!”

“Five, four, three…” It occurred to Pinback, then, that the… “two"… elevator was also out to… “one"… get him…

Outside, in the main corridor of the Dark Star, a light flashed on to indicate that the elevator was now opposite the doorway. Little wisps of smoke, which, unlike the light, were not regulation, began to drift from around its corners. Then the double door slid apart.

Pinback staggered out. He was alive, even if he didn’t feel like it. His hair was a bit more rumpled than usual, his clothing a mite more disheveled. Otherwise he was basically the same, if one discounted the dark streaks around his cheeks and neck and the slight scorched look of his tunic around his waist.

A flood of acrid smoke poured out of the elevator behind him. Carbonized cloth, mostly, with a faint aroma of Pinback to it. He had a neat black line under his loose shirt where the severe jolt from the explosion had thrown the metal even tighter against his belly.

Oh, and just above that was a neat square of metal—the floor plate—still tightly wrapped around him.

He tried to slump into a corner, and failed. The plate did not permit easy slumping. Or even sitting. And then he had a very discouraging thought.

It occurred to him that despite all his precautions to preserve his dignity—and nearly killing himself in the bargain—his dilemma might have been revealed to—Doolittle and Boiler anyway, if the explosion had set any tell-tales in the control room or living area. He watched the corridor ahead for long minutes. But no one came down it to laugh at him, and he began to relax a little. If the explosive bolts were part of a standard maintenance sequence, and it was beginning to look that way, then it shouldn’t activate any special alarm anywhere else on board. Talby, Doolittle, and Boiler should still be ignorant of the indignities he had suffered.

There remained the little matter of getting the plate off. Another trip to the crafts room solved that quickly enough. There was a small cutting-and-welding outfit there—the psychometricians had thought of everything, it seemed. It made a neat job of the plate, though a part of him rebelled at the idea of slicing the bottom of the elevator into pieces. At the moment, though, his desire to be rid of the damn thing far outweighed any loyal considerations to preserve and protect the physical integrity of the ship.

Besides, if Boiler could blow holes in the cover to the heating unit for target practice, he could darn well play around with something that was even less integral to the Dark Star’s operation. He could always fix the plate later, and for now there was still plenty of room to stand inside the lift.

But later, not now. Now he had something else to do. He smiled. Something much more important.

Once the plate was free, he made use of the small first-aid kit thoughtfully provided for clumsy craftsmen. That took care of his injured tummy.

Then he made his way purposefully back to the alien-holding room, checking the corridor ahead of him every now and then to make sure the Beachball wasn’t waiting to playfully ambush him, and also to avoid Doolittle and Boiler.

As usual, the luminants rushed instantly to the close side of the cage, but this time they didn’t make him nervous. He didn’t bother to shoo them away.

They had no eyes, no ears, no recognizable features at all. Only perfect, regular, geometric shapes. Yet they always responded to his presence. He wondered momentarily what they thought, if they thought—what they felt, if they felt.

He knew what he felt.

The red box was labeled simply ANESTHETIC GUN. He started to break the seal, then paused thoughtfully and lifted the whole box neatly off its all latch.

Better not load the thing until the last minute. If he ran into any of the others he couldn’t claim he was going target shooting like Boiler. Not with this baby. Nor did he want to go walking around the ship with a loaded gun in hand. Not considering the predilection the Beachball had for dropping on to people without warning.

The way his luck had been running lately, he’d was likely to end up tranquilizing his foot.

But his luck, he told himself grimly, was about to take a forced change. He might have to hunt out the alien all over again, but chances were good that it was still hovering around the open shaft, perhaps waiting for the elevator to descend again. He hoped it was. There were too many hiding places in the rear compartments of the ship for him to search through without eventually coming to the attention of Boiler or Doolittle.

He encountered neither fellow crewman on his walk back to the chamber he had left so long ago. Only a few steps into it, he was brought up short by a familiar, now hateful, twittering sound.

He stopped, looked around slowly. Eventually his gaze went to the right and up, to rest on the alien. It was resting there, glued to the wall, the ugly red and yellow shape gobbling and honking softly at him as though nothing had happened.

Probably it wanted to play some more. Well, Pinback was through playing. Keeping a wary eye on the quivering Beachball, he opened the safety catches on the box and removed the pistol. He opened the chamber, reached in for one of the tranquilizer darts… and paused.

After all, bringing the alien aboard had been his idea. He had had to fight for it over the objections of the others, who had insisted that alien-gathering wasn’t part of the Dark Star’s mission. But he’d persisted.

So in more than one way, the alien was his responsibility. He almost put the dart back. Almost. Then he grew determined and slipped the innocuous-looking little sliver of metal into the chamber.

Any feelings of concern he might have retained for the Beachball had been effectively negated by its several deliberate—yes, deliberate—attempts to kill him.

It made no difference to Pinback that the alien might have had nothing of the sort in mind, because it didn’t have enough room in its mind for something like premeditation. He was going to be revenged—revenged for everything the unmentionable blob of sickening protoplasm had done to him. This time it was going back into a cage for good.

Of course, there was one minor drawback in the use of the emergency tranquilizer. He had no way of knowing whether it would even work on this particular example of otherlife. It might only make it mad.

Pinback checked to make sure the dart was seated in the chamber of the compressed-air pistol and that the air charge was up to power. The dose might also prove fatal. There was only one way to find out.

The alternative was simply to blast it to organic powder with the laser, but Pinback’s fury hadn’t gone quite that far yet. Better to give it some sort of chance.

Besides, he was afraid of the laser.

Snapping the chamber closed and raising his arm carefully, he took aim at the oscillating spheroid.

“Now it’s time to go sleepy-bye, you worthless piece of garbage.”

He pulled the trigger. A short puff from the gun and the dart struck square in the center of the alien.

There was an unexpected loud whooshing sound, and the alien shot violently toward him. Pinback ducked frantically, raising his arms to ward off the seemingly vicious charge. Then he straightened uncertainly, aware that the alien had missed him by several meters.

It continued to roar around the room, accompanied by the whooshing sound of escaping gas, bouncing haphazardly off walls and ceiling. Its speed was beginning to decrease rapidly, and the whooshing noise decreased to a faintly obscene snicker. It came to an exhausted stop in a far corner

Pinback stared at it askance, then walked over. He bent over it and touched it. There was no repetition of the burning sensation he had received when he had tried to get the rubber mouse away from it.

He felt the limp object. There was a solid lump around the bottom, consisting of the clawed feet and contracted internal organs. But when he picked it up it hung wrinkled and sagging in one hand. It was, indisputably, dead.

Geez, he muttered to himself. His anger was now as deflated as the alien. He hadn’t really wanted to kill it. Just to knock it out and get it back in its cage.

Now it was pretty pitiful-looking, all collapsed in on itself, like a jellyfish washed up on a beach. Geez, he whispered again.

The worst part of it was, now they would never know how intelligent it might have been, because the specialists back at Earth Base would never have a chance to run their tests on it—and he’d never get his medal.

Nor would it look very good in the official reports. Not that Doolittle or Talby or Boiler would care. It wasn’t part of their mission, as Doolittle had insisted. Boiler would probably find the sad state of the dead Beachball hilarious, after his own perverted fashion.

But it definitely wouldn’t look good in the report. He could visualize the entry now:

“Sergeant Pinback, in attempting to recapture one of the alien specimens—which he inadvertently allowed to escape—overdosed it with tranquilizer.”

Aw, nuts… dosage had nothing to do with it. It was the deadly hypodermic point that had done the damage. How was he to know that the alien would be so thin-skinned? He was no xenobiologist.

Besides, he could forgive a lot of things, but not that time when the alien had taken the broom away from him and beaten him to the floor with it. That was the last straw.

He pulled the tranquilizer dart out of the now-rough skin and examined it with new respect. It was a good thing the first shot had truck home. He could see the alien imitating this action, too, grabbing the missed dart and jabbing it into Pinback. He grinned slightly. That would have looked a danm sight worse in the reports.

“Sergeant Pinback, in attempting to recapture one of the alien specimens, was tranquilized by said speciman and placed in a cage.”

Why was he berating himself, then? The alien had brought this on itself. Hadn’t it nearly killed him in the elevator shaft? Why was he always tearing himself down?

He’d just done a good—no, a brave thing, going back in after a semi-intelligent alien that had nearly killed him. Yeah, Doolittle would be proud of him, and even Boiler might sit up and treat him with a little more respect.

He started back toward the alien-holding chamber with the dead Beachball in tow. Even so, he didn’t think he would mention this little episode to his fellows right away. No sense overawing them with his inordinate courage too soon. He’d slip them the information in small doses.

As for the alien, the arts-and-crafts room was equipped for just about every hobby, and he’d never taken a crack at half of them.

Taxidermy, for example…

Boiler was checking out some jury-rigged repairs they had made on the electronic head. It had been damaged when their original living quarters had blown, and now there were subtle hints that it was not recycling their waste products properly.

Since everything on the Dark Star was recycled and reused, including all their food and drink, it was vital that this particular piece of equipment work properly.

Slipping his hand deep into the open wail panel, he felt around until he located the slot between the two pressure-activated reconstituters. Gently, he hunted for any hint of a loose connection.

Not all of the crew’s “special” pictures decorated one wall in their temporary living quarters. There were a number of the finest on the walls in here. They provided a pleasing backdrop to his current activities.

He found himself thinking more and more often of women lately, despite all the preconditioning the psychometricians had laid on him—despite all the advanced autoerotic devices included on the Dark Star. He found himself seeing round shapes and curves where there should have been only sharp corners and flat sides. Found himself actually feeling warmth and blood where there was only plastic and indifferent current.

Found himself thinking of the party… that incredible party after they had won the conference championship. Found himself thinking of the last week on Earth, the final week before they entered solitary preparation for the mission, and of Diane… especially of Diane.

Tall, quiet, compliant, insecure, affectionate, indifferent Diane.

Wherever she was now, he wished her well.

None of the connections were loose. Maybe the monitors on the tubing linkup…

Everything had worked out so fine, so nice, so natural, to the point where he had even stopped thinking of going on the mission. They could replace him easily enough.

That beautiful, deep brunette… and then she’d gone back to “the older guy,” the one she had “no serious relationship with.” Just up and disappeared out of his life.

That made it easy for him to score high on the tests, easy to devote himself to becoming part of the Dark Star itself. He hadn’t thought anything but cold, technological thoughts for a long time.

But lately… women. And especially a certain woman. Occasionally a part of him would stir with a violent internal tremor and cry, Diane, Diane!

“Easy.” A hand came down gentle, firm on his shoulder and his head snapped around, upward. “Easy, Boiler.” Doolittle said it softly.

Boiler let his emotions simmer, quiet, evaporate. Then he eased his hand carefully out of the slot, began tightening the bolts on the panel.

“I can’t find anything wrong with the reconstituters, Lieutenant. And the tubing connections seem firm.”

“It’s all right, Boiler. It’s all right. Maybe it’ll clear up. There might just be some accumulated blockage in the system. Let’s go get something corrosive to eat and see if we can’t clear it out.”

Boiler looked up at him and then smiled ever so slightly—as much as he ever smiled. Both Talby and Pinback were certifiably nuts, but what about Doolittle? He couldn’t figure the lieutenant out. What did Doolittle think about behind that Assyrian beard and Egyptian stare? What was he thinking about now, looking down at Boiler and not really seeing him?

Were they really on this last bomb run, the last run before they could start the long, lonely journey back to Earth? Or on some journey less profound and more internal—like Boiler’s own?

He shook his head once and tightened the last bolt. Leaving the driver carelessly on the floor, he followed Doolittle up the near ladder.

His thoughts shrank to a tiny ball and normal emotions replaced personal ones as Pinback joined them.

“Hey, guys. Guys?” Pinback began brightly. “You know the alien? The Beachball? Well, it attacked me, guys! Twice, and I tried to tranquilize it but I ended up killing it. But not because of the tranquilizer. That’s the interesting thing about it, you know?”

Doolittle led them through the door to the combination galley and dining room.

“Hey, yeah, this is a good idea, Lieutenant,” he blabbered. “I’m kinda hungry, too. Well, anyhow, I shot it with the tranquilizer gun and it just spewed out gas like crazy and shot around the room like a punctured balloon. I guess its insides were mostly just that, plain old gas. It was just filled with gas.”

This information was not met with a barrage of questions on the part of Doolittle and Boiler.

“Hey, guys, how could it live and just be filled with gas?”

“I wonder what we got to eat today?” Boiler grumbled.

“I thought I was gonna die. I was hanging to the bottom of the damned elevator for twenty minutes.”

“Probably chicken again,” Doolittle theorized. He had long suspected that the menu for the Dark Star had been planned by more than one colonel.

“I probably saved the ship,” Pinback continued excitedly. “Why, that thing might’ve…”

The kitchen-dining area was not very big. The men were not required to eat their meals there; it was merely suggested, since the area was equipped with powerful suction devices and cleansers that gleaned every drop of spilled food for reconstituting.

There were a couple of seats and three blank walls facing a fourth. That wall contained machinery as complex as anything on the bridge or up in the astronomer’s dome. Concentrated food was prepared here, waste products finally recycled into new food and drink.

“… could have done some real damage!” Pinback finished.

Boiler was down now, really down, after his internal outburst of a few moments ago. “God, I’m really sick of chicken.”

It was beginning to dawn on Pinback that his account of an overwhelming victory over the rampaging forces of alien malignancy were generating something less than an ecstatic response on the part of his audience. He folded his arms and retreated into the inevitable pout.

“Well, if that’s the way you feel about it, then I just won’t talk about it anymore.”

“Hey, that sounds like a fine idea, Pinback,” Doolittle observed. He moved to the service oven and punched the DINNER call switch three times in measured succession. There was a click, a quiet whirr that lasted for several seconds, and then the door slid aside.

Doolittle peered in, wrinkling his nose as he got a whiff of the heated liquids inside.

“Chicken,” he muttered. He thumbed another switch and the door closed. Once more he activated the call button thrice. Another buzz, another whirr, a different smell.

“Ah, ham.” Either the machine had finally learned to read their discontent or else they had simply gotten a break. Why so much chicken had been programmed into their diet was beyond Doolittle’s imagining.

Actually, the only difference between the “chicken” and “ham"—or steak, seafood, or meat loaf they were offered—was in the artificial flavoring, since they were constantly consuming the same basic series of protein-carbohydrate-sugar solids. And since all the liquid concentrates looked the same, the psyche boys no doubt concluded that taste variety was important.

Why, then, this unnatural preponderance of processed fowl? Doolittle suspected that, like everything else on the Dark Star, there was a kink in the kitchen computer too. But that was one piece of instrumentation he didn’t want to chance fooling with. Not as long as it kept them alive.

Attempts at reprogramming the flavoring in their food might result in even worse offerings. They might get oyster stew for a month, something that had happened several years ago. Doolittle had nearly starved. He did not like the taste of oyster stew, or the look of oyster stew, or the smell of oyster stew.

Unquestionably, Doolittle was afflicted with an anti-oyster bias rooted deep in childhood neuroses.

That didn’t increase his fondness for chicken, however.

Thirty years of schooling come to this, he mused. A superbly trained technician and here he was, his mind reduced to debating the demerits of chickens and oysters. God, the workings of a technological society!

Talby was the only one who didn’t care. To Talby, food was so much fuel, something that distracted him from his primary task of observing the universe. Something to be gotten over with as fast as possible. A necessary if irritating activity, like going to the john or sleeping.

Juggling the three packages because of the heat, he removed them from the oven and handed one each to Boiler and Pinback.

“Dinner, fellows.”

“Chicken again?” Pinback asked, staring doubtfully down at his package.

“Almost, but no—ham for a change.”

“Oh… good.”

So much for pre-dinner conversation. They began peeling the foil from the tops of the metal containers. Each tray-shape held four transparent plastic packages of concentrated liquid food.

Doolittle tried to open his own without looking at the contents. A man could lose all his teeth in space—through calcium loss, say—and still survive in excellent health, thanks to this diet. But you wanted something to sink your teeth into after a while. They had experienced no calcium loss and had perfect artificial gravity. Therefore Doolittle felt he had a reasonable complaint. There was no reason why the corps could not have provided them with some real food.

But the astronauts had all asked that before, and the reply was always the same: It was wasteful. Crumbs always got lost. Bones were sheer space-takers, as were skin and fat and gristle—except in proper liquid portions. On the other hand, the concentrated liquids were neat, there was virtually no waste except for occasional spilled drops—and even these were recoverable—and they could be rapidly and easily recycled. Furthermore, they were exceedingly simple to prepare.

All of which Doolittle recognized and none of which he agreed with. Had there actually been a time when he had felt that the overflavored concentrates tasted good? Or had that, too, been another lie to get him on the mission?

Now more than ever he regretted the explosion which had cost them Boiler’s supply of real food. “Swiss cheese and knockwurst and thick gooey peanut butter,” Boiler had said, and more. Doolittle suddenly, surprisingly, found his mouth watering.

That was it—think about Boiler’s lost cache while slurping down this oily mess. Think about rye bread and onion rolls, and hot corned beef with mustard.

He tore the corner off one of the plastic tubes, dropped it in the proper recycling receptacle (inorganic), and began sucking at the liquified vegetable inside.

The thoughts seemed to help a little… split pea soup and crab gumbo and turkey gravy… though he would have traded his next week’s rations for a single thick, greasy salami.

“Hey, Doolittle.” Pinback was sucking on a tube of blue fluid.

“Yeah?”

“Think we’ll ever find any real intelligent life out there? I mean, the Beachball had something, but it wasn’t real intelligence.” At least I don’t think it was… I hope it wasn’t, he thought silently.

“Out where?” Doolittle didn’t look up.

“Oh, you know… where we’re heading now. The Veil Nebula region.”

The frustration and boredom and reality of twenty long years in empty space found expression in Doolittle’s terse reply. If someone back at Earth Base had told him he would have felt this way, been capable of voicing such words at any time during the mission, Doolittle would have laughed at him.

But the sentiment came easily now, with a casual bitterness he barely noted.

“Who cares…”