fine wine but will take any old plonk rather than nothing.
(In the desert, we boy soldiers made a horrible wine out of raisins and cut-up citrus, with bread- making yeast. I still can’t look at raisins.)
There was a lot of floor space beyond the pantry, which took up less than a quarter of the storage warehouse. The rest was a combination of replacements for things we knew would wear out, like clothes, and tools and raw materials for fabricating things we hadn’t predicted needing.
Like weapons, I supposed. We made a point of saying that the mission was peaceful and unarmed. But when I floated through the warehouse and its large semisentient machine shop, I saw that it wouldn’t take much inventiveness or skill to put together individual projectile and laser weapons and small bombs.
It was unlikely that any conventional weapon would have a non-trivial effect on the Others. But they might not be the only enemies out there. Sooner or later, we’d have to talk about that. I would just as soon not be the one to bring it up, though.
All that stuff waiting for something to go wrong made me wonder whether we might have traded in one of our xenologists, or even a spy, for a gifted tinkerer. We had engineers in a couple of flavors, and smart machines to do their bidding. But could any of those engineers take a blade to a piece of wood and carve a useful propeller out of it? An oar? I could, of course. But that’s not like having someone who would say, “You don’t need a propeller. This is what you need.”
I added a frozen cherry pie to the basket and a quart of something supposedly resembling ice cream. By the time I got to the kitchen, everybody was relaxing with a drink in the dining room or the study. Moonboy was intently playing the piano, silent with earphones, studying a projected score. Snowbird was standing by the small bookshelf, studying one of the few physical books we’d brought along.
Had to get used to their standing all the time. There are no social signals in their posture that I can recognize. When are they relaxing? Does the term have any meaning to them?
I set the stuff out in proper order on the work island, and put the pseudomeatballs in the microwave to thaw, then poured a glass of reconstituted Chianti. Not really bad. Asked the screen for pressure-cooking directions, and it said at this “altitude” I didn’t have to pressure-cook pasta; it just took longer. Okay; filled the pot three-quarters with water and added a little salt and oil, and put it on high.
My skin seemed to relax on my body, blood pressure coming down. I had so missed this plain thing. Whenever we were in a situation where it was possible, cooking was my main relaxant and restorer. Neither Elza nor Dustin did much cooking, though they had their specialties. Dustin’s Texas chili was a possibility here, but Elza’s skill with sushi was unlikely to be of use, unless we met some edible aliens. She could handle tentacles.
For two summers before I joined the kibbutz in Israel, my aunt Sophie hired me to do “dog work” in her New York restaurant, Five Flags. I did a lot of vegetable chopping and some simple sous-chef things, and was exposed to basic techniques in French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, and Chinese cooking. College and combat took me away from that world, and I never pursued it professionally, nor actually wanted to. That might make it too serious, no longer relaxing.
Meryl came over and refilled her glass. “Can I help?”
I measured some water into the dehydrated onions. “Nothing much to do, I’m afraid. I would love to have an onion to chop.”
“Not for a month or so.” She looked out over the hydroponic farm, more white plastic than greenery. “When we left Mars for Little Mars, I didn’t think I’d miss it, working with the plants.”
“No green thumb?”
“Well, no enthusiasm. I thought the ‘ag hours’ were somebody’s bright idea for morale. But I did grow to miss it, in Little
(In the desert, we boy soldiers made a horrible wine out of raisins and cut-up citrus, with bread- making yeast. I still can’t look at raisins.)
There was a lot of floor space beyond the pantry, which took up less than a quarter of the storage warehouse. The rest was a combination of replacements for things we knew would wear out, like clothes, and tools and raw materials for fabricating things we hadn’t predicted needing.
Like weapons, I supposed. We made a point of saying that the mission was peaceful and unarmed. But when I floated through the warehouse and its large semisentient machine shop, I saw that it wouldn’t take much inventiveness or skill to put together individual projectile and laser weapons and small bombs.
It was unlikely that any conventional weapon would have a non-trivial effect on the Others. But they might not be the only enemies out there. Sooner or later, we’d have to talk about that. I would just as soon not be the one to bring it up, though.
All that stuff waiting for something to go wrong made me wonder whether we might have traded in one of our xenologists, or even a spy, for a gifted tinkerer. We had engineers in a couple of flavors, and smart machines to do their bidding. But could any of those engineers take a blade to a piece of wood and carve a useful propeller out of it? An oar? I could, of course. But that’s not like having someone who would say, “You don’t need a propeller. This is what you need.”
I added a frozen cherry pie to the basket and a quart of something supposedly resembling ice cream. By the time I got to the kitchen, everybody was relaxing with a drink in the dining room or the study. Moonboy was intently playing the piano, silent with earphones, studying a projected score. Snowbird was standing by the small bookshelf, studying one of the few physical books we’d brought along.
Had to get used to their standing all the time. There are no social signals in their posture that I can recognize. When are they relaxing? Does the term have any meaning to them?
I set the stuff out in proper order on the work island, and put the pseudomeatballs in the microwave to thaw, then poured a glass of reconstituted Chianti. Not really bad. Asked the screen for pressure-cooking directions, and it said at this “altitude” I didn’t have to pressure-cook pasta; it just took longer. Okay; filled the pot three-quarters with water and added a little salt and oil, and put it on high.
My skin seemed to relax on my body, blood pressure coming down. I had so missed this plain thing. Whenever we were in a situation where it was possible, cooking was my main relaxant and restorer. Neither Elza nor Dustin did much cooking, though they had their specialties. Dustin’s Texas chili was a possibility here, but Elza’s skill with sushi was unlikely to be of use, unless we met some edible aliens. She could handle tentacles.
For two summers before I joined the kibbutz in Israel, my aunt Sophie hired me to do “dog work” in her New York restaurant, Five Flags. I did a lot of vegetable chopping and some simple sous-chef things, and was exposed to basic techniques in French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, and Chinese cooking. College and combat took me away from that world, and I never pursued it professionally, nor actually wanted to. That might make it too serious, no longer relaxing.
Meryl came over and refilled her glass. “Can I help?”
I measured some water into the dehydrated onions. “Nothing much to do, I’m afraid. I would love to have an onion to chop.”
“Not for a month or so.” She looked out over the hydroponic farm, more white plastic than greenery. “When we left Mars for Little Mars, I didn’t think I’d miss it, working with the plants.”
“No green thumb?”
“Well, no enthusiasm. I thought the ‘ag hours’ were somebody’s bright idea for morale. But I did grow to miss it, in Little
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