A Circle of Celebrations: The Complete Edition (14 page)

Late at the end of the extended first shift on the third day, the navigational computer said they were where they were supposed to be. Holcomb gave the order to drop out of tesseract. The nearly silent-running engines that had steered the ship for the last eighteen light years raised their voices to a whining pitch that slowly died away, replaced by the heavy thrum of impulse engines. For the first time since just outside the Sol system, stars appeared in the tri-dee screens. The largest, Gamma Taurus, was a ruddy-yellow disk floating in space dead ahead. The nav program drew the elliptical orbits of her attendant planets and asteroid fields around her.

“There she is, people!” Holcomb exclaimed, pointing at a bright quarter-crescent no larger than the head of a pin. “Land ho!”

The crew cheered wildly. Holcomb stared at the curved dot. That was their new home. As he watched, he imagined he could see it growing larger. They’d be there soon. For a moment he understood what Campbell had been trying to hammer into his head with his lectures about Plymouth Rock, Thanksgiving and the Puritan pilgrims. A new world, full of promise, and it was all theirs. For better or for worse, they were on its doorstep. He took a deep breath, and let it out slowly. The bridge had fallen silent.

He looked around. Every tech on the bridge was doing the same thing he was: staring at Gamma Four. They gave him sheepish grins. He waved a hand at them.

“All right, you’ve seen it. Exec, set up a slide show for everyone on the s-mail system. Don’t let it be said that we hogged the view all to ourselves. Even though we were the first.” He gave them a conspiratorial smile. “All of you not on shift, go to bed!” He glanced at the chronometer on the wall over the viewscreen and headed for the hallway. “That includes me. Good night! We’re almost there!”

They gave him another cheer that was abruptly cut off by the sliding metal door. Holcomb headed for the lift down to his quarters. After the hubbub on the bridge he enjoyed the quiet hum of the empty corridor. The peace lasted for five seconds before someone grabbed his arm and turned him in the opposite direction, steering him toward the next set of lifts. He looked down to see the petite woman, her eyebrows drawn down toward her nose.

“Jackson! What’s wrong?”

“I’m smelling it again,” she said. “I told you before, and they’re at it again.”

The door opened on level five, and Holcomb had to admit she was right. Straight out of the lift, he could smell it. Sautéed mushrooms with garlic. He closed his eyes and inhaled a blissful lungful of the aroma.

“Illicit stir-frying,” Jackson said, furiously, dragging him toward the Biochemistry lab, past a sad-faced ring of protesters carrying signs saying, “Spare the Bird,” and “No America-centric Imperialism in Space.” “I
told
you they were misusing my samples.”

“They’re
eating
them, Jackson,” he said, trailing behind her, a large freighter towed by a small, angry tugboat. “What’s wrong with that. You didn’t want them to waste anything. What do you expect them to do with the leftovers? Compost perfectly good food?”

“They insisted they needed a second five-kilo box. And now I know why!” With Holcomb in her wake, she slapped in a senior-officer code override on the lock and burst into the laboratory. Guiltily, the twenty or so crew members wearing white coats over their blue shipsuits jumped back from the wall-mounted heating chamber, four or five of Holcomb’s officers among them. Sure enough, inside the heater there was a glass retort full of ivory-brown slices and white dots partly submerged in bubbling liquid. Jackson grabbed it out, too angry to feel the heat of the container that turned her palm red.

“So you
have
been stringing me along. I believed you were working on a breakthrough. It was just a ploy to get into the supplies!”

“But we did it, ma’am. I mean, we didn’t. Here’s our product, ma’am,” a young tech said, offering her a container of gray paste. She struck it away with the side of her hand, too mad to taste it. The captain gestured him over. The young man turned to him with a grateful look, offering a stirring rod as a spoon. Holcomb took a taste. The earthy taste spread over his tongue.

“It’s good,” Holcomb said, intrigued. He fished one of the pieces of hot mushroom out of the beaker Jackson was brandishing, and compared them, becoming more delighted with each taste. “By heaven, it’s exactly like real mushrooms. Good job, Perkins, is it?”

The stocky tech beamed.

“Yes, sir. Thanks.”

Holcomb pointed with his makeshift spoon. “How’s this stuff with garlic?”

“Not so good yet, sir,” Perkins said, “but that can wait for a while. We just wanted to make sure the compound would hold up in the oven. For the stuffing.”

“So you
are
finished with the mushrooms?” Jackson asked. The techs nodded. “Then why didn’t you return the unused vegetables?” she demanded, shaking the beaker at Perkins. “I could have harvested the spores from these and put them back in storage!”

“Well, ma’am, we didn’t think of that, exactly. I mean, you released them. We didn’t think we would have to give them back. We thought it’d be okay.” The young man was shamefaced but defiant. “Come on, ma’am, it’s been months since we had real food, and all this stuff was just sitting there. With respect, ma’am, you’re obsessing.”

“That’s it!” Jackson said, rounding on Holcomb. “You hear that? They don’t appreciate conservation of resources. I want you to assign the techs in charge of manufacturing foodstuffs for the Thanksgiving dinner to me. I want temporary authority. I need to run this personally.”

“These are
my
people,” Science Officer Thompson exclaimed. The redhaired woman pushed forward out of the crowd. “Captain!”

“But they’re working on
supply
,” Jackson said, “and that is
my
department. If they work directly under me I will see to it that waste is prevented.”

The door slid open.

“Save the bird! Save the bird!” Suddenly, Holcomb and the others were surrounded by the crowd of protesters who had been outside, brandishing their signs. Some of them picked up beakers and headed for the disposer unit. Perkins and some of the other techs sprang forward to stop them, and got involved in a scuffle to retrieve their experiments.

“Aw, dammit, who let them in?” Thompson complained, yanking retorts out of the hands of a yelling woman.

“What’s going on here?” Holcomb boomed, ducking out of the way of a sign that swung dangerously close to his head.

“They’re vegetarians,” said Campbell of Engineering, standing up from a stool in the corner. “They are protesting the death of the turkey for the Thanksgiving roast. I have tried to explain to them the necessity for the sacrifice, but they do not listen to me. That’s why we locked them out.”

“Captain, you can’t turn over my people to another department,” Thompson protested. “I’ll need them!”

“Quartermaster Jackson’s authority would extend only to functions relating to the project, Thompson,” Holcomb said. “She does know her stuff. It won’t stop her using anyone who wants to help. Will it, Jackson?” he shouted over the yelling protesters.

“What?” she shrieked from the corner where she was holding the beaker of mushrooms over her head. The science technicians pushed the protesters out the door and shut it on them. Perkins entered a locking code, and turned his back on the banging at the door.

“You’ll let anyone help who wants to, right?” Holcomb shouted, into the newly restored silence.

“Not everyone,” Jackson said, putting on her Mother Superior expression. “There won’t be room in here or in the galley for anyone but the techs making the food and the cooks preparing it.”

Immediately, there was an outcry from the people left in the room.

“Look, Captain,” said Lieutenant Dermott Colwabe of Hydroponics, a dark-skinned man with one of the few beards on the ship, “everyone wants to cook. We all want to help out. This is supposed to be a celebration for all of us.”

“Well, everyone
can’t
cook,” Holcomb said, reasonably. “We’re all going to eat. Won’t that be enough?”

“No!” “What about my ideas?” “My mother’s peach cobbler …” “Green bean casserole …!”

The captain gestured for silence. He knew he was favoring Jackson unfairly over the other officers. “I’m sorry! There’s only so much that needs to be done.”

The protesting officers surrounded him and Jackson, all shouting at once. The argument went on and on, growing more acrimonious and personal. Jackson’s face grew red, and Holcomb saw another outburst brewing.

“Quiet!” Holcomb shouted. “Quiet! All right, that’s enough! What no one here realizes is that our very survival depends upon our remaining as one group! This is not beanball, people! We are entering into a potentially hostile environment, away from all support from home. We have only ourselves to rely upon, and we need to be able to rely upon one another. Now, we have one further choice that no one has suggested. I have enough ni-gas left over to put us all back into stasis. I can turn the ship around and take us home again. I would rather do that then land sixteen hundred people I know won’t survive on an empty world.”

“You can’t do that!” one of the technicians exclaimed, her mouth hanging open. “We’re less than two months from planetfall!”

“Oh, yes I can,” Holcomb said, in a stiff voice. “If this is the way you cooperate, it would be better than landing. A decision like that’d be the end of my career, but I’d sooner have that happen than watch every one of you die because you won’t accept the responsibility that goes with the risk!”

“With respect, Captain, you haven’t been showing the kind of leadership we need,” Thompson said, nervously. “We’ve just been filling in.”

“All right, I accept that,” Holcomb said, swallowing his indignation. His own Science Officer was speaking out against him. In a way he was glad they would never go back to Earth. He’d hate to have the brass hear that. “That was a mistake. I admit it. But the mark of true leadership is the ability to delegate.”

He aimed a thumb over his shoulder. It was an offhand gesture, and he hoped Jackson wouldn’t read it as an insult, but he didn’t want to meet her eyes just then. That would be too distracting, and he needed to be the only authority on this vessel at this time. “Jackson is in charge of cooking. If you want to work in that department, speak to her. Colwabe”—the Hydroponics chief looked up—“you’re in charge of setup and decoration. You’ve got plenty of material. You can use dead leaves and stuff. Look in the library computers for images. Anyone who has unfulfilled creative urges can work with you. For once we’re not going to eat in shifts, and that means finding extra room. Fit as many tables as you can in the rec room and the mess hall. All others will have to be seated at tables in the connecting corridor. Knock yourselves out, so long as the décor is recyclable. If making paper chains is beneath them, send them to Galman. She’s in charge of cleanup.” The assistant medical officer nodded curtly.

Holcomb turned to the chief engineer. “Campbell, I have a special job for you. I am putting you in charge of serving. Get your people into the proper mood, and they can explain the meaning of every single dish if you want them to. I suggest you enlist the ones who have cultural or philosophical disagreements with the menu or the holiday. Nothing makes for a good dinner party like a little controversy. Your choice.” All of them looked disgruntled, except Campbell, who looked grimly pleased with his assignment. Holcomb raised his voice over the murmuring.

“I expect you all to fulfill these functions, along with your other jobs, which I expect you to do perfectly. You’re right. It is only 40 days to until we make planetfall. We want to be ready to get off this boat as soon as possible, and that means having everything done on schedule. We want to have a great party, yes, but dinner for sixteen hundred does not negate the importance of the landing we’re supposed to be celebrating, or has everyone forgotten that?”

Holcomb had to stifle a grin. The shamefaced expressions on some of the faces around him told him they’d done just that. The crowd melted away, leaving only the hard core, the department heads and the chief rabble-rousers. “I’m giving these assignments to you, and I leave them in your hands. Any questions, come to me. Keep me posted on progress. That is all.” He fixed the stragglers with an unblinking gaze, and suddenly, they remembered other appointments, too. He raised his eyebrows at Jackson, and left her alone with Thompson and the other techs.

O O O

Holcomb was just climbing into a clean uniform when the communications beeper on the wall of his quarters started sounding.

“Holcomb,” he said, with a sigh, slapping closed the fasteners on his chest. He wasn’t even on shift yet, and here was the first crisis of the day.

It was Thompson, her eyes intent. “Captain, you have to get down here!” He heard shouting in the background.

Holcomb groaned, but he kicked into his ship boots, and headed for the Biochem lab.

“What are those?” he demanded, pointing at a cluster of large, shiny, brownish objects on the table.

Jackson and Campbell looked up briefly from the argument they were having. Thompson left a counter full of beautiful pseudo-pumpkin pies and hurried to the captain’s side.

“They’re the turkeys, sir,” the Science Officer said. Holcomb surveyed them. They didn’t look like turkeys, and he’d helped his mother put together Thanksgiving dinners and Christmas lunches since he could stir stuffing. He wagged a finger at one, fishing the word out of his memory.

“That’s a cornucopia,” Holcomb said, “and those two are shaped like pumpkins. What is going on here?”

“Ensign Riga, sir,” Thompson said, gesturing toward a stocky blond male with callused hands. “He’s a woodworker. He had this idea for a shortcut, a really novel approach to shaping the soy turkeys with a laser saw. And, since we’ve got about fifty of them to make, we let him try. It starts with a twelve-kilo, block of pressed meat substitute, half light and half dark, and it does a pretty good job. Well, about three hundred hours, the computer glitched. It was reading a three-dee image of a turkey, but it skipped over and started carving roasts in the shape of the next piece of clipart in the file. And then the next. So, when we came in about oh-seven, this is what we found.”