"What d'you mean reopen the restaurant?" Uncle Max exploded, though she could hear the sudden hope in his voice.
Minmei gestured around at the stacked chairs and boxed flatware and bundles of table linen. The White Dragon, which originally stood at the virtual center of Macross City, had served as a kind of field test for the engineers seeking to help the Macross City survivors rebuild their lives, an experiment to see if a piece of the city could be reproduced down to the last detail. There were working dishwashers and ovens and sinks and rest rooms, freezers and refrigerators, lighting and a sound system.
The only thing that was different was that there were no garbage pails or dumpsters. A system of oubliettes was being built into the new Macross City because everything-everything-would have to be recycled and reused. It made perfect sense to Minmei, who'd known thirst and hunger and other privations well in the past two weeks; anyone who couldn't see that was just being stupid.
"We have everything we need," she pointed out. "It'll be fun!"
She saw a rekindling in Uncle Max's eyes, but he said slowly, "Maybe so, but it'd be awfully difficult to run a restaurant when these are all the rations they give at one time." He shook the book-size box. "For four of us, for today."
"But you kept your place open all through the war!" Minmei cried.
Uncle Max ran his hand through the tight black curls on his head. Aunt Lena looked shocked, but happy. "Whff! That was much different," Max said. Then he reconsidered.
"Well, the army had imposed rationing then too…"
"But-we're living inside a spaceship, Minmei," Lena said.
"But the main problem right now isn't shortages, right?" Minmei reminded her. "It's distribution and control. We've got thousands of people spending half the day in line! How's anybody gonna get anything done? That's the ultimate in stupidity!"
She saw that they were getting the point. "Aunt Lena, once the authorities know you're reopening the White Dragon, they'll give you all the supplies you want! And it wouldn't surprise me if they put us all on salary as food distribution specialists!"
"And people can pay us with their ration cards; the army pays at least part of the overhead; there's room for a little markup, I would think; the tips are pure profit, whether they're in military script or in goods or service IOUs; and we'll get that new bookkeeping computer they're setting up to keep track of cost/profit margin!"
She was out of breath but triumphant. And she could see from their faces that she'd sold her aunt and uncle. "What d'you think?"
Uncle Max rubbed the back of his neck, wanting very badly to believe it. "I suppose it doesn't sound like a bad idea, after all."
"I guess so," Aunt Lena allowed. She drew in a great breath, looking at Minmei. "Doing business as usual is the answer to a lot of problems, right?"
Minmei nodded until her hair was rippling around her.
"Right!" barked Uncle Max. "Let's get cracking! Full steam ahead!" He laughed, full-throated, at the dark starburst of happiness in his wife's eyes and at Minmei's gasp.
"Wait just a second!" Minmei dashed off, hair whipping behind her. "I'll be right back! I'm just gonna change my clothes!" Mandarin dresses were no problem at all for computer-directed fabrication units that had reproduced alien technologies.
Uncle Max expanded his chest in pride. Aunt Lena put her arm around his broad shoulders and said, "I'm glad she's excited."
He nodded. "I only hope we're not making a mistake about this."
Lena kissed him tenderly. "We're not."
"Careful, that's it," Uncle Max instructed anxiously as he and Minmei carried the little stand out onto the sidewalk in front of the restaurant. "Now turn it around. Good!"
"Everybody'll see this!" Minmei said excitedly. The stand was covered with a bright red and yellow silk cloth announcing the restaurant's name in Chinese characters. Minmei's elegant mandarin dress was made of the same stuff. She'd arranged her hair in large buns with a braid to one side, weaving a rope of pearls into the coiffure.
She was so intent on her work that she almost collided with the mayor and his wife, who stared in surprise. "Well, well, what's all this about?"
Minmei replied, "A little surprise, Mr. Mayor. We're reopening our restaurant!"
Tommy Luan's eyebrows shot up. "Have you all gone completely crazy? Has it ever occurred to you that we're at the edge of the universe in the belly of a spaceship?"
"Why, no, we never thought of that," she said tartly. But then she gave him her sunniest smile. "But honestly, that doesn't mean we shouldn't make the best of things, does it? I think we can still have normal lives. After all, this is still our good old hometown, isn't it?"
She indicated the town. It was already an everyday thing for traffic to be moving around the streets-not just military vehicles but cars and trucks that had been salvaged after the spacefold jump as well.
One thing was for sure, the mayor knew: When the diversion of rebuilding the city was over, and that would be soon, the refugees would need something else to occupy them. And as she so often did, Minmei had seen to the heart of things.
"By gosh, you're right!" the mayor said excitedly. To get back to life as usual-how grand that would be! His head was suddenly swimming with ideas for restoring normality to refugee life, but he was distracted as a four-seater troop carrier pulled to the curb with a squeal of tires and a beep of its horn.
Three Veritech pilots sat there, gazing at the restaurant as if it were a three-headed dinosaur. "We saw it but we couldn't believe it!" the jeep's driver said. "Are you really open?"
"We certainly are!" Minmei said proudly.
They looked a little dazed as she led them inside, seated them, and brought glasses of ice water. "Welcome to the first Chinese restaurant in outer space," she beamed, distributing menus.
"Thanks; it's an honor to be here," the driver said. "Hey, you're that girl Minmei everybody's been talking about, huh? I'll bet you had some incredible adventures."
"Sometimes it was pretty scary," she admitted.
The biggest of the three, the one who'd been sitting in the back of the carrier, said in a sly tone, "I heard it was just you and whatshisname, that kid, alone for two weeks. What'd you do all that time?"
She blinked. "What do you mean?"
"Oh, I think you know," the big guy said.
"C'mon, it's obvious," the third one said.
"You make me sick!" she fumed, turning her back on them.
"You mean nothing happened?" the big one persisted. "Nothing at all?"
She whirled. "Yes, that's exactly right!"
"Speaking of whatshisname," the driver said, "is he still around? I mean, I heard he was living here or something."
Minmei answered carefully. "Yes, he's renting a room upstairs from my aunt and uncle. Why?"
The driver shrugged. "You're saying that with all you two went through together, nothing happened? You didn't fall in love or anything?"
"Don't be ridiculous! Rick is just a friend! Now, are you three gonna order or are you gonna leave?"
Rick, poised on the stairs, had heard enough. As the pilots hastened to order chow mein, he turned and went back up to his room.
He sat on his bed and stared glumly at the wall. So, we're just friends, huh? He remembered the feel of her in his arms, the electric thrill as they kissed.