Once they were outside Tex demanded, "What's he want to see you for, Matt?"
"Can't you guess?" answered Oscar. "Look, Matt, I'll tear over to the tailor shop for you-you can't do that and shave, too, not in fifteen minutes."
"You're a lifesaver, Oz!"
P.R.S. Aes Triplex blasted from Moon Base thirteen hours later in a trajectory intended to produce an elliptical orbit with its far end in the asteroid belt. Her orders were to search for the missing P.R.S. Pathfinder. The
Pathfinder had been engaged in radar-charting a sector of the asteroid belt for the Uranographic Office of the Patrol. Her mission had taken her beyond the range of ship-type radio; nevertheless she should have reported in by radio nearly six months earlier, at which time she should have been approaching conjunction with Mars. But Deimos Station, around Mars, had been unable to raise the Pathfinder; she was presumed lost.
The possible locations of the Pathfinder were a moving zone in space, defined by using geometry, ballistics, the characteristics of the ship, her mission, and her last reported location, course, and speed. This zone was divided into four sectors and the Aes Triplex was to search one sector while three other Patrol vessels covered the other sectors. The joint task was designated "Operation Samaritan" but each ship was independent as they necessarily would be too far apart to be commanded as a task force.
While searching, the rescue vessels would continue the Pathfinder's mission of charting the space drift that clutters the asteroid belt.
In addition to the commanding officer and the three cadets, the company of the Aes Triplex included Commander Hartley Miller, executive officer and astrogator, Lieutenant Novak, Chief Engineer, Lieutenant Thurlow, Bomb Officer, Lieutenant Brunn, Communications Officer, Sublieutenants Peters, Gomez, and Cleary, assistant engineer and communications watch officers respectively, and
Or. Pickering, ship's surgeon, along to care for survivors-if my were found.
The ship contained no marines, unless one chooses to count Dr. Pickering, who was technically a staff corps member of the marines rather than a member of the Patrol. this very task in the ship would be performed by the officers or cadets. Time was when the lowliest subaltern in an infantry regiment had his personal servant, but servants are so expensive a luxury in terms of fuel and space and food in lift through millions of miles of space. Besides that, Mime few manual tasks are a welcome relief from boredom in the endless monotony of space; even the undesirable duty of cleaning the refresher was taken in turn by the entire ship's company, in accordance with custom, except for the Captain, the Executive Officer, and the Surgeon.
Captain Yancey assigned Lieutenant Thurlow as training officer who in turn set up the jobs of assistant astrogator, junior communication watch officer, junior assistant engineer, and assistant bomb officer and arranged a schedule of rotation among these-quite unnecessary-positions. It was also Mr. Thurlow's job to see to it that Matt, Oscar, and Tex made intensive use of the one study projector available to the cadets.
The Executive Officer assigned other tasks not directly concerned with formal training. Matt was appointed the ship's "farmer." As the hydroponics tanks supply both fresh air and green vegetables to a ship he was responsible for the ship's air-conditioning and shared with Lieutenant Brunn (he tasks of the ship's mess.
Theoretically every ration taken aboard a Patrol vessel is pre-cooked and ready for eating as soon as it is taken out of freeze and subjected to the number of seconds, plainly marked on the package, of high-frequency heating quired. Actually many Patrol officers fancy themselves chefs. Mr. Brunn was-one and his results justified his conceit - the Aes Triplex set a good table.
Matt found that Mr. Brunn expected more of the "farm" than that the green plants should scavenge carbon dioxide horn the air and replace it with oxygen; the mess officer
wanted tiny green scallions, fragrant fresh mint, cherry tomatoes, Brussels sprouts, new potatoes. Matt began to wonder whether it wouldn't have been simpler to have stayed in Iowa and grown tall corn.
When he started in as air-conditioning officer Matt was not even sure how to take a carbon-dioxide count, but shortly he was testing his growing solutions and adding capsules of salts with the confidence and speed of a veteran, thanks to Brann and to spool #62A8134 from the ship's files- "Simplified Hydroponics for Spaceships, with Growth Charts and Additives Formulae." He began to enjoy tending his "farm."
Until human beings give up the habit of eating, spaceships on long cruises must carry about seven hundred pounds of food per man per year. The green plants grown in a ship's air-conditioner enable the stores officer to get around this limitation to some extent, as the growing plants will cycle the same raw materials-air, carbon dioxide, and water-over and over again with only the addition of quite small quantities of such salts as potassium nitrate, iron sulphate, and calcium phosphate.
The balanced economy of a spaceship is much like that of a planet; energy is used to make the cycles work but the same raw materials are used over and over again. Since beefsteak and many other foods can't be grown conveniently aboard ship some foods have to be carried and the ship tends to' collect garbage, waste paper, and other trash. Theoretically this could be processed back into the cycles of balanced biological economy, but in practice this is too complicated.
However, all mass in an atomic powered ship can be used, if desired, as reaction mass, mass for the rocket jet. The radioactive materials in the power pile of an atom-powered ship are not themselves used up to any great extent; instead they heat other materials to extreme temperatures and expel them out the rocket tube at very high speeds, as a sort of "steam" jet.
Even though turnip greens and such can be used in the jet, the primary purpose of the "farm" is to take the carbon dioxide out of the air. For this purpose each man in the ship must be balanced by about ten square feet of green plant leaf. Lieutenant Brunn, with his steady demands for variety in fresh foods, usually caused Matt to have too much growing at one time; the air in the ship would get too fresh and the plants would start to fail for lack of carbon dioxide to feed on. Matt had to watch his CO2 count and sometimes build it up by burning waste paper or plant cuttings.
Brunn kept a file of seeds in his room; Matt went there one "day" (ship's time) to draw out Persian melon seeds and set a crop. Bran told him to help himself. Matt rummaged away, then said, "For the love of Pete! Look at this, Mr. Brunn."
"Huh?" The officer looked at the package Matt held. The outside was marked, "Seeds, melon, Persian-jumbo fancy, stock #12-Q4728-a"; the envelope inside read "Seed, pansies, giant variegated."
Brunn shook his head. "Let that be a lesson, Dodson- never trust a stock clerk-or you'll wind up half way to Pluto with a gross of brass spittoons when you ordered blank spacecharts."
"What'll I substitute? Cantaloupe?"
"Let's grow some watermelon-the Old Man likes watermelon."
Matt left with watermelon he took along the truant pansy seeds.
Eight weeks later he devised help of sorts by covering a bowl from the galley with the sponge-cellulose sheet, which was used to restrain the solutions used in his farming, thereby to keep said solutions from floating around the "farm" compartment during free fall. He filled his vase with water, arranged his latest crop therein, and clipped the whole to the mess table as a centerpiece.
Captain Yancey smiled broadly when he appeared for dinner and saw the gay display of pansies. "Well, gentlemen," he applauded, "this is most delightful. All the comforts of home!" He looked along the table at Matt. "I suppose we have you to thank for this, Mr. Dodson?"
"Yes, sir." Matt's ears turned pink.
"A lovely idea. Gentlemen, I move that we divest Mr. Dodson of the plebeian title of 'farmer' and designate him Tiorticulturalist extraordinary.' Do I hear a second?" There were nine "ayes" and a loud "no" from Commander Miller. A second ballot, proposed by the Chief Engineer, required the Executive Officer to finish his meal in the galley.