“Most people were due for a checkup in a couple of weeks, but because of the storm Crenshaw and I thought it would be wise to do it now.” She took his arm and wrapped the blood pressure cuff around it. “How do you like Maryniak so far?”
Jamie normally hated medical checkups, but being able to spend some time with Maria made this one more than tolerable. “I’m having some trouble fitting in. Everybody seems to be in a clique or circle, and I feel kinda left out.”
Maria inflated the cuff, opened the valve, and slowly released the pressure. “I felt the same when I first got here. Maybe it’s the corporate culture. ADC doesn’t have the best reputation. You’ve only been here a month. Give it time. Look at the chart on the far wall, please.”
Jamie stared ahead as Maria shone a light into his eye. “I guess you’re right. Maybe it’s me. I’ve had trouble fitting in all my life.”
“What do you mean?”
“My parents divorced when I was small,” Jamie said, “but neither of them wanted permanent custody of me. So I grew up getting shuffled around between them and various relatives and family friends. I guess that conditioned me not to settle down anywhere. Even for college, I ended up quitting and reapplying at three different schools before I finally got a degree.”
Maria turned off the light. “What was your major?”
“Business.” Jamie blinked. “I hated it. My classmates were arrogant snots who liked to hear the sound of their own voices, and the profs were eggheads who never left campus but still felt qualified to lecture us on how the ‘real world’ works.”
“I see.” Maria handed Jamie a cup of water. “Swallow when I tell you to.”
She stood behind him and placed her fingers on his neck. “Take a sip now, please.” As he swallowed, she felt his thyroid for tenderness.
Maria took the cup and disposed of it. She then went to a cabinet and got a syringe. “I need a blood sample. Please put your arm on the side rest.”
Jamie felt a prick as the needle went in.
“How’d you get from business school to cooking?”
Jamie sighed. “I met someone in college, but she wanted to stay in town after graduation and I wanted to try something else in another city.” He shook his head sadly. “Maybe it was the way I grew up that made me feel so compelled to move all the time, but it broke her heart. Took me two years to realize I’d made the biggest mistake of my life, but by then it was too late. Next thing I knew, she was married.”
“I know how you feel,” Maria said as she withdrew the needle. “But how does cooking come into this?”
“It just reached the point where I figured the only way to make the hurt seem worthwhile was to keep moving, to go as far away as I could. Can’t get much farther away than space, right? Every facility out here seemed to need engineers, doctors, and cooks. I’m not an engineer or a doctor, but I like to think I became a pretty good cook back at the college co-ops, so here I am. A man’s place is in the kitchen, right?”
Maria labeled the blood sample. “Well, I think you’re doing a great job, especially with the crappy food the company makes you work with.” She smiled. “You’re fine. I’ll call if there’s anything you need to know about in the blood work.”
A few years ago, Jamie’s list of jobs in the commercial space sector would have been shorter by a third. Companies believed the only purpose of food was physical nourishment, so having a dedicated cook was considered an extravagance. But food provided psychological as well as nutritional sustenance. Many corporations, including ADC, learned the hard way when productivity dropped by almost forty percent. Taking a lesson from terrestrial oil platforms, space companies began hiring full-time cooks, and worker morale improved immediately.
Such was the importance of Jamie’s role in psychological support that Crenshaw granted him a power rationing waiver to use the oven. Tomorrow was the birthday of Fred Sabathier, the Shift Three foreman, and coffee cloud cake was his favorite.
Jamie had just poured the batter into a tube pan and put it in the oven when he got a call from Maria.
“Jamie, do you have a minute?”
He glanced at the timer. “Sixty-five, actually What’s up?”
“I need to talk to you about something.”
Jamie frowned. It had only been a few hours since his blood test. She wouldn’t be calling him unless something was wrong.
“Thanks for coming.”
Nervously, Jamie took a seat. “So, what’s wrong with me?”
Maria laughed. “Nothing’s wrong with you! I just needed your advice on something. This is confidential, of course.”
“Of course,” Jamie repeated, visibly relieved.
“I just examined the rover crew. They were out on a two-week helium-3 assay at Mare Marginis, but got back to base just before the solar storm.”
Jamie nodded. He’d heard that ADC was studying the economic viability of Maryniak harvesting helium-3 isotopes from the lunar regolith, in response to demand to feed the new generation fusion reactors on Earth. “Are they all right?”
“They’re all complaining about being… constipated.”
“Really.” Jamie raised his eyebrows. “When did this start?”
“A couple of days into their expedition.”
Jamie thought for a moment. “Well, they’ve been eating the same things as everyone else since they got back, and I stick religiously to the UNSDA guidelines. Anything I make has enough fiber, believe me, and the rover rations are also supposed to meet UNSDA standards.”
“Maybe they weren’t eating regularly,” Maria suggested. “That and stress can be causes as well. I mean, the stupid rover broke down halfway through their mission.”
“Maybe…” Jamie rubbed his chin. “Do you have the serial number for the rover rations?”
Maria consulted her organizer. “51800-8493227.”
“Can I use your connection to tie-in to the company logistics database?”
“Sure.”
Jamie linked in. “That’s odd. Give me mat number again?”
Maria repeated it.
“That can’t be right. It looks like the number you gave me is for an EVA ration. Let me do a search.”
A few moments later, Jamie put down his organizer, slowly shaking his head. “You’re not going to believe this. I think they stocked the rover with the wrong rations.”
“What?”
Jamie read the screen. “8493227 is a type of EVA ration. According to this, they’re eaten by crews on ships without spin gravity before spacewalks. They’re high in iron and sodium but low in fiber, so they won’t have to take a dump when they’re outside. The correct ration for the rover should have been 8493277. Somebody screwed up.”
Maria rolled her eyes in disbelief. “All right, I’ll let them know.”
“I can do up a high fiber menu for the next few days. How do garbanzo pitas sound?”
“Yummy. While you’re at it, make some of your blueberry oat bran muffins for the next rover expedition.”
“I’ll ask for a power waiver for those muffins.” Jamie looked at his watch and stood. “Gotta go. Fred’s cake needs attending.”
“Thanks for your help.”
Upon returning to the kitchen, Jamie immediately knew that something was wrong. It should have been filled with the smell of freshly baked cake. Instead, there was nothing.
He turned on the oven light. “Oh, no…” He opened the door. The cake was flat. “Damnit!” A brownout must have hit the kitchen while he was gone. Fred Sabathier’s cake was ruined.
Jamie was in a bad mood.
Crenshaw had denied him another power rationing waiver to use the convection oven, so for the birthday party they had to make do with a prepared microwave pie. Fred seemed not to mind, but Paul had made endless jokes to Maria about Jamie not being able to “get it up.” Jamie ground his teeth as he stirred the pot of pea and broccoli soup. Given ADC’s miserly pay scales, Jamie thought it was a miracle there weren’t more people like Paul at Maryniak. He briefly considered trying to slip something disgusting into Paul’s serving.