The Fifth Golden Age of Science Fiction MEGAPACK ®: Lester del Rey. Lester Del Rey
cooking was turning into a barometer of the psychic pressure. We’d had time to realize that we weren’t getting something for nothing. Every molecule of carbon-dioxide that crystallized out took two atoms of oxygen with it, completely out of circulation.
* * * *
We were also losing water-vapor, we found; normally, any one of our group knew enough science to know that the water would fall out before the carbon dioxide, but we hadn’t thought of it. We took care of that, however, by having Wilcox weld in a baffle and keep the section where the water condensed separate from the carbon dioxide snowfall. We could always shovel out the real ice, and meantime the ship’s controls restored the moisture to the air easily enough.
But there was nothing we could do about the oxygen. When that was gone, it stayed gone. The plants still took care of about two-thirds of our waste—but the other third was locked out there between the hulls. Given plants enough, we could have thawed it and let them reconvert it; a nice idea, except that we had to wait three months to take care of it, if we lived that long.
Bullard’s cooking began to get worse. Then suddenly, we got one good meal. Eve Nolan came down the passage to announce that Bullard was making cake, with frosting, canned huckleberry pie, and all the works. We headed for the mess hall, fast.
It was the cook’s masterpiece. Muller came down late, though, and regarded it doubtfully. “There’s something funny,” he said as he settled down beside me. Jenny had been surrounded by Napier and Pietro. “Bullard came up babbling a few minutes ago. I don’t like it. Something about eating hearty, because he’d saved us all, forever and ever. He told me the angels were on our side, because a beautiful angel with two halos came to him in his sleep and told him how to save us. I chased him back to the galley, but I don’t like it.”
Most of them had already eaten at least half of the food, but I saw Muller wasn’t touching his. The rest stopped now, as the words sank in, and Napier looked shocked. “No!” he said, but his tone wasn’t positive. “He’s a weakling, but I don’t think he’s insane—not enough to poison us.”
“There was that food poisoning before,” Pietro said suddenly. “Paul, come along. And don’t eat anything until we come back.”
We broke the record getting to the galley. There Bullard sat, beaming happily, eating from a huge plate piled with the food he had cooked. I checked on it quickly—and there wasn’t anything he’d left out. He looked up, and his grin widened foolishly.
“Hi, docs,” he said. “Yes, sir, I knowed you’d be coming. It all came to me in a dream. Looked just like my wife twenty years ago, she did, with green and yellow halos. And she told it to me. Told me I’d been a good man, and nothing was going to happen to me. Not to good old Emery Bullard. Had it all figgered out.”
He speared a big forkful of food and crammed it into his mouth, munching noisily. “Had it all figgered. Pop-corn. Best damned pop-corn you ever saw, kind they raise not fifty miles from where I was born. You know, I didn’t useta like you guys. But now I love everybody. When we get to Saturn, I’m gonna make up for all the times I didn’t give you pop-corn. We’ll pop and we’ll pop. And beans, too. I useta hate beans. Always beans on a ship. But now we’re saved, and I love beans!”
He stared after us, half coming out of his seat. “Hey, docs, ain’t you gonna let me tell you about it?”
“Later, Bullard,” Pietro called back. “Something just came up. We want to hear all about it.”
* * * *
Inside the mess hall, he shrugged. “He’s eating the food himself. If he’s crazy, he’s in a happy stage of it. I’m sure he isn’t trying to poison us.” He sat down and began eating, without any hesitation.
I didn’t feel as sure, and suspected he didn’t. But it was too late to back out. Together, we summarized what he’d told us, while Napier puzzled over it. Finally the doctor shrugged. “Visions. Euphoria. Disconnection with reality. Apparently something of a delusion that he’s to save the world. I’m not a psychiatrist, but it sounds like insanity to me. Probably not dangerous. At least, while he wants to save us, we won’t have to worry about the food. Still.…”
Wilcox mulled it over, and resumed the eating he had neglected before.
“Grundy claimed he’d been down near the engine room, trying to get permission to pop something in the big pile. I thought Grundy was just getting his stories mixed up. But—pop-corn!”
“I’ll have him locked in his cabin,” Muller decided. He picked up the nearest handset, saw that it was to the galley, and switched quickly. “Grundy, lock Bullard up. And no rough stuff this time.” Then he turned to Napier. “Dr. Napier, you’ll have to see him and find out what you can.”
I guess there’s a primitive fear of insanity in most of us. We felt sick, beyond the nagging worry about the food. Napier got up at once. “I’ll give him a sedative. Maybe it’s just nerves, and he’ll snap out of it after a good sleep. Anyhow, your mate can stand watching.”
“Who can cook?” Muller asked. His eyes swung down the table toward Jenny.
I wondered how she’d get out of that. Apparently she’d never told Muller about the scars she still had from spilled grease, and how she’d never forgiven her mother or been able to go near a kitchen since. But I should have guessed. She could remember my stories, too. Her eyes swung up toward mine pleadingly.
Eve Nolan stood up suddenly. “I’m not only a good cook, but I enjoy it,” she stated flatly, and there was disgust in the look she threw at Jenny. She swung toward me. “How about it, Paul, can you wrestle the big pots around for me?”
“I used to be a short order cook when I was finishing school,” I told her. But she’d ruined the line. The grateful look and laugh from Jenny weren’t needed now. And curiously, I felt grateful to Eve for it. I got up and went after Napier.
I found him in Bullard’s little cubbyhole of a cabin. He must have chased Grundy off, and now he was just drawing a hypo out of the cook’s arm. “It’ll take the pain away,” he was saying softly. “And I’ll see that he doesn’t hit you again. You’ll be all right, now. And in the morning, I’ll come and listen to you. Just go to sleep. Maybe she’ll come back and tell you more.”
He must have heard me, since he signalled me out with his hand, and backed out quietly himself, still talking. He shut the door, and clicked the lock.
Bullard heard it, though. He jerked to a sitting position, and screamed. “No! No! He’ll kill me! I’m a good man.…”
He hunched up on the bed, forcing the sheet into his mouth. When he looked up a second later, his face was frozen in fear, but it was a desperate, calm kind of fear. He turned to face us, and his voice raised to a full shout, with every word as clear as he could make it.
“All right. Now I’ll never tell you the secret. Now you can all die without air. I promise I’ll never tell you what I know!”
He fell back, beating at the sheet with his hand and sobbing hysterically. Napier watched him. “Poor devil,” the doctor said at last. “Well, in another minute the shot will take effect. Maybe he’s lucky. He won’t be worrying for awhile. And maybe he’ll be rational tomorrow.”
“All the same, I’m going to stand guard until Muller gets someone else here,” I decided. I kept remembering Lomax.
Napier nodded, and half an hour later Bill Sanderson came to take over the watch. Bullard was sleeping soundly.
* * * *
The next day, though, he woke up to start moaning and writhing again. But he was keeping his word. He refused to answer any questions. Napier looked worried as he reported he’d given the cook another shot of sedative. There was nothing else he could do.
Cooking was a relief, in a way. By the time Eve and I had scrubbed all the pots into what she considered proper order, located some of the food lockers, and prepared and served