“Fine.”

“The chefs?” Mailn said. “You mean the people who made Deet’s meal?”

“That’s exactly what I mean,” Rogers said.

They remained quiet for a second as a couple of droids walked past them, though Rogers realized that was somewhat absurd, since they could hear everything they were doing anyway through the sensors. Was it his imagination, or did the droids look at him as they passed? He noticed at least one of them was that sleek off-gray color that the AIGCS had been, though there was no visible weapon. Had the ones that had survived the incident been recommissioned?

“So, the chefs are trying to poison Deet?” Mailn said. “That still doesn’t make any sense, and I’m pretty sure I know what you’re talking about.”

“Not exactly,” Rogers said. “I’m pretty sure they’re trying to poison everyone. I just don’t know how yet. Or why. Or when. In fact, I really have almost no idea what’s going on. Apparently, they’ve been keeping a . . . um . . . a . . . whole book of secret recipes.”

“You’re both out of your minds,” the Viking said.

“How is that possible?” Mailn said.

“I have no idea,” Rogers said. “Maybe they went to someone else’s, uh, culinary arts school. Or maybe they built their own school after they learned enough from us about cooking to do it on their own. I don’t know. I’m not a chef.”

The Viking rolled her eyes. McSchmidt looked like he was concentrating so hard that his face was going to melt off. Deet remained blessedly silent. As they approached the up-line that would take them to the command deck, Rogers noticed that instead of a human, a droid was now manning the controls and regulating the line. It made his skin crawl. Everything was starting to make sense now; droids had slowly been working their way into positions all over the ship, slowly replacing humans in the name of preparing for “war.”

“So, what’s with the new menu?” Mailn asked.

“Hey,” Rogers said. “Menu. That’s pretty clever. You’re good at this.”

Mailn shrugged. “I do what I can.”

“CALL FUNCTION [INCONVENIENCE]. OUTPUT STRING: THE UP-LIFT IS CURRENTLY TRANSPORTING OTHER PERSONNEL. PLEASE WAIT.”

“Yeah,” Rogers said. “Sure. Anyway, I’m not sure why they changed the menu. All I know is that they’ve been slowly changing it for a while now. Probably before I got here. You know how they kept, um, switching the silverware into different drawers?”

Mailn looked confused for a moment.

“You know, how we used to have spoons for soup and forks for steak, and everything got moved around so that there was motor oil in the eggs?”

“But there really was motor oil in the eggs,” McSchmidt said.

Mailn nodded knowingly. “I get what you’re saying. So, the chefs were swapping the silverware so that nobody would know they were changing the menu.”

“Exactly.”

“I’m starting to really hate both of you,” the Viking said.

“CALL FUNCTION [PERFORM PRIMARY DUTY]. OUTPUT STRING: YOU MAY BOARD THE UP-LINE.”