“I’ll tell you what it isn’t,” muttered the Swagman. “It isn’t Goldenrod lobster.” He took another mouthful. “Still, I suppose it could be worse.”

“Would you do me a favor?” asked Schussler after a moment’s silence.

“It all depends,” replied the Swagman. “What did you have in mind?”

“Tell me what it tastes like.”

“To be perfectly truthful, it tastes like soya byproducts masquerading as shellfish in cream sauce.”

“Please,” persisted Schussler anxiously. “I processed it and cooked it and served it—but I can’t taste it. Describe it for me.”

“As I said: a rudimentary approximation of fish in cream sauce.”

“You can’t be that unimaginative!” said Schussler with a note of desperation in his beautiful lilting voice. “Tell me about the sauce: is it rich? hot? sweet? Can you identify the spices? What type of shellfish does it taste like?”

“It’s nothing to write home about,” said the Swagman. “The flavors are all rather bland.”

“Describe them.”

“You’re forcing me to insult you. The food is barely worth eating, let alone describing,” said the Swagman irritably. “You’re ruining what was a totally unmemorable meal to begin with.”

“You owe it to me!” demanded Schussler.

“Later,” said the Swagman. “It’s tasting worse by the mouthful, thanks to your nagging.”

Cain sighed, reached over with his implement, and picked up a piece of the artificial shellfish, after first rubbing it thoroughly in the cream sauce. He chewed it thoughtfully, then began describing the nuances of flavor to Schussler while the Swagman picked up his plate and walked back into the command cabin to finish his meal in isolation.

Cain joined him about twenty minutes later.

“Is he still sulking?” asked the Swagman.

“Ask him yourself.”

The Swagman turned to Schussler’s panel. “You’re not going to spend all night asking me to describe how my bunk feels, are you?”

There was no answer.

“There’s a first for you—a pouting spaceship.”

“You hurt his feelings,” said Cain.

“Not without reason. Either we nip this behavior in the bud, or he’ll be spending every spare minute asking how things taste and feel.”

“It’s not that much effort to tell him. He’s had a rough time of it.”

The Swagman stared at him. “We’re growing a strange crop of killers this season,” he remarked at last.

“You know,” said Cain, “he could always ask you how you feel after he reduces the oxygen content in the cabin down to zero.”

“Not if he wants to die on schedule, he can’t,” said the Swagman confidently. He paused. “Are you really going to kill him if we find Santiago’s base?”

“I said I would.”

“I know what you said.”

“I’ll do what I promised.”

“But you won’t be happy about it.”

“I’m never happy about killing things,” said Cain.