For two summers before I joined the kibbutz in Israel, my aunt Sophie hired me to do “dog work” in her New York restaurant, Five Flags. I did a lot of vegetable chopping and some simple sous-chef things, and was exposed to basic techniques in French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, and Chinese cooking. College and combat took me away from that world, and I never pursued it professionally, nor actually wanted to. That might make it too serious, no longer relaxing.

Meryl came over and refilled her glass. “Can I help?”

I measured some water into the dehydrated onions. “Nothing much to do, I’m afraid. I would love to have an onion to chop.”

“Not for a month or so.” She looked out over the hydroponic farm, more white plastic than greenery. “When we left Mars for Little Mars, I didn’t think I’d miss it, working with the plants.”

“No green thumb?”

“Well, no enthusiasm. I thought the ‘ag hours’ were somebody’s bright idea for morale. But I did grow to miss it, in Little Mars. One thing to look forward to, here.”

I nodded. “You’re not looking forward to six years of leisure? Or twelve?”

“Sure.” She retreated into thought, expression momentarily vacant. “I had an elaborate course of research planned, the thing we talked about the other day.”

I remembered. “Delphinic and cetacean pseudosyntax.”

“The more I think about it, the more futile it seems. No new data, no experimental subjects. I could work like a dog for twelve years while everybody else in the field is working for fifty. I come up with some brilliant insight and find it’s been old news for thirty years. People are having tea with whales and sex with dolphins.”

“Better than the other way around.”

“If you haven’t tried it, don’t knock it.”

The meatballs dinged, and I took them out. “It seems to me your work would have value as methodology even if people on Earth came up with different results, with newer data.” I touched a couple, and they were thawed, still cool.

“Too abstract. I mean, you’re right, but eventually it would be old data pushed around by outdated methodology. Xenolinguistics is moving fast now that we have actual xenos.”

“None of us will be doing anything on the cutting edge.” I poured a little oil into a large pan and put it on to heat. “Can’t beat relativity.”

Even if communication with Earth were completely unrestricted, you couldn’t stay current with research. At turnaround, three years and a couple of months from now by ship time, twelve years would have passed on Earth. If you sent a message there to a colleague who answered immediately, the answer would get to Wolf 25 almost thirty-seven Earth years later. Not so much communication as historical record.

I shook the wet onion flakes into the oil, and they sizzled and popped. The cooking-onion smell was intense but faded in seconds in the thin air.

“Smells good.” She leaned back against the island and took a sip of wine, then sighed. “I just haven’t been admitting it to myself. I should table the cetacean stuff till I get back to Earth. Little Mars, anyhow. Join the crowd and study the Martian language.”