Dusk by Ashanti Luke Page B

that the Shipmate had
placed before him. “How does the Shipmate make this taste like
this?” Cyrus asked.
    Dr. Davidson swallowed his bite of
pseudo-steak and chimed in before it had completely gone down. “The
meat is made from a mixture of soybeans and wheatgrass, but the
meat taste is a byproduct of the iron and fat supplements added to
the food for balanced nutrition.” He smiled and basked proudly for
a moment before returning to his steak with his shoulders a little
higher than before.
    “I assume you had a hand in designing the
nutritional program for the ship?” Cyrus asked as he put another
bite in his mouth.
    “Actually, I only designed the hydroponic bed
and the aeroponic nutrient delivery system, but I had to work
closely with the nutritionists to maximize the quality and
longevity of the rations. Also, I helped create a system that can
easily be converted for use in the settlement.”
    “Excellent job indeed,” Dr. Villichez added.
“I seem to have left most memories of steak behind in the whole
Hyposoma process, but this is surely an excellent reminder.”
    Dr. Winberg finished churning a bite that had
been almost too large for his mouth. “You wouldn’t happen to have a
program for lobster bisque would you?” He laughed at his own joke,
but the lines in his forehead bespoke a vein of seriousness in the
comment. A few of the scientists laughed as others continued their
own individual conversations.
    “So,” Villichez began with a tone of
mediation, dragging the two-letter word longer than necessary, “who
would like to open the table for discussion?”
    “I have a question,” Dr. Taewook Jang, the
ship’s computer specialist, raised his hand beside his head. “The
committee who chose the delegates for this expedition, is there any
reason why they didn’t choose any women?” Dr. Jang brushed his hair
over his shoulder as he lowered his hand.
    Dr. Winberg laughed openly at the comment.
Bewildered by both the audacity and the intent of Dr. Winberg, Dr.
Jang smiled a little and chuckled unenthusiastically as he exhaled.
Winberg noticed the mixture of uncertainty and irritation that
seemed to flutter the lapel of Dr. Jang’s lab coat momentarily. “I
am not laughing at your comment, Dr. Jang. I am merely amused by
the notion of men and women corralled in a giant stylus away from
their families for five years.”
    “Well, what would be so bad about that?” Dr.
Torvald questioned. “It’d be nice to have some estrogen on this
craft to help break up the constant masculinity in this place.
We’ve only been awake for a month and a half and the ship already
seems like a locker room.”
    Dr. Koresh cleared his throat and let his
fork clang against the table as he set it next to his plate, “Let
me add, first of all, when backed into a corner or ‘crammed into a
giant stylus ,’ as Dr. Winberg put it, humans exhibit more
monkey-like qualities than we would like to admit.”
    “What does that mean?” Dr. Milliken, normally
a quiet observer throughout these dinnertime conversations, asked
through his napkin.
    Dr. Winberg rested his forearm on the table
and leaned on it to shift his weight in his chair. “What he means
is arguments are not the only things caused by the volatile mixture
of testosterone and estrogen. Under the pressures of sitting in
this oversized bullet-casing for five years, plus the stresses of a
year of pioneering, it would not be long before this entire
expedition turned into an extended holovision melodrama.”
    Cyrus chuckled to himself as he shuffled
through the spurious mashed potatoes in front of him. Winberg
zeroed in on him almost instantly. “Something amusing on your plate
Dr. Chamberlain?”
    “Well, I would argue holonovella drama is
unavoidable under this type of stress, regardless of the number of
vulvae present. I agree with your assessment, but I wonder, with
the collection of Nobel Laureates and general braniacs we have
assembled here, exactly long it