The Garden - Melissa Scott [10]
"It looks like the problem isn't precisely in the food," Kim said, "but with the cooking. Somehow, cooking seems to destroy some of the nutrients we need."
"I see." There was a little silence, and then Jane-
way's voice came briskly. "Very well. File your report as soon as possible. I'll have the doctor and Mr. Neelix investigate our options. Janeway out."
"Well," Paris said.
"But what am I going to do?" Neelix demanded. "I've worked like a slave to come up with these recipes, recipes that have pleased even the most finicky of the crew, and now I'm supposed to, what, do it all over again?"
"I'm sure you'll come up with something," Kim said.
Neelix ignored him. "I've done everything in my power to make this work. I've experimented with taste and texture, using myself for a guinea pig when no others were available, and now you tell me all this is for nothing?"
"Think of it this way, Neelix," Paris said. "Now you can really prove what a great cook you are."
The ready room was unusually quiet, each of the officers bent over a datapadd, no one willing to meet the others' eyes. Even Kes was quiet, her pretty face for once unsmiling. Janeway looked around the room, and felt her lips tighten at the sight. Things were bad, certainly, but they had been worse; she would not tolerate this level of pessimism even in the privacy of the senior officers' gathering. "Well, gentlemen," she said, and was pleased by the sudden shift in alertness as all eyes turned to her. "I gather the news is not promising. Mr. Kim, will you begin?"
"Yes, Captain." The young man looked nervously down at his datapadd, and Janeway gave him an encouraging smile.
"I don't have a whole lot to add to my preliminary report," Kim went on. "To summarize, all of the food
that we took on board at the last stop seems to be affected by, well, I guess you'd have to call it weak molecular bonding. We're still not fully sure how it works, or what causes it, but the results are pretty clear. The ascorbic acid in the food breaks down into unusable compounds once it's heated-in fact, the doctor says those compounds actively block the uptake of real vitamin C. Some other important nutrients seem to have the same problem. So my conclusion is, unless we can eat this food without cooking it, we have a real problem."
Janeway nodded. She had already read Kim's detailed report, had expected and received no surprises there. In the screen, she could see the holographic doctor shifting, preparing to speak, but at the same moment Neelix leaned forward, his stubby fingers knotting nervously. Better to get him out of the way first, she thought. "Mr. Neelix?"
"Captain, I've tried to find ways of making these foods palatable without cooking, but it's just not working-"
"More to the point," the doctor said, "they're not digestible. I've run experiments, including live trials on volunteers, and the result has been consistent. Unless the food is cooked, the subjects suffered stomach cramps, bloating, and frequent and debilitating diarrhea. I cannot recommend such a course of action."
"Live trials?" Janeway said, in spite of herself, and Paris shifted in his chair.
"Um, I was one of the volunteers, Captain. I'd say the doctor was understating the case."
Janeway eyed him thoughtfully. He was looking paler than usual, and there were dark circles under his eyes. "So what are our options, Doctor?"
"Limited." In the screen, the hologram gave a thin smile. "In fact, practically speaking, I can see only one find a new food source."
"That's not all that easy," Chakotay said. "Captain, we've already established that this is an unusually barren sector, and we don't know how much further this extends. We haven't spotted an M-class planet in weeks-not since we took on food this last time, in fact-and we've been looking."
"Yes, I know," Janeway said. She looked down at her own notes, mentally crossing off the first two possibilities as no longer viable. "What about