To Prime the Pump - A. Bertram Chandler [12]
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"Please order your meal," said the voice.
Grimes looked at the Surgeon Lieutenant over what remained of his second gin—obviously they were to be allowed no more—and said, "Go ahead, Doc."
Kravisky licked his full lips a little too obviously. "Well . . ." he murmured. "Well . . ." He stared at the ceiling. "Of course, John, I'm a rather old-fashioned type. To my mind there's nothing like good, Terran food, properly cooked, and Terran wines. On a Terraformed planet such as this it must be available."
"Such as?" asked Grimes, knowing, from his own experience, that the foods indigenous to the overcrowded and urbanized home planet were among the most expensive in the Man-colonized Galaxy.
"Please order your meal," said the voice.
"Now . . . Let me see . . . Caviar, I think. Beluga, of course. With very thin toast. And unsalted butter. And to follow? I think, John, that after the caviar we can skip a fish course, although Dover sole or blue trout would be good . . . Yes, blue trout. And then? Pheasant under glass, perhaps, with new potatoes and petit pois. Then Crepes Suzette. Then fruit—peaches and strawberries should do. Coffee, of course, with Napoleon brandy. And something good in the way of an Havana cigar apiece . . ."
"Rather shaky there, aren't you?" commented Grimes.
"In the cruise ships the tucker was for free but the cigars weren't, and even duty free they were rather expensive. But I haven't finished yet. To drink with the meal . . . With the caviar, make it vodka. Wolfschmidt. Well chilled. And then a magnum of Pommery . . ."
"I hope that they don't send the bill to Captain Daintree," said Grimes.
The center panel of the table sank from sight. After a very brief delay it rose again. On it were two full plates, two glasses, a carafe of red wine, cutlery and disposable napkins.
"What . . . what's this?" almost shouted Kravisky, picking up his fork and prodding the meat on his plate with it. "Steak!" he complained.
"We were instructed to obey all reasonable orders," said the mechanical voice coldly.
"But . . ."
"We were instructed to obey all reasonable orders."
"Looks like it's all we're getting," said Grimes philosophically. "Better start getting used to life in the servants' hall, Doc." He pulled his plate to him, cut off and sampled a piece of the meat. "And, after all, this is not at all bad."
It was, in fact, far better than anything from Aries' tissue culture vats and, furthermore, had not been ruined in the cooking by the cruiser's galley staff. Grimes, chewing stolidly, admitted that he was enjoying it more than he would have done the fancy meal that the Doctor had ordered.
Even so, their contemptuous treatment by the robot servitors, and by the robots' masters, rankled.
Chapter 7
The two men slept well in their comfortable beds, the quite sound brandy that had been served with their after-dinner coffee cancelling out the effects of nervous and physical overexhaustion and the strangeness of an environment from which all the noises, of human and mechanical origin, that are so much the manifestation of the life of a ship were missing. It seemed to Grimes that he had been asleep only for minutes when an annoyingly cheerful voice was chanting, "Rise and shine! Rise and shine!" Nonetheless, he was alert at once, opening his eyes to see that the soft, concealed lighting had come back on. He looked at his wrist watch, which he had set to the Zone Time of the spaceport, adjusting it at the same time to the mean rotation of Eldorado before leaving the cruiser. 0700 hours. It was high time that he was up and doing something about everything.
He slid out of the bed. Kravisky, in his own couch, was still huddled under the covers, moaning unhappily, the voice, louder now, was still chanting, "Rise and shine!"
There was a silver tea service on the table. Grimes went to it, poured himself a cup of tea, added milk and plenty of sugar. He sipped it appreciatively. He called to the Surgeon