consume an amazing amount. The Handbook told me that everybody should be at their duty stations about a half-stan before the actual departure, so I figured we needed to have the most brewed about a stan before. Accordingly, I timed the urns to be full at 15:00. I needn’t have worried so much, but it kept my mind occupied.
Bento-boxes turned out to be the ship board equivalent of takeout, finger food that wouldn’t make a mess while eating. Cookie drew on his ancestral heritage and made up a couple of variations of spicy fillings. We spread the mixture over flat bread rounds, folded, rolled, and then wrapped them in clingfilm. Pip, Cookie, and I set up a production line. Forty-five crew needed a hundred and twenty of these little buggers. I thought it would take a long time, but it took less than a stan once we had a rhythm going. We’d done them at a rate better than three a tick. I guess I shouldn’t have been that surprised considering Cookie did two for every one that Pip and I completed. Spread, roll, wrap, stack—a mindless, but oddly social task. The three of us gathered around the prep table and worked side-by-side to prepare for the evening meal.
I thought we’d put them in paper bags for easy carrying but Cookie had a better idea. He pulled out a stack of stamped, creased cardboard sheets and quickly formed one into a box with a clever folding lid. He repeated the action slowly for me to watch. I mimicked his moves and produced an identical box. It was as if I’d been born folding them. Even Cookie seemed impressed by how rapidly I caught on and he left the folding to me while he and Pip filled the boxes: two rolls, one piece of fruit, a cookie, a package of sliced vegetables, and small cups of dressing for dipping. The condiment was the only thing that might have spilled, but each container held only a few milliliters. With the lids closed, the boxes stacked on each other and I noticed small indents that kept them from sliding apart—clever and then some.
“What about drinks?” I asked. “I assume people can’t come down for coffee, can they?”
Cookie pointed to large insulated containers under one of the counters. “You’ll be delivering. Fill one with black coffee and the other with light and take a pocket full of sweetener packets.”
As the clock ticked down to pull out, the mess deck crowd thinned. I was able to prep and secure the urns with two fresh and full, and one on standby. We stacked the boxes on trays and placed them in the coolers. Cookie had it down to a science. While Pip certainly had been through it before, I marveled at Cookie’s expertise.
“We run a restaurant, gentlemen,” he reminded us regularly. “The customers don’t have any other choice, but we owe them our best just the same.” Finally, we completed the preparations and Cookie declared us ready. Pip and I collapsed into chairs at one of the mess tables to wait.
A few minutes later, the speakers announced, “PULLOUT IN THIRTY TICKS. ALL CREW TO DUTY STATIONS. SET NAVIGATION DETAIL. SECURE FOR PULLOUT. SET READINESS LEVEL YELLOW.” For Pip, Cookie, and myself the mess deck and galley were our duty stations. We just sat and looked at each other.
“Do we need to strap in or anything?” I looked from one to the other.
Cookie smiled but Pip guffawed.
Our boss cuffed him playfully. “It is a fair question, jackanapes. Have you been around so long that you forgot your first pull back?”
Pip had the decency to look abashed. “Actually, no. My first time was on the Marcel Duchamp . I was a wiper in the environmental section and they strapped me into the scrubber.” He looked both angry and embarrassed. “Bastards left me in there for three stans.”
Cookie winked at me.
Pip just groaned. “It took me all trip to get the stench out of my hair. And I never did live it down. That’s why I took the transfer to here.”
This was the first time Pip had offered any information about himself. Thinking back, I