The Clarkl Soup Kitchens (24 page)

Genuvusa has written, again. This time it’s to ask how I made such a quick recovery from something I had earlier described as fatal. I’ll have to think of a tale to tell soon.

May 20, 2136
, 2100 hours, on Clarkl
– we landed five days ago, and I have been struggling to get used to this atmosphere. The women are already going to work early every day, but I am still very sluggish.

I am replacing an old duffer, retired chemist, who has been here ten years. He has a reservation on the flight that leaves in six days. Lower deck, like all the Congregation’s accommodations.

The food is really terrible. These Clarklians don’t eat meat, and you can get tired of vegetables and starches very quick. Our dining room manager refuses to allow any imported meat in the staff cafeteria, so I keep my smoked salmon in my cabin.

Ollie is here, to my chagrin. Works in the dining room, busing tables. Cleaning up after these sloppy misfits who frequent our establishment.

May 29, 2136
, 1700 hours, on Clarkl
– feeling stronger now. Able to walk about a mile without feeling as if my heart will stop.

My predecessor at the supply depot has gone now, back to a complaining daughter with four shiftless children. He sent nearly every cent he made here to them, allowing the kids, in their late twenties and thirties, to continue to avoid looking for work.

The depot’s records are in very good shape, and I hope I can do as well.

The work is really simple, and I expect I can get down to about three hours each day. My predecessor worked about three hours and gossiped about five hours, adding up to an eight-hour day.

I interview the chef every afternoon, using a list of products available on the farms and an estimate from the dining room manager of the number of meals we will serve the following day. The chef tells me what he wants.

Then, I submit our order to the farm manager. The next morning I meet the farm delivery truck at the storage rooms behind the kitchen and sign for the order. I put the vegetables in the bins and the perishable items in the refrigerated compartments.

Once a week, I go over the staples. We have a reorder point for each of the staples, and I check if we are getting near that reorder point for anything. I submit my staples order to the Congregation’s accounting office, and the order is sent to the suppliers on Earth.

Sometimes staples are so low that the dining rooms have to borrow from each other, and I have to keep records of what we owe and what we are owed.

Right now, we have a good supply of flour, sugar, and rice. Certainly enough for six months, given the use of the last year.

A simple job. Certainly much easier than keeping an ammo depot or a pantry for an Officers’ Club.

July 30, 2136
, 1900 hours, on Clarkl
– just added a few things to my cabin today. Arrived on the spacecraft from Noowal. A comfortable chair, for one thing, and two really fine blankets.

Never thought things would be so primitive here. The government’s contract with these people has been in place for over fifty years, but the quarters are still very poor. The place is awful cold nearly every day, and the wind seems to just go through the walls.

Don’t meet too many of the locals, though. Our dining room distaff are full of stories about the Drones, a carefree bunch that eats free every day. These tall entities are always on the lookout for sexual liaisons, even though they are uniformly sterile.

I understand all Clarklians are androgynous. They have both male and female reproductive organs. These Drones are no different, but they are shooting blanks.

The Drones are favorites around here, though, because they are almost always in good humor. Nothing seems to bother them except when the dining room runs short of something they like.

The Drones are useless, as far as I am concerned. If I need help with lifting potatoes into the bins, the Drones waiting for the dining room to open won’t offer any help.

The Wolpters are not as handsome as the Drones, but they will lend a hand now and again. Actually, I was very frightened when I first saw a Wolpter, thinking I had come into contact with a monster.

The dining room helpers also are terrified of the Wolpters. In addition to looking very menacing, these entities are terrible complainers. They eat everything and complain about almost every bite.

September 3, 2136
, 2200 hours, on Clarkl
– another message from Genuvusa today, pressing me to talk about my cure.

I’ll send $100,000 and tell her to buy some furnishings for her new house. I’ll tell her I am not cured but only on a relapse.

It has been nearly a year since Gene died. Miss the old fellow, if the truth be known. Wish we were still back in that apartment house in
Hagerstown
, with him ailing and me scurrying home from work to fix his dinner. Wish I had never been tempted to switch identities.

All that is in the past now. I need to live each day in my new role of wealthy humanitarian.

November 3, 2136
, 2000 hours, on Clarkl
– now down to about four hours each day at work. Get up very early, receive the farm delivery, store the produce. Then, talk to the chef between lunch and dinner.

Have had three staples deliveries since I got here. The fellow who drives the truck can lift the enormous cloth bags of flour and sugar onto the small forklift. Then, I move the bags and fill the dispensers that the kitchen staff uses.

No trouble here with bugs or other pests. The flour is always clean. We keep it tightly closed at night, too, on both ends.

Ollie has taken up with the local doctor from Earth, Len. That’s one annoyance out of my mind.

I like Len. He is very practical and very efficient. We had a drink in my cabin one evening, and he tells interesting stories. Had a tour of Farnoll some years back.

February 20, 2137
, 2200 hours, on Clarkl
– killed Len this morning. He took to coming here nearly every evening, before he stopped in at Ollie’s cabin, and I enjoyed his company.

About a week ago, he told me he had researched my medical records. Gene’s, of course. That cancer that killed Gene was uniformly fatal. No exceptions documented. Asked me to explain that.

“Just in a relapse now,” I said. “Came here to live in service to other creatures for as long as I can.”

“That is entirely outside the typical progress of your type of cancer,” he said. “It does not happen. I want you to come into the clinic and allow me to draw some specimens.”

“On my next day off,” I agreed, knowing that I never take a day off.

It was a choice between killing Len or being exposed.

He visited me last night, same as always. He left for Ollie’s cabin about eight, just as the last dinner service was being cleared.

I waited for him from
midnight
until just after three, when he quietly closed Ollie’s door. Ollie’s light went out a minute later, and I immobilized Len with my stun gun. Then, I took the pipe I had removed from the bottom of my sink and beat him until he was dead.

I went to the storeroom and removed the four cloth flour sacks I had tied to each of my boots. I put them at the bottom of the stack of sacks I keep for packing items for shipment to Earth. Then, I went to my cabin, replaced the sink’s pipe, and waited until it was time to leave to receive my delivery from the farms.

Ollie’s cabin is not along my footpath to the kitchen, so it was no surprise I did not find Len on my way to work. The cry went out about
5:40 a.m.
, when the serving crew started to arrive. By that time, I was putting the lettuce in the robot and the celery root in the chef’s cooler.

February 27, 2137
, 1900 hours, on Clarkl
– lonely now, without Len. The Slinkers came and asked a few questions. Len’s body will be shipped back to Earth on the next spaceflight, and then home to
Russia
. The murder goes unsolved, and the Slinkers have lost interest.

Not much murder here. These locals are not known for congeniality, but they don’t kill off their own kind. They worship no gods, but they have very strict rules about the importance of the individual. Very moral.

There are no prisons here. If some entity breaks a rule, that entity is counseled by the Stinkers or the Batwigs and returned to its home and situation in life. If that same entity continues to break rules, it is relocated to the mines in the north for work.

I understand nobody wants to go to the north. We are very cold here, and the north is much like Earth’s South Pole before the great melting in the 2020s.

I have no other friend here. Len was a good raconteur and I liked to have him visit.

July 18, 2137
, 1700 hours, on Clarkl
– still in something of a slump because I had to kill Len. Ollie is very upset, too, but I don’t think she suspects me.

My bank account grows. My salary of $1,000 a month from the Congregation is deposited directly, but that’s a drop in the bucket compared to the interest from Gene’s savings. My net worth is just above $20,000,000, even after a transfer of $150,000 to Genuvusa last month.

Genuvusa probably smells a rat. Gene never gave her more than $40,000 or $50,000 a year, but now she has expenses that far exceed her income.

A good investigator could find out how much is in Gene’s bank and in his stock portfolio. I have not touched the stocks, neither buying nor selling, but I have certainly had deposits and withdrawals at the bank. Maybe Genuvusa has an idea about her uncle’s fortune, and maybe she plans to bleed me dry.

I wrote a will before I left
Hagerstown
, leaving everything to Genuvusa. She’ll get it all sooner or later.

December 14, 2137
, 2100 hours, on Clarkl
– sent a wire transfer to Genuvusa today for Christmas. She ought to get it about December 22. $75,000. Buy something nice for yourself.

Very few messages from her lately. Only to say she needs money. Gene got about one message a month, mostly filled with news about her job and her various lovers. Nothing like that has come in quite awhile.

Preparing here for Christmas. The locals don’t care much about our holidays, but they certainly look forward to the pumpkin pies and other sweets.

The Drones are multiplying, according to the head shed. Our Bishop believes the average age of a Drone before we established our dining rooms was just over thirty years. Now, it is just under forty-five. That means that we are facilitating the longevity of these bums who do nothing but leave their little government-owned houses, come here to eat free meals, and return to their little houses.

All this to obey a rule on Clarkl that forbids the locals from allowing anybody to starve. If you only have enough food for two days, you have to share it with somebody who has no food. No incentive to really make something of yourself.

Actually, the Bishop is using this statistic about longevity to propose a bonus for our workers. She is having trouble selling it to the Batwigs, those entities who seem to make all the decisions for the dumb Monarchs. The Batwigs probably don’t want anybody to starve, but they also probably want the Drones to die of natural causes right on time.

Whatever the Batwigs want is what the American government gives them. The American economy is so dependent upon all the various types of uranium the Clarkls mine that the Batwigs are in charge of the deal.

June 9, 2138
, 1800 hours, on Clarkl
– not much to report now. Things go on, with one day being very similar to another.

Tata has begun to take the loss of Len to heart. It turns out he was here under her sponsorship. Now, she has asked the Bishop for permission to open a medical clinic for the Clarklians. The Bishop is thinking it over and discussing the idea with the Batwigs.

Who will pay for it? The Congregation has some extra funds, surely, but doctors don’t volunteer to go to Clarkl for the $1,000 a month I am making. And what expertise do American doctors have in attending to these curious entities here?

The murder of Len will be a big deterrent for any medical people who decide to give it a try. Who would want to be the second American murdered on Clarkl?

What interest do the Monarchs have in keeping the riffraff healthy? I can’t see any benefit to come of it.

September 30, 2138
, 2000 hours, on Clarkl
– more financial anxieties. Genuvusa has asked for $500,000! Wants to move to a better place.

If I send the half million, she will certainly have a confirmation that I am feeling guilty about something. How much better it would be to use it to have her offed. For that kind of money, I could hire the best of professionals. If only I were in
America
now to attend to it myself!

Too much risk in making the arrangements by correspondence. I have nobody at home I can trust. Nobody who knows me as Gene, anyway.

November 17, 2138
, 1800 hours, on Clarkl
– pictures in the interplanetary mail of the new million-dollar property. Genuvusa sold her apartment and used the money I sent last month to buy what looks like the fanciest place in
Vermont
. About seven acres and a nice pond.