The Clarkl Soup Kitchens (5 page)

The Fundamentalists did not receive any bonus, according to our manager. The Clarklians do not patronize their dining room unless we have a stampede here. Our manager has also suggested the Fundamentalists will be asked to start making deliveries of meals to housebound Clarklians.

December 25, 2139
 

It’s Merry Christmas again, nearly at the end of this busy year.

Our manager is starting to plan for her departure in two years, and she has selected three of us to train as her replacements. I was really honored to be selected, but she told me I was the one who most looked after the entire kitchen rather than just the current project.

It was something of a strain to be selected for the training as heir apparent. I am not the best cook, and everybody knows it. At least four other people have told me I was selected out of turn. If I had an advanced degree in nearly anything, I could have pointed to my wonderful qualifications. But I am just practical, the result of keeping a family of five fed and clothed for nearly thirty years.

The Clarklians don’t care who is in charge, and the contract the Congregation has with the government talks about a team and the requirement to serve a certain number of meals. We are always exceeding the plan, and the Clarklians care about nothing else.

The great thing about this job is that I am so busy I don’t have time to get blue about my situation. If I had more time, I would miss my new granddaughter, Molly, and her parents. The pictures, always grainy after being sent through the Clarklian’s data reception devices, show a very dear child who looks a lot like Harry. I’m glad Susan found the family christening gown.

We have been working on potatoes this year. Several new varieties were developed at the
University
of
California
at
Davis
, now relocated to
Auburn
, and two of those new varieties have flourished here. We have been able to add potatoes as soup thickener and as a main dish with the local mushrooms.

The highlight of the year was the visit by a gaggle of Monarchs. I never really understood what holiday they were here to celebrate, but our regulars were bowing and bobbing and genuflecting all over the dining room.

How different those Monarchs are! The Monarch is always a product of two Monarchs or a Monarch and a Wolpter, and they are at the very top of the pecking order here. Most of them have two or three feelers on their heads, blobs of skin that grow beyond the skull. Some of these feelers are over fifteen inches in length. The head of the Monarch is elongated and nearly square. The body is usually taller than our average regular, but I am not sure if this is how they are built or a problem caused by the years of famine on this planet.

This year also was different in that the Clarklians decided to send a small party of Seekers to observe the farmers. This entire effort was essentially a nuisance for us, but the Seekers took pictures and certain measurements. They asked numerous questions via their translation cubes, and our farmers did their best to answer. The observation party was with us for about sixty days, and then they went away. We have not seen them since. Certainly those Seekers are not our regular diners.

My training for the manager’s job started in the storage rooms. The records there are entirely computerized, of course, but the manager has a good idea by just looking around what is in short supply. If cabbage is getting low, the menus for the next week are reviewed and, perhaps, modified to use what is plentiful.

The manager has a firm rule to use right away the foods the Clarklians like best. They are just crazy about walnuts and almonds and, after the supply ship comes from Earth, we add nuts to at least one meal each day. They also like wild rice, and we try to serve it weekly. They are not very fond of carrots, so we slip in these vegetables only when we can hide them with potatoes or broccoli.

I am catching onto all the many tasks, slowly. I have been writing down nearly everything I learn, as have the other two candidates for this job.

My little house is still quite snug. The new roof keeps the cold out much better, and I sometimes am able to turn down the electric blanket.

December 25, 2140
 

Another holiday has come and gone, and I am almost starting to count the days until I go home.

Financially, things are much better. The house is paying a little more, after an increase in the monthly lease amount, and I received a raise here of $50 a month.

I got out my ledgers the other day and reworked my financial situation. At the end of the ten years, I will have the house and all the other loans paid off, and I will have about $20,000 in the bank. All this if no major repair is required at the house. And if Patsy keeps up with her payments.

At least the twins are finished with their undergraduate expenses. What a relief it was to see that the trust funds held out! Now that they are both in graduate school at
Ohio
State
, their “packages” from their departments are paying them tiny salaries and providing them places to live as dormitory counselors. It must be very much like my situation, except that the University surely has better roofing materials over those dorms.

Romance is in the air here, though. A new chef arrived in June and has aging hearts aflutter. This is a man, something unknown in the kitchen heretofore, except for the dishwasher repairman. I sent everything I knew about him to my real estate agent in
Ohio
, and she sent back a complete report of his adventures. Coming to Clarkl was not his idea, it seems, in spite of what he says. He had a choice between ten years on Clarkl and twenty years in the state penitentiary. He may be dissatisfied with his decision, especially since he is pursued nearly everywhere by one of the more energetic women.

The Clarklians are not dissatisfied with his decision, though. Our dining room is overrun at all hours, and the appearance of certain of his dishes on the buffet cause the Clarklians to call all their relatives to further drum up our business. The chef is especially known for curried potatoes, wild rice with wickenberries and broccoli, and pineapple upside-down cake.

Our numbers of meals served has increased by thirty percent in the last year. The Clarklians had to renegotiate their contract with the American government, and that was the cause of my small increase in pay. Our government also threw in about 2,000 place settings of Lenox and some Kirk flatware. This is the first American china we have seen here, and it is very popular, too.

We are going to have to build onto the main building. I am in charge of pulling together the requirements for the addition, due in New Washington in a month. Everybody is crowded in the kitchen, and the Clarklians wait patiently in line until a table is cleared and reset. I hope we can expand with a facility equal in size to the one we have. I believe it will be easier to run two smaller dining rooms than one huge one, but the government surely will have opinions about that.

The Fundamentalists are not having these problems. Their numbers of meals served have actually decreased over the last year.

The news in our kitchen is that the Fundamentalists have a prayer meeting right after dinner, and they shuffle the Clarklians from the dining room into their big tent for the services. The Clarklians usually refuse to attend, but they don’t like the pressure. On the other hand, if they come here for dinner, they can walk or ride back home without having to insult the hosts by turning up their noses at the prayer meeting. This is my simple explanation of why our dining room is more popular.

We have had a wonderful year with root vegetables, mainly turnips and parsnips. Some kohlrabi, too, although this is not a root. The new chef likes celery root, and he juliennes that into match-sized pieces and mixes the pieces with an egg-free mayonnaise. Each time he makes the celery root dish, we have less left on the buffet.

Our recipe book had a major overhaul after the new chef had been here about three months. Now, it is less of a curiosity for the people back home and more of a real cookbook. Mrs. Wade wrote to tell me she placed an advertisement in the
New York Times
and over 2,000 people ordered the cookbook! My picture, along with those of most of my colleagues, is in that book. I am standing just behind a potato tray along the buffet line, serving spoon in hand.

December 25, 2141
 

I’ve been here over four years! When you are working fourteen hours a day, the time flies.

Our fine manager left in August, amid many good wishes and a few tears. She was over seventy, and she had a great grandchild on the way in
Utah
. We will miss her.

As for me, I was promoted to assistant manager, a job title that did not exist before. I will manage the dining room, with its tables, chairs, and waiting line. The new job came with another $100 per month, less than a five-percent raise. It also came with no time to sit down, a fact I did not realize until I had graciously accepted the assignment.

I am spending more time, now, with the Clarklians. They like a friendly greeting, but they don’t mind making my life difficult when the lines are long or the favorite dishes on the buffet line are in short supply.

The Wolpters are the worst of the complainers. They have places to go and activities to attend to, if you can believe them, and they don’t appreciate being held up by the Drones in the waiting line. Everybody knows the Drones have nothing to do but eat four or five times a day, but the Wolpters are always in a hurry.

The Wolpters are nearly as ugly as the Monarchs. Although they do not have those strange flesh-like horns, they have very wide lips and tall ears.

The Wolpters are responsible, our new manager has told me, for most of the Drones on this planet. A Wolpter and a Carrier always produce a Drone, and a Wolpter and a Slinker produce a Drone half the time. Since the Wolpters are prolific breeders, the Drones they complain about are very likely their own products.

And the number of Drones has grown since the Americans started to run the dining rooms in the 2070s. If anybody is starving to death on this planet, it is not the breeders of Drones. This would include Slinkers, Carriers, Seekers, and Wolpters. In fact, since Drones and Batwigs are sterile, only the Monarchs, of the non-sterile sexes, do not produce Drones.

I would like to see the demographics for the seven sexes. I know when a certain sex reproduces with its own kind, the offspring is the same sex as the parents. Each of these creatures is androgynous, and each non-sterile creature is able to sire or bear a child. I have heard that Monarchs tend to keep to themselves for childbearing, but a true Monarch can also be a product of the Wolpter and the Monarch. I often wonder if they can distinguish between them.

Some of the farmers are certain the Clarklians gather the youngsters in great orphanages. Do they keep the sexes separate there?

So many interesting ideas to think about while my feet hurt.

The chef has not yet been caught by his suitor, but I understand he goes out to the farms on his days off to court a lady farmhand. Since the suitor’s day off is not the same as the chef’s, perhaps she doesn’t know about his other interest.

There should be a rule here whereby a love affair costs $10,000. I believe we could insulate the cabins after collecting these fines for eighteen months.

The twins continue with their work at
Ohio
State
, and Susan and Molly look happier with each new picture.

December 25, 2142
 

Another holiday has come and gone, and my sentence on this cold planet is half over.

Good news from the real estate people, though. They have raised the rent again, and the tenants have agreed to a two-year lease. All my bills are current, and my liabilities, including the mortgage, are under $100,000! Except for that note Harry signed for Patsy.

No news from Patsy, of course. I wish she would just tell me the status. It’s even more important to me now that I am within a year or two of turning the corner.

The Seekers came back to the farms, loaded down with robots. These curious creatures now do all the weeding, even in the rows where the plants are about the same size as the weeds. The robots are able to sense the biological makeup of whatever they have their clamps on and pull up only the weeds. Our farmers are now using the robots right before planting and during the growing seasons.

Last year’s outbreak of love affairs has abated somewhat. We are down to the chef and his various interests, two homosexual couples, and one stalker. The stalker is part of my dining room crew, and our new manager is thinking of sending him home. I think he is so old at 62 that he is harmless, but the object of his attentions is not amused.

We had so many string beans this year that we canned enough for at least two more years. It amazes me that some crops are very good one year and very poor another. I believe the weather is uniformly cold year after year, but the farmers assure me this is not the case.

Water remains constant, though. Most of it comes directly from the polar regions of the planet, gathered in large lakes as the seasons change and piped to the several cities along the planet’s equator. We have never had any lack of water, either in the kitchens or on the farms. Even my little hut has running water, both hot and cold.