life. But for every thousand planets on which men could live without protection only one had the essential ingredient for colonization. Only one in a thousand could grow edible food.
It was the minerals which did it, that, and the subtle variations in the radiation received from the sun. Earth-like plants grew in profusion, but the apples were poisoned with selenium, the lettuces loaded with arsenic, the corn contained copper or some other mineral in the right proportions for the adapted plant but the wrong proportions for human metabolism.
On such worlds men grew their own food in shielded hydroponic installations or starved.
* * * *
The factor in charge of the food plant on Mirab IV was a dour, sandy-haired man who was firm in the belief that hard work was the destiny of the human race. Especially such members of it as Robeson and Smyth. He glared at the two men: Robeson, once plump and well rounded, looking a little like a partly deflated balloon; Smyth, always a small man, resembling a wizened gnome.
“So you’re hungry, are you?”
McKief felt a sense of his own power. He crushed it. “Well?”
“You’re supposed to provide food for any Terrestrial requiring it,” said Robeson, the self-elected spokesman. “We require it.”
“I’m supposed to sell food to any Terrestrial requiring it,” corrected McKief. “This isn’t a charity station.” He looked hopeful. “Can you pay?”
“No.” Robeson was firm. “We spent all our money in that hash-house you run. Now they won’t feed us any more.”
“Spent all your money, have you?” McKief rocked gently back on his heels. “Waiting for a ship, I suppose, to carry you to some other world.” He shook his head. “Well, well.”
“It isn’t well,” snapped Robeson. “We’re starving.”
“Then you’ll be wanting a job.” McKief couldn’t ever appear genial, but he was doing his best. Labor, on such backwoods planets as Mirab IV was scarce, and even such a pair of misfits as these two would be valuable. He pretended to consider, stroking his lantern jaw. “Let me see, now. Maybe I could use a couple of tank cleaners. Five-year contract at a credit a day plus keep.” He pulled a couple of printed forms from his pocket. “Just sign and thumbprint these and you can start at once.”
“No.” Robeson had no intention of signing away the next five years of his life. “We’re a couple of distressed spacemen,” he claimed. “You’ve got to feed us.”
“Got your papers?” McKief didn’t wait for an answer. “I know you haven’t. You were kicked off the last Terrestrial ship to land here. You’re a pair of drifters, no-good space tramps dodging your responsibilities and shaming the entire human race before the aliens with your shiftlessness. You won’t get any free help from me.” He altered his tactics. “Just sign and everything will be all right. There’s chicken for supper, with fresh green peas and mashed potatoes, with apple pie to follow. And coffee, real coffee, with real sugar and cream. For breakfast, there’s…”
“No,” said Robeson hastily. Smyth, he could tell, was weakening.
“Have it your way,” snapped McKief. “A meal will cost you a credit. Basic menu: a plate of yeast and a hunk of soy-flour bread. Take it or leave it.”
“We can’t take it,” said Robeson. “We haven’t any money. But we aren’t going to sign any contract, either. Under the Regs we’re allowed to work off the cost of our food.”
“So you’re a space lawyer, are you?” McKief looked disgusted. “I might have known it. All right, as you’re so smart, you can report to the tank super. You’ll get a meal for a fair day’s work. Now get moving, the sight of you makes me ashamed of my race.”
Smyth didn’t move. “Please,” he said weakly. “Couldn’t we eat first?”
“You work, and then you eat.” McKief was firm. “Of course, if you’d like to change your mind and sign the contract…”
Robeson led his partner away before he could yield to temptation.
* * * *
“That McKief,” said Robeson thoughtfully, “is a louse.” He prodded at the unsavory chunk of yeast swimming in a watery pool of its own natural juices, which lay on a tin plate before him. “A first-class louse,” he amended. “The king of them all.”
“Don’t you want that?” Smyth swallowed his last crumb of soy-flour bread and reached towards his partner’s neglected meal.
“Of course I don’t want it.” Robeson snatched away his plate. “But I need it. I owe it to myself to look after my health.” He chewed distastefully on the unappetizing mass. “You know, I’ve the conviction that if I were to collapse while at my arduous duties I’d recover to find a roast chicken before me—and my thumbprint on that contract.” He took another bite. “And then we’d never get away from this place.”
Smyth shuddered at the prospect. For ten days, now, the two had worked like robots cleaning the great hydroponic tanks of dying and odorous vegetable matter. The tank super, a contract man himself, had no time or patience to spare for any who refused to share his misery. So he piled on the work and made them sweat out the food he grudgingly gave them at the end of the day.
“You know,” said Smyth wistfully, “we could afford at least one decent meal.”
“We daren’t,” said Robeson. “Once we taste good food again we’ll be lost. We need every cent of that money to beg, buy or bribe a passage on the first ship leaving here for a Class X world. Class X,” he repeated wonderingly. “Food growing everywhere. Orchards, truck gardens, chicken coops, the works and every last bit of it fit to eat.” He sighed and scraped up the last of his yeast. “Besides, if McKief guesses that we’ve got money he’ll make us buy food until we’re broke. Then he’ll have us where he wants us.”
“Chicken,” said Smyth dreamily. “Green peas, mashed potatoes.” He licked his lips.
“Five years of sweating for the sake of your stomach,” reminded Robeson.
“At a credit a day,” pointed out Smyth.
“Man,” said Robeson sternly, “is not made for bread alone. There are other things. Could you go five years without a drink? You couldn’t, and as soon as you taste it you’ll want more and more. You’ll even start smoking again. You’ll wind up a slave to expensive vices and spend your money as fast as you get it.” He picked at his teeth. “At the end of the contract time you’ll be flat broke and have to sign up for another five years.”
“But I’ll eat,” said Smyth. “The way things are I’m no better off.”
“We’ve got money,” reminded Robeson. “I’ve got fifty-three credits and you’ve got forty-nine. While we hang onto that we’ve got economic independence. With any sort of luck at all it will pay our passage to a Class X world. Then you can eat until you burst.”
“So you keep telling me.” Smyth was hungry and irritable. “But when?”
The tank super came roaring in just then, and saved Robeson from what could have been an argument.
