Part 22 (1/2)
MacDonald stopped shoveling for a moment and said: ”I'm glad I'm not the feed man around here; I'm perfectly happy to handle the other end of the operation.”
”I don't follow you,” said Drake.
”No, but the ducks follow you,” the engineer pointed out. ”It would drive me nuts to have them underfoot all the time.” Drake put more feed in the pans. ”You mean you think they follow me around just because I feed 'em?”
”Well, don't they? You give 'em their goodies; I just clean up after 'em.”
”It isn't that,” Drake said. ”Even if you fed them, they'd still follow me; I'm the first moving thing they saw after they hatched. It's a built-in reflex. They think I'm their mother.”
MacDonald plied his shovel again. ”In that case, I am gladder than ever. Imagine being mama to thousands of ducks.” He lifted the scoop and dumped it into the wheelbarrow. ”Imagine. Thousands and thousands of ducks. Following you. Loving you. 'Mama! I stubbed my little webby foot, Mama. Kiss it and make it well.'”
”Stop!” Drake said. ”You make it sound nauseating.”
”It smells nauseating!” boomed a voice from the door. ”This whole s.h.i.+p is beginning to smell like a chicken coop!”
”Duck coop,” MacDonald corrected as Captain Dumbrowski came on in.
”Where are you taking that?” Dumbrowski asked, pointing at the wheelbarrow.
”To the disposal. Why?”
”Well, we can stop that right now! You're an engineer, it says here; you ought to be able to figure it out.”
MacDonald stopped and wiped his forearm over his dripping brow. ”You mean clogging the disposal? Nah. There isn't that much.
”There will be; there will be. Drake! Are these figures you gave me on feeding correct?”
Drake dusted crumbs of feed from his fingers, and walked toward Dumbrowski. ”I'm pretty sure they are-why?” As he walked, the ducklings followed lovingly.
”According to this, each one of those ducks will eat approximately seventeen kilos of feed in the next fourteen weeks. At the end of that time, they'll ma.s.s about four kilos each.”
”That's right.”
MacDonald dropped his shovel. ”By the Seven Purple h.e.l.ls of Palain! Nearly sixty-five thousand kilograms! The disposal won't take it-not by a long shot!”
Drake said: ”Well, I'll admit there'll be more per day as the ducks grow, but-” Then he stopped.
”What can we do?”
”Do? There's only one thing we can do. Dehydrate the stuff and dump it overboard!”
Drake looked down at the ducklings cl.u.s.tered around his feet. ”But we can't do that! We've got to reclaim the grit!”
”Grit? What do you mean grit?” Dumbrowski asked.
”Sand and gravel. Ducks don't have any teeth, so they have to eat a certain amount of grit to grind up the food in their crops. Without it, they'll die. But there isn't enough on board. We were going to hatch these birds on Okeefenokee, where there'd be plenty of it, so we didn't bother to bring any along.”
”Then what the devil have you been doing?”
”Re-using what we have. It isn't digested, of course, so I've been reclaiming it as fast as it's eliminated, sterilizing it, and giving it back to them.”
Dumbrowski put a hand over his eyes. ”Let me think.”
MacDonald and Drake stood there silently while the captain cerebrated. Finally, he took his damp hand away from his eyes and looked at MacDonald. ”The A stage will have to be disconnected and used separately. We can dehydrate the stuff and take the sand out, but the organic section-well, that simply can't be overloaded. It'll have to go outside.”
”I can do it,” said MacDonald. ”But it'll mean we'll have to dump it out the air lock at least once a day.”
”You can do it when we go out to get new cans of food. Make it all one operation,” said Drake.
”Yeah,” said Dumbrowski. ”You know,” he went on, with a touch of bitterness in his voice, ”thisisn't a s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p-it's a sea anemone!”
”I see what you mean,” said Drake.
Overhead, two ducks flapped by.
Two men stood in the decompression room of the air lock while the pumps labored to reduce the pressure to zero. Their s.p.a.cesuits swelled a little as the air left the room, and between them, a box of grayish powder churned softly as the atmospheric gases between the particles of powder worked their way out, ”Are you sure you'll be all right, Doc?” MacDonald asked.
”I think so. With this nylon rope to anchor me, if I get nauseated again, you can pull me back.”
”Well, it will be easier with two of us, but Devris could have gone instead.”
”He's got to keep shoveling. I can't sc.r.a.pe up the stuff from the floors,” he explained.
”Oh? Why not?”
”Because I can't keep the ducks away from me. Every time I lift up a scoopful, I get three or four ducks with it!”
MacDonald shook his head inside the bubble of his s.p.a.ce helmet. ”Poor mama duck. Or should I say Papa Drake?”
”You should say nothing of the kind,” the doctor said.
The ”all clear” light winked on, and MacDonald opened the outer door.
”You go out first, Doc. Ease yourself past the barrier field slowly. Keep a hand on the edge of the door. And remember, you're not falling. Just keep your eyes open.”
Drake did as he was told, and, in a few seconds, he was outside the s.h.i.+p and outside the paragravity field.
”How do you feel?” MacDonald's voice came over the phone.
”All right. A little confused, but I'm not sick. And everything isn't spinning around.”
”O.K.; I'll be right with you.” He came out, dragging the heavy box with him. ”Now, can you clamp your boots onto the hull? They'll come on automatically; all you have to do is put them flat on the metal.” He demonstrated, and Drake followed suit.
”I'm O.K., now,” he said. ”Here-let me carry the box while you get the food.”