The captain cast a wistful look at the cookie plate. "Well, don't say I didn't warn you," he replied. "When's Bob due in port?"
Mrs. Dinsmore's face relaxed. "Around the twenty-fifth," she said, "he sent me a 'gram. Here, have another cookie. I must think up some little thing to cook for him as a surprise."
The captain snaffled a handful of cookies from the plate and stood up to go. "Your ordinary cooking's good enough for me," he declared, "but, if you mean something like those little shrimps fried in batter you had the last time he was here, go ahead. And watch for that plant." He stalked off across the lawn.
He's getting old, thought Amy Dinsmore, watching the gruff old codger limp around a flower bed (Bjornson had had prosthetic surgery after he lost his foot and, though it had been successful, grafts were never as flexible as natural members), positively old. He ought to see a geriatrician right away. She'd tell him so the next time he came to see her. Talking about Robert that way!
She set the dial on the robot gardener on the front lawn to "Weeding: dandelions" and started along the path that led to the little hothouse where most of the plants Robert had sent her were growing; even in the deep tropics Terra was, with few exceptions, too cold and dry for them. The Martian subjects, on the other hand, were in a psychroplex lean-to, with hygro-scopes and a battery of infra-red lamps to keep the temperature up during the day.
The heavy moist air of the hothouse made Amy Dinsmore pant a little as she entered it—but how interesting it was! Even the leaves of her Venusian plants were fascinating, thick and leatherlike, thin and dry and hard like parchment, hanging in heavy serpentine coils or bristling pointed and sharp as so many spears. And their coloring ranged from cerise through a silky taupe and indigo around to an angry bright metallic blue. As for their flowers—oh, my. Amy Dinsmore had never seen anything like them. All you could do was stand in front of them with your mouth open and stare. When she wasn't looking at her Martian succulents, they were her favorites of anything she grew.
She halted in front of the plant Robert had sent her last. Yes, Hjalmar Bjornson was getting definitely senile. How could anybody think that this poor little dried-up thing could be harmful? It was a mere bundle of desiccated stems, with only a tiny new leaf or two to indicate that it was alive. It looked a little better than it had yesterday, though; the colchine solution must have been good for it. Amy brushed a few dead flies from the ledge behind it into her hand and threw them into the composter. She liked to have things neat.
Now, what should she cook as a surprise for Robert? He was fond of sweet things, of course, but it always seemed to her that he praised her meat dishes and entrees most. He liked her cooking so much because her roast turkeys and grilled steaks had a crust on them; electronically cooked food was quick to prepare and it might be as good for you as they said it was, but the outside looked like the inside, and it all tasted flavorless and grey. What was the use of saving time in cooking if you ended up with food that wasn't any fun to eat?
"You aren't looking well, Amy," Captain Bjornson said three or four weeks later. He looked at her with the critical attention of an old friend. "You've got on a lot of cosmi-lac, but you still look peaked. What's the matter, worried about Bob? Ships don't get hurt in meteor swarms any more." He looked down at his grafted foot reminiscently. "Not like it was when I was a third mate."