“Only two biscuits, Joe?” prodded Mark. “Has hunger made you too weak to eat?”
“I’ll show you whether I’m too weak to eat. Watch this!” He shoveled a heaping spoonful of stew into his mouth. His chin lifted a notch, his eyes closed, and a satisfied moan escaped his closed lips. He slowly lowered the spoon to the table and lifted both hands as if he were about to embrace someone.
“Taste good?” asked Zip, reaching for the aromatic bowl as it came his way.
Joe chewed and swallowed. “Someone back at the Academy told me once that there was no such thing as a dumb question. He was wrong. That was one.” Joe turned to George. “George, this is delicious! I’ve never tasted anything better!”
George glanced over at the food cans that had been in storage for several years. “A hungry man will enjoy anything. A very hungry man will consider even canned goods to be ambrosia.” But by that time the serving bowl had gotten around to George, and he stopped to fill his own plate.
16: A Dark Spirit
TO STARMAN David Foster, it was a soft, rainy morning. He had just awakened after a night on the SE supply asteroid O344, and the only sound was the faint hum of the operating system. He wrapped himself a little more snugly into his blanket and kept his eyes shut. His imagination easily turned the murmur into the soft sound of rain sifting through the leaves of the tree outside his bedroom window on his uncle’s farm in West Virginia. With slightly more effort he could imagine a drizzle drumming lightly on the wooden shingles above and drifting out onto the empty fields in the early autumn days shortly after harvest.
His Uncle Francis and Aunt Clare were dear to David. Although he had been raised on the Moon, close to his father’s work, he had been born in Clark’s Bridge Crossing, the village near their farm. From the time he was old enough to show any notice of the world around him, David had loved the stars. Even now, he loved interplanetary travel, exploration, and adventure better than anything, but in his heart was an emotionally-intense place where he kept his memories of the West Virginia farm where he had spent so much of his childhood.
The small towns and family-owned farms had become indispensable to the rebuilding of America after the Collapse. In the United States the nuclear devastation of those horrifying years had been severe. Most major cities had been destroyed, but much of the outlying and rural areas had survived. In the latter half of the 21st century new leadership arose from these areas, and the American spirit, which for a hundred years had gradually been eclipsed by special-interest groups, lobbyists, fringe organizations, and major corrupt economic interests, was largely purified. The “old values” became popular again, if not always followed. A generation of leaders arose with an appeal similar to that enjoyed by the “log cabin” presidents. A candidate who claimed to have basic values and homespun philosophy was guaranteed to win support from the remaining American population.
With his eyes still closed, David smiled. He tried to imagine the aroma of his Aunt Clare’s freshly-ground coffee coming from the kitchen, mingled with the smell of hot-off-the-griddle blueberry pancakes. The drizzle was stopping, and the dawnlight of the newly-risen sun was sending sparkles through the light rainy haze that shrouded the fields and crowning the eastern fields with the arc of a rainbow. The haze would soon burn off, leaving the dark earth sodden and leaves dripping. He smiled even wider. He could hear his aunt’s voice now...