And he was right. That was that. But the funny part of it was that, forced to a showdown, Lancelot Biggs came through!
The first meal out, which was lunch served at noon Earthtime, I went down to the dining hall thinking anything might happen and expecting the worst. I got the shock of my life, and shocks are a not inconsiderable part of the life of a spacelugger radioman.
Mr. Lancelot Slops had pulled a banquet out of the hat! We had fried chicken with cream gravy, hot biscuits, candied yams, a side dish of stewed clab, Creole style, raisin pie, and the best damn coffee ever served on the wallowing old Saturn.
What the other men of the crew thought, I have no idea. They didn't say. Every man-jack of 'em was so busy shoveling grub into his puss that the conversation was dead as a Martian herring. But after I'd bulged my belt to the last notch with fried pullet, I waddled into the galley and confronted Mr. Biggs.
"Biggs," I said accusingly, "you've been holding out on us! Why didn't you tell us before you could cook a meal like that?"
He shuffled his feet sheepishly. He said, "Was it all right, Sparks?"
"All right? It was terrific! I haven't had such a feed since I was a kid."
He looked relieved. "I'm glad. Because, you see, that was the first meal I ever cooked."
"It was the first—what!"
"Mmm-hmm! But there were lots of cook books here in the galley. And I figured so long as I had to do it, I might as well do it right—" He grinned at me shyly. Once in a while I wondered, briefly, whether any of us understood this strange, lanky genius, Lancelot Biggs. This was one of the times. "I—I found it rather interesting, Sparks, to tell you the truth. It is, just as I told Cap Hanson, just a matter of elementary chemistry. The pots and pans are the test-tubes; the stove is a huge Bunsen burner."