Amy Griswold - The Lost

Friendships were a good thing. Emotionally isolated people were more vulnerable, more likely to make deadly mistakes. It was easy for people in positions of great responsibility to become isolated. They had few peers, and friendships within a supervisory position or up and down the chain of command were always fraught. Colonel Sheppard was hardly going to pal around with a second lieutenant twenty years his junior, or Dr. Beckett with a new medical assistant. Carter couldn’t be chummy with anyone who served on the Hammond . Not only were those friendships rendered complex if not actually inappropriate by the supervisory relationships, but they were unlikely because of age and life experience. Teyla stood outside the chains of command, but surely being the only Athosian besides her son currently living in the city was isolating enough. Seeing the four of them laughing and talking over the breakfast table was a good thing.

The milk jug was empty. Eva tilted it all the way up, but only a couple of drops fell out. And coffee without milk was like a morning without…she would say sunshine, but the high windows of the mess hall showed nothing but an expanse of purplish gray sky heavy with snow.

Milk. The serving line was open, but the two young soldiers were busy helping people. She might as well go refill the pitcher. Her coffee cup in one hand and the thermos pitcher in the other, Eva ducked through the kitchen door.

It was immediately obvious why the original Atlantis expedition had chosen to use this room as the kitchen, though it wasn’t like any kitchen she’d ever seen. It was high and airy, a ceiling fully two stories high, with broad windows in a curved wall looking out onto a panorama of other towers, a Fortune 50 °CEO’s office view in New York or London. Down one wall ran what appeared to be a long bronze trough, but on closer inspection was one long, slightly tilted sink, a dozen faucets and buttons providing water of various temperatures. The opposite wall had several heavy doors in it, freezers or supply lockers or something else. And in the middle was set up a modern stainless steel field kitchen, stoves and prep surfaces and deep fryers and a steam table.

It was an interesting juxtaposition. Boxes stacked neatly for easy access identified themselves as Chicken and Gravy Meal, use before 10/22/2012, property of Strategic Air Command, Nellis AFB. Next to it was Hot Dog, Lunch, Sausages and Condiments, ship to NORAD Lot number 7475. An open case beside it proclaimed itself MREs (Kosher and Halal) Florentine Lasagna with a hand-lettered sign on it that said, “Please do not take more than two at a time unless you have permission. Our quantities are limited.” A sign below it read, “For permission talk to Sgt. Pollard.” Another sign below that one read, “And he really really means it.”

Eva couldn’t help but smile. She looked around, wondering where milk would be.

“Need something, doc?” A man her own age, his graying hair cut in a buzz so severe he looked almost bald, came around the corner of the steam table, drying his hands on his apron. Beneath it he wore the red shirt of Atlantis support services.

“Sergeant Pollard?” Eva asked. She waved the pitcher around. “I was just looking for some milk.”

“That’s me.” He snagged the pitcher from her. “Over here.”

“How did you know I was a doctor?” she asked.

He grinned at her, his face seamed with premature lines. “You’re not military, so you’re a doctor. Doctor something.”

“Dr. Eva Robinson, the new psychologist.”

“Oh.” He filled the pitcher from a nearby tin jug. “Got your work cut out for you, don’t you?

“People keep saying that,” she said.

He shook his head. “I came out here with the second deployment. Third, if you count Colonel Everett’s. He lasted four days, God help him! I came out on the Daedalus with the second bunch, right after the siege. Been in the United States Marine Corps nearly thirty years, and it was one of the damndest things I ever saw! And I’ve been some interesting places, let me tell you. It runs you pretty crazy around here. So if you’re looking for crazy, we’ve got our own special brand of Pegasus crazy, right here.” Sergeant Pollard handed her the milk back. “That’s what I tell these new Air Force kids. At least we’ve got a proper support unit now. We didn’t, back in the old days.”

“It seemed like there were a lot of new people,” Eva said. “And I had no idea there were kosher and halal MREs.”

“Oh yeah. They’re pretty good. They’re always available as alternatives to the main meal, whatever that is, though most folks keeping kosher or halal usually go down the line and just try to avoid certain foods.” He looked with some pride at his kitchen set up. “We’re only serving 200 breakfasts, though there’s 417 in Atlantis, well, plus the baby and Teyla and Ronon, and right now the crew of the Hammond . So it varies. But a lot of people don’t eat breakfast, or they just want coffee or something. So we only make 200 portions.” Pollard grinned. “Today it’s pork sausage links, creamed beef, hashbrowns, coffee cake, grits, scrambled eggs with salsa, orange juice, and instant Irish cream cappuccino. Not that the eggs are really eggs, but the salsa helps disguise that some. Also sliced Sila fruit and teosinte cakes with sour cream.”

“Excuse me?” Eva blinked.

“We’re supposed to supplement the A rations with local fresh food. Which sometimes is easier said than done.” Pollard reached for what looked like a knobby yellow potato. “This is a sila. They grow on a lot of planets around here. Tropical fruit, high in vitamin c, taste something like a tangerine. We got these guys from Pelagia last week.” He gave her an encouraging nod as she smelled it. “You can keep it. The teosinte cakes…” Pollard put his bullet head to the side, thinking. “I guess you’d call it kind of an heirloom corn. Dr. Parrish says that when the Ancients brought stuff from Earth before the war they brought a lot of domesticated and semi-domesticated plants that they liked. Teosinte is maybe kind of like corn was ten thousand years ago. Little bitty ears as long as your finger, reddish brown kernels, like the ornamental corn people use for flower arrangements and stuff on Earth. Anyhow, people here grow it for food and as animal feed, just like they do at home. Most of it’s ground up for grain. Grain’s always one of our problems here. We get a certain amount of flour from Earth, but it doesn’t even begin to touch what we use. So we trade for a lot of it here, stoneground and all. Makes kind of crunchy corncakes. You ought to try them.”

“I’ll be sure to,” Eva said, fascinated.

“The biggest problem is always milk,” he said. “We always need milk, and it’s hard to get.” He gestured to the pitcher in her hand. “That’s Athosian goats milk, from those pygmy goats they keep. Jinto brought eight gallons the other day, so we’re set for the rest of the week.”

“I had no idea,” Eva said. “What did he trade them for?”

Pollard leaned back on his counter. “Well, the Athosians are our oldest trading partner, so it’s a long running agreement that Teyla and Halling keep track of, who owes who what at any given moment. They trade fresh food for a variety of things — plastics, metals, stuff they can turn around and trade through the gate to other folks. Plastic is worth a lot, since it doesn’t seem like anybody can make it here anymore. Ronon’s people used to, but they’re gone now.”

“You must know a lot of people from Pegasus,” Eva observed.

“Oh yeah!” Pollard grinned again. “They say the gate team is the tip of the spear and all that, but I’m the one spends tons of time talking to people, trying to figure out how to cook this stuff, dealing with everybody who supplies stuff on a weekly or monthly basis. I handle the established trades and the regular merchants, check out the markets of allies who have them, make sure we’ve got what we need.”