The officers' mess of the starship USS Enterprise was a small, rather cozy room, with comfortable chairs, moderately bright lighting, and a food-service wall with four delivery slots, no waiting. This morning, two officers entered the room, dropped briefing folders marked TOP SECRET onto the table, and approached the service wall.

"I don't know, Scotty," said Captain James T. Kirk, with an offhand gesture toward the secret documents. "Maybe it's just the idea of an inflatable rubber starship that bothers me." Kirk turned to face the messroom wall. "Two eggs, sunny side up," he told it, "bacon crisp, wheat toast, and a large orange juice." The wall went pleep in acknowledgment.

"Oatcakes wi' butter an' syrup," Chief Engineer Montgomery Scott told the wall, "a broiled kipper, an' coffee black." Pleep. "Rubber's hardly the word for the material, Captain. It's a triple-monolayer sandwich: an organic polymer inside to keep th' gas in, metal film on the outside to reflect sensors like a real ship's hull, an' a pseudofluid sealant between 'em."

Ploop went the wall. "I do not have that sandwich on today's menu," it said, in a pleasantly maternal voice. "May I suggest the grilled cheese with Canadian bacon?"

Scott gave the wall an amiable kick. "An' each of the prototypes is nae bigger than a desk while it's collapsed, includin' the inflation system. Not that it takes much gas to fill her out, not in hard vacuum; a couple o' lungfuls--"

"Mr. Scott somewhat underestimates the volume of gas required," said a voice from the messroom doorway. "The inflation system holds twenty-seven cubic meters of compressed dry nitrogen. Exhaled breath of course contains moisture and respiratory waste products, which would be quite damaging to the material of the Deployable Practice Target."

"Good morning, Spock," Kirk said patiently.

Science Officer Spock entered the mess, hands folded and eyebrows arched. "It does seem the start of a productive day," he said, as the door hissed shut behind him. "One hundred grams of unsalted soya wafers, with one hundred twenty grams of defatted cream cheese," Spock told the wall, "and two hundred milliliters of unsweetened grapefruit juice." Pleep.

"I admit that the Deployable Target is a very fancy rubber balloon," Kirk said, "not to mention expensive--"

"Two point eight six three million credits for each of the four prototypes," Spock said.

" -- but it's still shooting rubber fish in a barrel."

Ploop. "Fried fish are available--" Kirk ignored the wall and looked past the steep rise of Spock's eyebrow. "Balloons can maneuver tactically, and yes, I've read the stuff in the Starfleet Institute Proceedings about 'pretending three-hundred-meter starships are Sopwith Camels.' "

Pling went the wall, and a panel slid open to reveal a tray. Two eggs looked sunny side up from the plate above a smile of bacon. Kirk took the tray to the dining table.

The door opened again, and Ship's Surgeon Leonard McCoy came in. Without a word to anyone, he walked crookedly to the wall, leaned heavily against it, and said something that sounded like "Plergb hfarizz ungemby, and coffee."

Bones McCoy was not a morning person.

Pleep, the wall replied, and then pling for the delivery of Scott's breakfast, and pling again for Spock's. They sat down at the table with Kirk.

The captain had broken the yolk on one of his eggs, buttered his toast, and had his glass two-thirds of the way to his mouth before noticing that the liquid in the tumbler was blue.

Not the deep indigo of grape juice, or the soothing azure of Romulan ale, but a luminous, electric blue, a color impossible in nature.

Kirk looked around the table. Scott and Spock were discussing some obscure engineering aspect of the bal -- Deployable Practice Target. There didn't seem to be anything wrong with their breakfasts; Scott's black coffee was black, Spock's juice was pale gold. Dr. McCoy was still waiting for his meal, watching the rest of them like a vulture with a hangover, but his stare had a distinctly unfocused quality. Maybe it was just the early hour, Kirk thought, a trick of the light or something. He looked at his juice again. Still blue.

Starship captains are a special breed of beings who boldly go, et cetera. Kirk took a sip of the blue liquid. It tasted just like orange juice. It even had pulp that got caught in his teeth, just like orange juice.

One more look. Blue.

The wall plinged, and McCoy brought his tray to the table. Kirk looked at the doctor's meal: there was a huge mug of coffee, a slab of Virginia ham, and an enormous heap of something else. The something else was orange, in the same way Kirk's juice had not been orange: it was signal-flare orange, bright as a Christmas necktie. Kirk noticed that Spock and Scotty had stopped talking, and eating, and were looking intently at the orange mound on the doctor's plate.

Oblivious, McCoy buttered the orange heap, sliced the ham, and went at them like a starving man.

After a moment, Spock finished his crackers and cheese, stood up, and slipped his tray into the disposal slot. "Excuse me, Captain, Mr. Scott, Dr. McCoy. I have some preparations to make for the Target tests."

"Aye," Scott said, watching McCoy eat as the syrup congealed around his own oatcakes. Kirk said "Of course, Spock." McCoy said "Gmltfrbl."

Spock looked sidelong at McCoy's plate, turned sharply and went out. Kirk thought he looked rather green, even for a Vulcan.

"I'd better check over the launch tubes," Scott said. "For, uh, th' tests, an' all." He went out.

Kirk watched, fascinated, as Dr. McCoy forked down the orange stuff, interspersed with chunks of ham and gulps of coffee. Finally McCoy drank deep from his mug, sat back in his chair, and let out a long sigh and a short burp.

He looked at Kirk, and frowned. "What's the matter, Jim? Haven't y'ever seen a man eat grits before?"

"I, um..."

"And what in the name of Hygeia are you drinking?"

"Morning, ah, pick-me-up," Kirk said hastily, and emptied the glass to the last blue drop. " 'Scuse me, Bones, lots to do today." He stood up and dumped his tray, with one uneaten egg still on it. There was no waste; the food processors would recycle it, Kirk thought, and at once regretted thinking.

It was, the captain thought as he left the puzzled doctor in the messroom, going to be one of those days.

Copyright © 1990 by Paramount Pictures