Something Made of Vacuum
Chapter 3: A Dinner of Food

A laser measuring booth extracted every possible measurement from Helene’s nude body, while she turned awkwardly with her arms over her head. Oksana fussed over the controls of the booth and repeatedly asked her to turn one way and the other, frowning at the display. Finally she was satisfied.

A messenger robot from Helene’s hotel showed up at the door of the shop, a squat rolling cart with an open basket of Helene’s laundry on the top. Oksana let it in, and Helene came out of the booth to say, “Oh, for Pete’s sake. I just asked them to send me one set of clothes. Now everybody in the city gets a look at my bra and dirty socks.”

“It’s more than that,” Oksana said, opening a compartment in the robot’s body. “They cleaned out your room, it looks like. If that’s your only suitcase there, then I think they sent everything you have.”

“Why would they do that?”

Oksana queried the robot, using her wrist device. “Honey,” she said slowly, “you just got kicked out of the Hacienda for non-payment. You don’t have a room there anymore.”

“What? Why?”

“They didn’t say. Is your credit card maxed out or something?”

“The company set up the room. I couldn’t finance a cheeseburger on my own card.”

“Well, why don’t you get dressed in your clothes and you can call them. I’ve got some work to get your suit components pulled together anyway.” Oksana bustled out to the other room. Helene took everything out of the robot, which trundled off on its own, and dressed herself in a white blouse and gray skirt from her remaining clean clothes. Finally she pulled out her phone and sat down to call the hotel. Then she called her company back on Earth, putting up with the irritating one and a quarter second speed-of-light delay while trying to have a conversation.

Oksana found her sitting with her shoulders slumping. “Helene,” she said, “what’s wrong?”

“I got fired. They canceled my hotel room and dropped me. I’ve still got my ticket back home, but not a damn thing else.”

“Why?”

“Oh, I … I made some mistakes last week,” Helene said. “Oksana, I guess I’m not going to need that Moon suit.”

“It’s all paid for. The people at that wedding did all right by you, Helene. I set your account up with a bank in Eratosthenes City, and you’ve got enough money left over to pay for air, water, food and everything for the next couple of weeks. Why not call it your Moon vacation? I know most people on Earth can’t afford to come here.”

“Where am I going to sleep?”

“Oh, Moon Men just sit down on the ground wherever they want. Actually, they all sleep together, like a herd of horses or something. I’ve never heard of any Moon Man sleeping alone, and I think if you try it a bunch of them will come over to ask if you’re all right. Probably you should ask Tom if you can sleep with him and his family.”

“Sleep with him? I barely know the guy.”

“Moon Man style, dear. Safe in your own suit. Believe me, nobody ever has better personal space than a Moon Man.” Oksana sat down beside her and put her arm around Helene’s shoulder. “Helene, I’ve never heard of anybody wearing a Moon suit who wasn’t a Moon Man. I’m not one, but I’ve been doing business with them all my life. They’re as stiff as wrenches, they’re the nicest people in any world, they’re as shy as birds and they are all, every single one, plain weird. I see them with their suits off and you can just tell they’re fussing about people breathing on them. I mean seriously, they’re as strange as can be, but you’ll never meet anybody friendlier. They’ll take care of you and you can have an adventure you can talk about when you get back to Earth.”

“Are you from Earth?” Helene asked. “Are you going back?”

“No, I came here from Terra Nova,” Oksana said. “And I can’t go back. Once you’ve lived on the Moon long enough, your heart’s too weak to live in normal gravity again. It’s okay, I like it here and I have family here. But you’re young, you can play around a while before you have to go back to work.”

“Yeah, I can play around a while,” Helene said, and burst into tears. Oksana waited silently.

“I am a salesman,” Helene finally said, rambling mostly to herself. “I can talk people into things. I can. I’m good at it. I came here to sell food and I am going to sell food whether I’m on the payroll or not. If I come in with some good orders, they’ll have to take me back. If not, there are co-ops I can bring those orders to and they’ll be glad to have me. I’ve still got a job, the damn company just doesn’t know it yet.”

“There you are! Why don’t you go replace Tom?” Oksana said. “I’ve got some suit parts being printed up for you – things that I didn’t happen to have in the right size. You take an hour or so and when you get back, I’ll have everything ready.” She looked at her wrist and said after a moment, “He’s in a park about two blocks that way.”

“You can replace where he is?”

“I can replace any Moon Man. Helene, once you put on that suit, anybody on the whole Moon will know where you are and what you’re doing. You just have to get used to that.”

Helene stood up. She moved a little too fast and bounced slightly off the floor, but was able to catch herself after a moment. “Hey,” she said, “this is the first time I’ve tried wearing high heels since I got here. My feet don’t hurt. This place has some advantages!”

“It actually does,” Oksana said, smiling. “You run along and get lunch or something.”

Aside from the odd green sky and the constant feeling of instability from the low gravity, walking in Theophrastus Crater City seemed like walking on a boulevard on a nice spring day on Earth. The people, in their crazy mix of costumes, sauntered pleasantly without rushing. Street vendors with booths and pushcarts sold food ranging from hot dogs to pho. Helene passed two bookstalls, one dedicated to naughty books for tourists from more repressed cultures. Travel between planets required being in a ship that was removed from all electronic communication for four days, a terrifying prospect that fueled the sales of more physical books on the Moon than were sold on any individual planet.

Tom was sitting on the ground in a small park dominated by one hugely over-sized elm tree, which had given the street its name and grown high in the low gravity. Birds perched on some smaller branches, and human fliers rested on the larger branches. He was playing a game displayed in his glass helmet, which he held in front of him. He looked up when Helene arrived and smiled broadly. “Helene!” he said. “You look … you look great. You’ve got long hair!” He rose smoothly to his feet.

“Hi, Tom. Thank you, I guess you haven’t actually seen my hair before, have you? Why don’t you sit on a bench or something?”

“The suit doesn’t really fit on a bench for mouth breathers,” Tom said. “Um, wait, I mean people without suits.”

“‘Mouth breathers,’” Helene said. “You’ve got your own little racist name for normal people. Nice.”

“We are nice people, just not perfect,” Tom said. “I just slipped, I shouldn’t have said that.”

“Some of your best friends are mouth breathers, right?”

“I’m sorry. Anyway, I wanted to say that I don’t know much about hair – we all wear ours pretty short so it doesn’t get in the way. Don’t tell me this if I’m not supposed to ask, but is that your natural color? It’s lovely.”

“Mouse brown? Tom, nobody would purposely dye her hair this color. Of course it’s the real me.” Tom reached his hand tentatively up and Helene said, “Down, boy! It’s not polite to touch a woman’s hair – or anything – unless she says you can. However, if I ever do let you touch my hair, I guarantee it will be with your hands. Why don’t you take off those gauntlets?”

“Oh. Sure, sure. I just didn’t think of it.” Tom detached his gloves and clipped them to holders on the thighs of his suit.

“I have to wait for my suit to be ready,” Helene said. “I’m hungry. How about that restaurant there, that says ‘Authentic Moon Man Cuisine’?”

“You don’t want to go there,” Tom said instantly. “That’s just for tourists. Nobody understands Moon Man food except Moon Men.”

“It’s right here, other people are eating there, I’m hungry and I’ll pay,” Helene said. “You can tell me what’s wrong with it while we’re eating.”

Tom allowed himself to be led through a little gate into the restaurant, which was an “outdoor” cafe. This restaurant apparently either did attract Moon Men or wanted to appear that they did. A hostess produced a huge chair designed to accommodate the backpack of a Moon suit, and led them to a table with a normal chair for Helene. Menus were displayed on the surface of the table.

“Well, let’s try this one,” Tom said, studying the listings.

“A Chase Across Salted Textures to Savory,” Helene read. “What does that even mean? It’s food, right? You’re not going to make me eat poetry?”

“If they do it well, it’s good food,” Tom said. “It has chicken and usually a little shrimp, with different vegetables and some spiced applesauce at the end. It’s a classic meal, but they’ll probably mess it up.” He touched the order button, sat back and added graciously, “It comes with a Moselle wine and cold mineral water. I don’t know, maybe they won’t screw it up.”

“I’m sure you’ll let me know if it doesn’t measure up,” Helene said. She looked around and waved at the other diners. “Everything comes in those little tubes?”

“The gray ones are called ‘sixpacks’ and hold the food. The white ones are bottles of drink. Real ones are made of metal, these are just plastic imitations. I suppose tourists don’t know the difference.”

A rolling robotic cart delivered four sixpacks and two tubes of drink to each of them, in an orderly arrangement on a plate. Tom bowed his head to say a brief grace, while Helene watched, then picked up the right-most sixpack. “Okay,” he said, “start with this one. It has – I mean, assuming they did it right – a bland chicken meatball, two balls of green beans in a sharp sauce, then two spicy meatballs and finally some bread. You bring out the food one bite at a time by twisting the knob at the bottom.”

“Do I get a fork or anything? Even a napkin?”

“No, and no. This is Moon Man ‘six-bite cuisine’, designed to be eaten in a helmet. Take each of the six bites in one gulp, chew and swallow and appreciate it a moment, then go to the next. Take the wine and mineral water when you want to. If you bite the food into two pieces or anything, it won’t matter here, but if you were in your Moon suit you could get crumbs in your helmet. There’s no good way to use a napkin so you don’t get one, just don’t get sloppy when you eat.”

“You know, Tom,” Helene said, “when you use the phrase ‘six-bite cuisine’ I can practically hear the little trademark symbol. I take it you eat everything in six bites?”

“Yes. Six bites to a pack, three sixpacks make a dinner. Go ahead, try it.”

Helene held the sixpack up to her mouth, twisted the knob to expose a pale small meatball and popped it into her mouth. She was about to go on to the next bite when she noticed Tom was still chewing. He swallowed and said, “Take your time. Food should be savored. I have to say, that one was done about right.”

“It’s okay, I guess,” Helene said. “Why is it bland, and why do you want to ‘savor’ bland food?”

“To set you up for the next bite,” Tom said. “Everything in a six-bite meal has a reason. It’s like music or dancing. There’s a logic to the sequence. Now the first green-bean ball.”

Helene exposed the next bite, a wad of chopped green beans held together by a white sauce. She ate it and gasped. “Oh, my God. What is that?”

“Horseradish sauce. Tasting the bland meatball sets you up for that sensation. When you’re ready, try the next green-bean bite. It’s also horseradish, but less strong and with a little umami from meat broth, also some garlic and fat.” Tom ate the next bite, then made a face. “Tarragon,” he complained. “These guys don’t know what they’re doing. I understand tarragon on green beans but who puts tarragon on top of horseradish? Who puts anything on top of horseradish?”

“That was pretty good, though,” Helene said, after swallowing it. “Better than the first one. How do you get that stuff to hold together in a ball?”

“We mix in some tasteless alginates to make adhesive sauces,” Tom said. “That’s something that nobody does but us – we have a whole range of sticky sauces to make things into bite-size balls. Yeah, that was actually tasty but it’s just … incoherent, you know? The cooks here don’t understand food logic.”

They ate the spicy meatballs, which were not hot with chilies but rather made savory with curry masalas, slightly different for each meatball. The bread was a warm, small roll with butter in the middle.

“This is our ethnic cuisine,” Tom chattered away as they started the next sixpack. “We eat everything that comes bite-size – pierogi, sushi, gnocchi, bao, raviolis, little slider hamburgers held together with adhesive condiments. In our own way, we’re just as quaint and ethnic as … I’m not too up on Earth culture. Who’s ethnic on Earth? Mexicans? Mongolians? Anyway, we’re ethnic like them.”

Finally Helene held up one hand and said, “Tom, I sell food. I don’t have a romantic relationship with it. Shut up and eat, okay?”

She ate each bite precisely and conscientiously chewed and swallowed with consideration. Tom ate absently, looking at her. “Tom,” she finally said, “why are you looking at me like that?”

“You’re very pretty. Also, I’m trying to figure you out, I guess. You seem mysterious to me.”

“I can imagine. You probably don’t know any other women whose blood sugar level and current weight and muscle tension you can’t read on your display, right?”

“Um, yeah. They say the eyes are windows to the soul, so I’m thinking ...”

“Well, stop gazing into my eyes!” Helene said. “It’s creeping me out. My boobs are down here!” Tom blushed and looked away, and was silent for a while.

The last two bites were quivering balls of applesauce flavored with cinnamon and allspice. Helene looked at the first one dubiously and asked, “What holds this together?”

“It’s called ‘spherification’,” Tom said. “You drop spoonfuls of ...”.

“I don’t want to know,” Helene said. She swallowed the ball, smiled and quickly ate the last one. “Tom, that was good. Thank you! Where do I pay?”

“It already came out of my bank account at the moment I placed the order. When you’re wearing a Moon suit, you’re always connected to your bank account. It’s okay, thank you for having dinner with me. I’m sorry if I was rude.”

“I’m sorry that I was rude, too. Let’s go get my new suit. I’ve always wanted to know what I would look like wearing an oil drum.” They stood and left the cafe.

“You’ll look terrific,” Tom said gallantly as they entered the crowd on the street.

“How do Moon Men guys feel about curvy women when all of your women, not to mention the men, have exactly the same shape?”

“Um,” Tom said. There was a period of silence.

“Well put,” Helene said.

Oksana led Helene into the back room of the shop, leaving Tom to page idly through a display of upgrade components on the wall. After a few minutes they returned. Helene lurched in, awkward in her new, plain white Moon suit.

“What is this thing made of?” she gasped. “It’s heavy as lead!”

“Almost,” Oksana said. “Actually, it’s tungsten.”

“Why didn’t you just make it out of solid gold? If I’m going to haul around all this weight, I should get some flash, you know?”

“Tungsten provides better protection against radiation,” Tom said seriously. “Your helmet is leaded glass for the same reason. Also, the suit meters out some anti-radiation drugs.”

“I am quite aware that this suit has needles that plug into my arms, not to mention appliances plugged into my … ” Helene said. “No wonder you need a technician to get it on or off.” She suddenly gasped, “I’ve got an itch! Oh, my God! I could die from this! How do I scratch my back?”

“Say, ‘Suit, scratch my back’,” Oksana said.

Helene said that without effect. Oksana said, “Speak into the helmet.”

Helen tried that, and looked startled. “Suit, down a little. Suit, to the left. Suit, up. Okay. Yeah, that’s it,” she said, and sighed.

“You can give the suit a name if you’d rather not say ‘Suit’,” Tom said helpfully.

“This suit is not just all over me like a cheap suit, it’s plugged in to … um, places,” Helene said. “I’m going to call it Ramone? Fifi? Robbie the Robot? Farfel the Wonder Dog? That’s disturbing on so many levels. I’ll stick with ‘Suit’, thank you. Oksana, is there a user manual for this monster?”

“Just ask the suit to do anything you need,” Oksana said. “As you get used to each other, it will get better at figuring out what you want. There are also a bunch of training videos you can watch, although I’ve got to say most of them are aimed at little kids.”

“You can also use ‘quickspeak,’” Tom said. “It’s a special control language.”

“I wondered what everybody was mumbling around me.”

“You don’t have to use quickspeak, the suit will respond to anything you ask in normal language. It’s just convenient,” Tom said. “Also, see this little dimple on your arm?” He pointed, and Helene nodded. “That’s an interface that connects to another interface on the tip of the second finger of everybody’s left hand. If you can’t figure out how to do something, let another Moon Man put his interface finger there and he can talk to your suit’s controller directly.”

“Ooh, sexy,” Helene said. “I bet all the girls want you to touch them on the interface, tiger.”

Oksana went back into the other room and returned with Helene’s rolling suitcase. Tom looked at it and raised his eyebrows.

“I’d like to come visit your family, Tom,” Helene said. “I have to make a bunch of sales calls to other Moon Men, so if you don’t mind, let me stay in the village tonight.”

“Sure, of course,” Tom said. “But you won’t need your suitcase.”

“It’s an Earth thing,” Helene said, smiling tightly. “We like to have our stuff with us.”

“Oh, okay. Moon Men don’t really have ‘stuff’.”

“I’ve noticed.”

“Do you have toothpaste or anything liquid in there?”

“Oops. I do!” Oksana had to open the suitcase for her since Helene could not do it with her gloves on. She and Helene went through the contents and discarded anything that would boil and burst in vacuum.

“Oksana, do you mind if I use your toilet before we go?” Tom asked.

“Of course not,” Oksana said.

“Toilet!” Helene sputtered, suddenly appalled. “I just … I just assumed I could just ...”

“Of course you can,” Tom said. He walked to the corner of the room and opened a panel to reveal a sort of vending machine. He reached back and extracted a box from another compartment in his backpack, and inserted it in a receptacle. “Every few days, you pull this out and put it into a toilet. There are a bunch of them in the village. The toilet takes it and gives you a fresh cartridge.” He retrieved the box and plugged it back into his backpack.

“What happens to the … you know, the contents?”

“It gets sold to a broker and you get a little credit in the bank. Organics are always worth some money.” Tom looked into his helmet and said, “You’ve only got about a one-eighth load right now. Don’t worry about it.”

“Suit,” Helene said through unmoving lips, “don’t let this guy see any of my information ever again.”

“The suit won’t take an order like that, honey,” Oksana said. “Moon Men think it’s a safety thing. Other people always get to see how you’re feeling. All right, you’re ready to go. You’ve got air and water and battery charge, and you’ve got money in the bank.”

“What happens if I run out of money?”

“The village will cover you, at least enough to get back to the city here,” Oksana said. “Nobody ever dies from being poor in the Moon Men. But you may have to transfer some funds in from Earth or make some money if you’re going to stay longer than a week or two.”

“You can stay a little longer than that just with what you’ve got,” Tom said, looking again into his helmet. “I know some cheap sources.”

“Stop looking at my bank account!” Helene said.