CAPTAIN CHAOS
The Callisto-bound Leo needed a cook. What it got was a piping-voiced Jonah who jinxed it straight into Chaos.
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WE PICKED UP OUR NEW cook on Phobos. Not Phoebus or Phoebe; I mean Phobos, Mars’ inner moon. Our regular victual mangler came down with acute indigestion—tasted some of his own cooking, no doubt—when we were just one blast of a jet-tube out of Sand City spaceport. But since we were rocketing under sealed orders, we couldn’t turn back.
So we laid the Leo down on Phobos’ tiny cradle-field and bundled our ailing grub-hurler off to a hospital, and the skipper said to me, “Mister Dugan,” he said, “go out and find us a cook!”
“Aye, sir!” I said, and went.
Only it wasn’t that easy. In those days, Phobos had only a handful of settlers, and most of them
