filled—meats, vegetables, fruits, all held in place by elastic netting. The skin-tight plastic was invisible in the dim light. Aréchaga began to feel prickly as the lack of ventilation wrapped him in a layer of steam. All that food right out in the open and no flies. It just isn't right, he thought. He shrugged and picked out three apples.

"Keep the doctor away?" he asked as he swam back into the control room. Hagstrom nodded and caught one.

"Thanks, I'm not hungry," van den Burg said. He put his book under the net and began taking his own pulse.

"Something wrong?" Aréchaga asked.

"Must have been something I ate," he grunted.

Hagstrom eyed his half-eaten apple with distaste. "I must have eaten some too." He threw the apple into the disposal and belched. Aréchaga looked at him worriedly.

Two days passed. Hagstrom and van den Burg sampled food fretfully. Aréchaga evacuated the disposal twice in six hours and watched them worriedly. "Are you guys thinking the same thing I am?" he asked.

Van den Burg stared for a moment. "Looks that way, doesn't it?"

Hagstrom started to say something, then dived for a bag and vomited. In a moment he wiped his mouth and turned a pale face toward Aréchaga. "This is how it started with the others, isn't it?" he said.

Aréchaga began talking into the recorder. He killed spin long enough to squirt. In a few minutes the razzy speaker again made them part of Earth. "—and hope for the best," the general was saying. "Maybe you'll adjust after a few days." The voice faded into background noise and Aréchaga turned off the player.

"Any ideas?" he asked. "You know as much medicine as I do."

Van den Burg and Hagstrom shook their heads listlessly.

"There's got to be a reason," Aréchaga insisted. "How do you feel?"

"Hungry. Like I hadn't eaten for two weeks."

"The same," Hagstrom said. "Every time I eat it lays like a ton of lead. I guess we just aren't made for zero grav."

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