The Cubes
by
Elizabeth Tankersley
Every few months, when the warp drive of the USS Enterprise needed recalibration, Captain Kirk liked to let a few of his helm and navigation
officers do the work. His belief was that the officers would be better at their jobs if they had some idea of the power and complexity behind
their control consoles. Chief Engineer Scott, on the other hand, subscribed to the firm belief that disaster was imminent if anything in a yellow
shirt got near his “bairns.” In time, the two stubborn men had come to a compromise: the captain’s command officers would perform the
calibration, and Scotty would send one of his best men to perform some trivial Engineering task—with the understanding that he would keep
an eye on the others and ensure they didn’t—touch—anythin’.
“Don’t touch that,” said Lieutenant Kyle automatically, glancing up from the transporter circuit he was ostensibly refitting.
“I wasn’t going to touch it!” answered Lieutenant Kevin Riley with a touch of annoyance. He had spent all morning checking and re-checking
relative sidereal position coordinates, and he still wasn’t more than halfway through the spiral arm. He gave another wistful glance to the red
button he hadn’t been thinking about pressing, and then turned his attention to the upper deck of Engineering, where Lieutenant Hikaru Sulu
was double-checking the spectral shift values of several reference stars. “Hey, Sulu,” he shouted, “how’s it coming?”
“Slowly,” the helmsman replied with a wry smile. He looked down at the corner opposite Riley, where Ensign Pavel Chekov had one eye on a
viewer and the other on a cumbersomely long printout. “What about you, Chekov? How are you doing with those compensatory gravitational
calculations?”
“It will be sevweral more hours. The numbers must be accurate to sevwenteen significant figures.” He spoke stiffly and formally, choosing his
words with care. It was only Chekov’s third week on the Enterprise, and while he already excelled at his duties, he was still uncomfortable in
casual environments.
“Well, then,”—Sulu swung himself onto the ladder and hopped easily down onto the lower deck—“why don’t we break for lunch?”
Riley stuck his hands into his pockets and took a big step away from the computer he had been staring at. “Nobody has ever,” he drawled,
“said anything that I have been happier to hear.”
Sulu grinned. “I thought as much. Chekov?”
The ensign started a little, nearly dropping his printout. “Um, yes. Lunch vwould be . . . most vwelcome.”
“Join us for lunch, Mr. Kyle?”
“Certainly,” said the Englishman. “Lunch does sound quite v—welcome.”
Sulu pressed the wall communications panel. “Galley? Lunch for four to Engineering Level Three.”
Chekov had finally wandered over to join the others, and by now he was glancing about in confusion at the table that was not present on the
Engineering deck. “But vwhere . . . ?”
“Mr Scott always says these floors are clean enough to eat from,” said Kyle.
“Then I guess we’ll prove him right,” Sulu agreed. “You don’t have any problem with sitting cross-legged?”
“Of course not.”
Two yeomen in red dresses entered through the sliding doors, each with a tray. “Wonderful,” exclaimed Riley, striding up to meet them.
“Fastest galley service in the ‘Fleet. Thank you, ladies,”—gallantly snatching and balancing both trays—“we’ll take these.”
Chekov’s nervousness was forgotten as the four men sat in a circle around four glasses of milk and four covered dishes. Mathematics really
was hungry work, and he had so far been very pleased with the food the Enterprise had to offer. Her galley was very skilled, and even the
replicators were capable of producing cuisine far above the quality of any cafeteria’s. It was therefore with eager anticipation that he removed
the lid from his dish. It was with bewilderment, however, that he regarded the contents. His plate, like those of his companions, was stacked
with red, yellow, and green cubes about one inch on each side. They all appeared to be made out of a plastic with the consistency of
modeling clay and the slickness of flan. Chekov stared down at the cubes in silence and began to feel a little sick.
“What’s the matter?” asked Sulu with his mouth full. “Haven’t you had the cubes before?”
“Vwhat . . . are . . . these?”
“Cubes,” said Riley. “Eat ‘em. They’re tasty.”
“Vwhat kind of cubes?”
“Cubes.”
“Vwhat kind of cubes?”
“Just cubes,” Riley answered. “You know, cubes.”
“I do not know cubes.” Emotional disquiet joined Chekov’s incipient nausea. Something was wrong about these evasive answers.
“What are you, some kind of a finicky eater?” Kyle teased.
“I am not a finicky eater.” Chekov looked up at his companions with smoldering eyes. “I simply like to know vwhat it is that I am eating. Tell me,
vwhat is in the cubes?”
The three lieutenants looked at each other in silence. Now Chekov was sure they were hiding something. He glanced from Sulu to Kyle to
Riley, meeting each of their nervous eyes in turn. Finally Kyle broke the silence. “Why, they’re—er, they’re nutrient cubes, of course. Most
convenient for eating on the job. The red ones have, er, protein and iron, the yellow have essential fibers and starches, and the green ones,
er, the, er, green ones have, er—”
“Vitamins,” Sulu finished. “Vitamin A, Vitamin B12, Vitamin K . . . You know, vitamins.”
“I know vitamins,” Chekov muttered darkly. But still he did not touch his plate. He could tell the others were lying, hiding something from him
about the cubes, and he would not eat until they told him what it was. Automatically he turned to Sulu. The helmsman had answered so many
of his other questions, had shown him around and helped him get his bearings on the new ship. Already Chekov thought of him as a mentor
and friend. “Mister Sulu,” he said earnestly, “please tell me about the cubes.”
“Vitamins,” said Sulu without looking him in the eye.
Chekov stiffened and spoke with whispered intensity. “I may not know much about this ship. But I know that you are lying. I know that you are
hiding something. Tell me about the cubes.”
Sulu popped a green cube into his mouth. “We just did.”
“Wery well. Then tell me the truth about the cubes.”
Sulu looked down and took a deep breath. “Look, Chekov, it’s . . . ,” he began, then trailed off and looked at Riley for help.
Riley picked it up. “Kid, you ever hear the saying ‘Ignorance is bliss’?”
Chekov looked confused. “It is . . . an old Russian saying.”
“Sure. Well, it applies in this case. Sometimes it’s just better not to ask. You get it?”
“No.” Chekov’s natural curiosity would have prevented him from being satisfied even in the absence of this growing suspicion and dread. “I do
not care what it is you are hiding. I want to know what is in the cubes. You must tell me about the cubes.”
“Mr Chekov, please stop asking about the cubes,” said Kyle.
“Tell me about the cubes!”
Sulu put down the red cube he was holding and gripped Chekov’s shoulder, staring intensely into his eyes and speaking with an eerie
coolness. “Don’t worry about the cubes, Chekov. Eat the cubes, Chekov.”
“Nyet!” Chekov pulled back his arm with sudden force and glared back at his alleged friend, breathing hard. The shout echoed through the
section, and no one spoke or moved.
Finally Kyle broke the tension. “Gentlemen,” he said with forced calm, “obviously emotions are running high about the nutrient cubes. I
suggest we move on to another topic. How about, er . . .”
Riley snapped his fingers. “The Enterprise’s last mission! Boy, was that a success!”
Sulu was instantly himself again. “I’ll say. Captain Kirk really outdid himself that time.”
Chekov did not join the conversation. Nor did he touch the cubes, or even take a sip of the milk. He sat sullenly, cold fire in his eyes, while the
others praised the Captain for his strength, the science officer for his ingenuity, and the CMO for his rather unusual brand of diplomacy, and
while they touched on the political and martial implications of the Federation’s topaline mining rights.
“But it wasn’t entirely a success,” Kyle pointed out.
“True,” agreed Riley, looking down. “Poor Grant.”
“He was a good man,” said Sulu, gazing solemnly at a green cube. He felt Chekov’s eyes on him and quickly looked up again, but Chekov had
caught the stare. The two others had been looking at the cubes too. Chekov had read their eyes. He suddenly remembered a twentieth-
century film drama he had viewed once. His eyes widened in horror.
“Dear God,” he murmured. “It’s people. The cubes are made out of people. The cubes are people!” He looked up wildly at the others, waiting
for them to contradict him. Instead, they silently avoided his eyes as they continued eating their cubes—dear God, they were still eating the
cubes!
“What did we tell you?” asked Riley sadly.
“It would have been better for you not to have asked.”
“People,” Chekov whispered breathlessly.
In relating these events on later occasions, Lieutenant Hikaru Sulu would ascribe to himself such motives as mercy and compassion. At the
time, though, he was simply unable to restrain himself from giggling any longer. Riley and Kyle looked at each other, then burst into their own
fits of laughter. Chekov’s horror faded to perplexity, and then flared into anger.
“You—you tricked me!” he accused the still-hysterical Sulu.
“ . . . Yes!” Sulu choked, wiping tears from his eyes. “Yes—we did. Did we ever!” He surrendered to the laughter again for a moment. “But
we—look, don’t get mad at us. It’s . . . a sort of tradition.”
“Tra—tradition!?” Chekov sounded a little hysterical himself. “This was the—the vworst—the m-most horrific—the—”
“O.K., so it’s a rotten trick,” said Riley. “But we all had it played on us when we were green. It’s . . . necessary in a way. Kyle?”
“You see,” explained Kyle in his best Radio 4 English, “when a person is on a starship for the first time, he’s bound to be nervous about two
things in particular: the quality of the food and the risk of death. This particular deception, by giving the victim, well, rather a severe shock,
dissipates some of these anxieties.”
“Also,” put in Sulu, chuckling a little, “it’s just a really good trick.”
Chekov felt somewhat dizzy. “Then . . . the cubes . . . ?”
“Nutrient cubes,” said Kyle.
“Technically, we were telling the truth,” said Sulu. “We just . . . allowed your assumptions to run away with you. Eat one.”
With a trembling hand, Chekov forced a red cube into his mouth and bit in. He opened his eyes in surprise. It tasted like steak. Fresh, hot,
juicy steak. Even the texture was pleasant. He swallowed and reached for a yellow one.
“See? I told you they were tasty.”
Chekov gulped down some of the milk and smiled. His anger was soon forgotten in the satisfaction of a good lunch. And, curiously, the
lieutenants’ trick seemed to have had its effect in reducing his anxiety. That afternoon was his most relaxed yet on board the Enterprise. He
would continue to enjoy the ship’s cuisine, and he would not think too hard about her death rates. The warp drive, meanwhile, was
recalibrated more exactly than ever, the transporter circuits were refit so many times they would have to be replaced early, and Kyle’s
vigilance kept a disaster from befalling Mr. Scott’s precious engines.
But it was two months before Pavel Chekov would eat the green cubes.