Think of this next time you get invited out to eat...

I thought I should get all this down. I want someone to know what really happened. It wasn't my fault. Really It wasn't anyone's fault, at least anyone on the expedition. I'll start at the beginning, I guess that's the logical thing to do. I'll try to be brief, I guess I don't have much choice, but enough of this. The mission started without a flaw. We boarded the space shuttle on a bright, clear Florida morning. I seem to remember birds singing. The trip into orbit and the high orbit injection into the ships orbital path went without a hitch. I remember seeing the ship for the first time, at least the first time in real life, I'd seen the holo's and flat's of her, but it isn't quite the same thing as being there, you know what I mean? Nearly a third of a mile long, she had the grace that can only be attained from construction in orbit, a kind of lacy look that reminded me of my grandmother's doilies. We came up on her from below, as we passed over her, the sun came over the horizon and back lit the entire scene. It took your breath away. We docked and quickly transferred our personals into the ship, with the 20 kilo restriction on personals it didn't take long. Johnson, the ships lead engineer laughed when he saw my dulcimer, I guess it is a little odd, but I've had it for years and couldn't imagine being without it. But I digress, though I do wonder what will happen to it. We stowed our gear and then went to our sections. My section is hydroponics. Since the mission was to be over three years long it was decided we would take minimal food supplies. Instead we would take along enough for a month or two, enough for the 'ponics to get going. Then we would eat fresh fruit, vegetables and have cultured yeast cakes that could be flavored and textured like meat. Right, that's how it was supposed to work. But I get ahead of myself, were was I? Oh yes, I checked out the tanks and the grow mats. I inventoried all the spares and the seed packets. Everything was ship shape, I thought. The gradual acceleration was hardly noticeable, it wasn't long before we stopped being a satellite of Earth and instead became a separate entity on a hyperbolic course that was to intersect with Mars in about a year and a half. Once we had achieved max velocity, about two weeks out, the engines where shut down and carefully gone over by Johnson and his crew. Funny thing, Johnson turned out to be about the only one who would listen for any length of time when I played the dulcimer in the ships lounge, I guess there is no figuring, I kind of miss him, but again I get ahead of myself. Once we reached max velocity, it was time for me to get to work. I unshipped the nutrient solutions, loaded the tanks, "planted" the seed in their growth mats, and then switched on the special, multi-spectral lamps that would insure proper growth. The first week was text book. The plants grew, with an acceptable number of no grows. The yeast fed hungrily on its initial solution. The plan was eventually to feed it with processed mulch from the waste from the vegetables and fruits. You see it was specially tailored to handle plant and animal proteins. It wasn't until the second week that things started going wrong. At first I couldn't for the life of me find anything wrong. The temperature was perfect, the feed solution concentrations correct, all automatic watering timers and circuits functioning. The plants just stopped growing. I watched helplessly as row after row withered and died. I was able to recover all of their mass, mulch it and feed it to the yeast. The captain was mad, let me tell you. I showed him the logs and kept him posted. Even though he could find nothing wrong with my procedure he seemed to blame me. Anyway, the first batch was a wash out. The only thing that was edible was the yeast cakes. I cleaned the growth mats, flushed the systems and planted the backup set of seeds. Again they grew like mad for the first week. Then, as the seed pod nutrients where used up, they withered and died. I feed their remains, those I didn't need for analysis, to the yeast. The crew was starting to grouse about the steady yeast cake diet. I avoided the crews lounge. The analysis of the plants showed improper sugar production. I checked the lamps, and then re-checked them against the original ship's manifest. Guess what I found? A single digit in the model numbers had been transposed. Probably some damn bean counter had miss entered it, a one in a million error. He was probably sitting at home eating a nice big steak. The lamps we had would tan you real good, but for the 'ponics they where useless. The captain was livid. He radioed the problem back to Earth, they said we had to solve it because we where beyond the point where they could send an unmanned drone to us with supplies. They gave us several un-workable solutions. The captain told them what they could do with their suggestions and broke contact. What could they do? Fire him? After glowering at me for several minutes the captain dismissed me and called a meeting of the senior officers. I wonder if that's when the lottery was thought up? Maybe as a long range, last ditch contingency plan? I called Johnson and asked him to work on a solution, after all, Edison had created light bulbs in a very primitive lab. We had the best minds and the best facilities you could cram into a third of a mile space ship. Unfortunately, we didn't have any thallium oxide. It seems the lamps had thallium oxide in the alloy of their filaments. We tried everything we could think of. The crew started calling us the alchemists. I got tired of being asked if we had made any gold yet. I ran small test batches of the least popular vegetables, much to the nutritionist's chagrin. We gave up when we ran out of asparagus. The yeast tanks performed beautifully, at least until we started running out of proteins to feed them. We even tried recircing the waste processing system into one of the tanks. What a mess, it seemed the yeast wasn't able to handle bile, it just rolled over and died and me with no assistant to clean it up. Anyway, we were six months out and the yeast tanks where beginning to go when Johnson broke his neck. The fool was working on one of the laundry machines with the circuit energized. The machine started, his sleeve got caught and in zero gravity it flung him into the bulkhead. He died instantly. I still don't know where the original idea came from. Nobody would admit to the suggestion, but we tried it anyway. The processing mulchers had a tough time, but the yeast didn't seem to care, it just produced more gas and merrily converted the proteins. I couldn't stand to be in there with it the first week. I started playing the dulcimer to the yeast after that. After that infusion of protein the tanks lasted for about a month. Then, they started to die off again. Since no one had the good grace to get killed, the captain started the lottery. My roommate was one of the first to get an invitation. I started going in only to take readings and process the yeast, I felt like a ghoul. I tried not eating the stuff, but after a couple of weeks I had to. It tasted like shit, but it would keep you alive, I guess. It was about the tenth month out that the crew got fed up with the yeast cakes. They wanted better taste and texture. The nutritionist fueled the fire by saying the yeast was removing to many of the essential nutrients and we hadn't brought the proper vitamin supplements for this kind of emergency. The lottery took on a different cast at that point. The plan was that the good of the many out weighed the good of the one if you get my drift. They tranquilized you to death and then Bon Appetite. With proper rationing it took one crew member per month. Oh well, I wanted to lose a few pounds, not a diet I would recommend however. There where 110 of us at the start of the mission. Needless to say we began immediate intensive cross training. You never knew who would be next. The crew's lounge was deserted. It was uncomfortable knowing that the guy you played cards with could end up as dinner. Reminded me of the joke about the cannibal child being told not to play with the missionary children, you know, it's not polite to play with your food? Well, it's almost over. I can see Mars from the view port. The captain feels we should be able to get the thallium from the surface. I hope so, but it's a moot point for me. Yes, the lottery was the fairest thing, even the Captain's name was in it. The computer listing was verified each run, anybody could verify it at any time. It worked too. I guess I'm finished. I hear them knocking. I'll put this record with my personals, inside the dulcimer, I hope somebody finds it. You see I got my invitation today. I've been invited over for dinner.