A Voice for the Canteen

The loudspeaker in the moon-base canteen has not said a clear word for three years. It mumbles, and everybody pretends to understand.

Asha runs the canteen. Every morning she stands behind the long steel counter and listens to the speaker explain the day's menu. It sounds like a sleepy person talking under a blanket.

"Today we have noodles, mm, beans, and, mm-hm, extra rice," the speaker says.

"Extra what?" asks a technician at the front of the line.

"Extra rice," Asha says. "It always means rice."

By ten o'clock, Aziz arrives to eat his second breakfast. He is the base's repair technician, and he carries a small metal toolbox everywhere, even to meals. He sits at the end of the counter and puts a printed form in front of her.

"The supply capsule leaves Earth tomorrow at eight o'clock," he says. "The commander has given us one free slot for the canteen. We must send our order before tonight's meal."

Asha reads the form. It has two boxes, and only one can be ticked.

"Box one is a new speaker unit with a clear voice," she says. "Box two is a tray of real soil and four hundred seeds."

"Basil, mint and peppers," Aziz says, and his eyes shine. "Fresh leaves in a month. Do you remember what a fresh leaf smells like?"

"Of course I do. I am a cook." Asha folds her arms. "But I also remember what I did on Monday. I told sixty people that the noodle line was closed. Half of them heard that the moon was closed."

Aziz laughs. "That was funny."

"It was not funny when they all went to the airlock."

"The speaker is old," he says, "but it works. I have opened it three times. The wires are fine, the chip is fine, and the voice board is fine. It mumbles because it wants to mumble."

"A machine cannot want things."

"On this base, I am not sure." Aziz lowers his voice. "The old crew say the first cook talked to that speaker every night. They say it learned to whisper from her."

"That is a story for new arrivals," Asha says, but she smiles anyway.

He puts a finger on the form. "I vote for the garden. Both choices are good, so we should pick the one that makes us happy."

Asha thinks about that for a long moment. She likes the idea of green leaves in the grey canteen. She likes it so much that she feels almost guilty.

"I will decide before the evening meal," she says. "Give me one day to check something."

All afternoon, she watches the speaker. At two o'clock it mumbles that the library will close early. At three it announces a movie night, but nobody understands which movie. At four, it says something about the water recycler, and a worried engineer runs out of the room. Asha writes each mistake on a paper napkin and puts the napkins in her apron pocket. By five, she has eleven.

At six thirty, the commander's voice arrives on the wall screen with a short message. "Corridor C will close at seven for filter repair. Please use Corridor A. Thank you."

Asha nods to herself. Then she presses the speaker button and reads the message into the microphone. She speaks slowly and clearly. She wants to see what the speaker does with it.

The old speaker clears its throat with a soft crackle. "Corridor, mm-mm, closes at, mm, seven. Please use, mm, see."

"Please use what?" asks a young man by the door. "Corridor C?"

"I think it said C," says a woman beside him.

By seven, twenty people stand in front of the sealed door of Corridor C. They hold their trays and look confused. Some of them have been walking for ten minutes. A technician arrives late to the filter repair because nobody told him it had started. Aziz hurries into the canteen with his toolbox, out of breath, and finds Asha standing by the counter.

"Did you do this on purpose?" he asks.

"I read the message exactly as it was written," Asha says. "Look at the line. They are tired and hungry, and some of them are standing at a closed door. Today it was only a filter. What if tomorrow it is something serious?"

Aziz looks at the crowd. A little girl, the commander's daughter, pulls at her mother's sleeve and asks which way they should go. Nobody can answer her.

"I see," he says quietly.

"We can plant seeds next month," Asha says. "A voice that people can understand cannot wait. If the garden is good now, it will still be good later. But if somebody mishears an emergency tonight, nothing will be good."

She tears the form from the clipboard and ticks box one. Then she signs her name, and Aziz signs under it. At seven fifty-five, he walks to the commander's office and drops the paper into the order slot.

"Next month, the seeds are mine," he says when he returns.

"Next month, the soil is yours," Asha agrees. "And I will cook with the first leaf."

The capsule arrives nine days later. The new speaker comes in a white box, wrapped in soft foam. It is smaller than Asha expects, with a silver front and one round blue light. Aziz takes the old speaker off the wall and puts the new one in its place. His hands move slowly, almost kindly.

When he plugs it in, the room goes quiet. Everyone looks at the wall.

"Good evening," says the new speaker, in a clear, bright voice. "Tonight the canteen is serving noodles, beans and extra rice."

The whole room cheers. Someone throws a napkin into the air, and the commander's daughter claps both hands. Asha laughs so hard that she has to hold on to the counter.

Late that night, after the last tray is washed, Asha walks through the empty canteen. Aziz has put the old speaker in a box on the storage shelf, with a blanket around it. She turns off the lights and stops at the door.

Behind her, the box makes a tiny sound. She looks over her shoulder. The blanket moves a little, as if somebody is breathing under it.

Then, for the first time in three years, the old speaker says one word clearly.

"Wait."