November 27, 2053
Must get coffee! Lai thought as she walked sleepily down the gray corridor toward the commissary. It was not quite six in the morning, but she couldn’t sleep due to her thin, lumpy mattress at the low-budget Prometheus base. As she entered the commissary’s small dining area, she saw Kapono and Haruto lifting what looked like a holographic TV out of a large box. “What’re you two up to so early in the morning?”
“Getting this set up for everyone,” Haruto replied. “It’s Thanksgiving, and you know what that means!”
“Uh… parades?” Lai guessed.
“Football!” Kapono said with a grin as he and Haruto lifted the big black, flat mechanism onto a table. “And parades, too. We should have it ready in time for the Macy’s parade if you want to watch it.” Kapono and Haruto had driven up to Lawrence the previous Sunday to buy the TV so they and their teammates who remained at the base over the holiday could watch football and other programs in state-of-the-art 3D.
“Okay, maybe I’ll check it out.” Lai hadn’t watched a Thanksgiving parade since she was a child. I wonder if they still have the Kung Fu Panda and Pikachu balloons? She wasn’t a football fan, but she knew Kapono and Haruto were. “So, who’s playing today?”
“The first game is Vikings at Lions,” Kapono replied. “The next one might interest you, Lai—49ers at Cowboys.” Lai was born in San Jose and had lived in Northern California most of her life. “Haruto’s rooting for the Cowboys, of course.” The Prometheus flight director, a native Texan, grinned at Kapono. “Then, the big game—for me, anyway: Patriots vs. Kings in Honolulu! I’d love to be there for that one.”
“You should’ve gone home for it, K,” Lai said as she picked up some packing material from the floor. “We could’ve survived without you for a few days, you know,” she kidded.
“Yeah, I know. But I thought I’d stay here for Thanksgiving, since I already took a week off to see my dad.” The real reason Kapono had chosen to stay at the Prometheus base for Thanksgiving was because he knew Lai had no family to visit over the holiday. Although she’d seemed detached and withdrawn when she’d joined the Prometheus project about one year earlier, he thought she’d become more outgoing and lighthearted in that time. He’d invited her to join him on his recent trip home to Maui, but she’d declined; she thought one of the team’s two top physicists should be there to help finish preparations for the vital test flight of Chronos 1 in a few days.
“Okay, then.” She looked at the TV the two men were setting up. “I guess with that thing, it’ll be almost like sitting in the stands, huh? Need any help with it?”
Kapono turned away from the sleek black box and smiled at Lai. “Sure, thanks! With two quantum physicists working on it, we can’t miss!”
* * *
Commissary Manager Miro Bottura was working feverishly in the small kitchen, putting the finishing touches on Thanksgiving dinner for the Prometheus team. He glanced at his watch and saw it was almost 1430 hours. Kapono and Haruto had asked if they could have dinner about that time, as it was in between football games. There’s more to Thanksgiving than football! Miro scoffed as he took the candied yams out of the oven. Family and friends… and food! He smiled as he looked with satisfaction at the roast free-range turkey he’d prepared. THAT was hard to come by, he mused. He had to travel nearly 60 miles to Overland Park to buy it. That, and the little surprise I got for my Favorite Customer. And just then, that customer poked her head into the kitchen.
“How’s it going, Miro?” Lai asked. “Need any help?” Although she’d spent little time in a kitchen in recent years, as a child and teen she’d learned a lot about cooking from her mother.
“I think I have things under control, Lai, but thank you,” Miro replied in his Italian accent.
Lai stepped into the kitchen and lifted her nose into the air, sniffing a wonderful aroma. “Is that…” She looked at the countertop and spied something she hadn’t seen in years. “Salmon! Where the heck did you get that?” Lai knew that even farm-raised salmon had been almost impossible to find for many years due to pollution and climate change.
“A little something special for you, for the holiday.” Miro knew that Lai was a pescatarian.
Lai put her arms around the stocky commissary manager. “Thank you, Miro! First, the best coffee in the world, now this.”
Miro turned around to face Lai. It’s time to come clean on the coffee—I can’t keep taking credit for it. “Lai, you have to promise not to tell anyone else about this, but… that coffee isn’t my doing. Katherine buys specialty beans every month in a shop in Overland Park. She’s been doing that on the sly since she joined the project over two years ago. I just grind the beans.”
“Oh!” That sounds like something Katherine would do, Lai thought. “Okay… thanks for confiding in me. My lips are sealed!”
“Would you help me bring the food out to the table?” Miro asked as he picked up the tray of sliced turkey.
“Certainly!” Lai grabbed two bowls of mashed potatoes and followed Miro into the dining area.
* * *
“I think everyone’s here,” Project Director Katherine Etter observed as she looked around the table. Several team members, including Security Chief Albert Goebel and Chief Medical Officer Alma Åhrberg, were off base, with their families. The remaining team members crowded around the cluster of small tables that Miro had covered with a large white tablecloth and decorated with candles and an autumnal centerpiece.
“Everything looks wonderful!” Chief Engineer Meira Friedman exclaimed gratefully. “Thank you for all your hard work making this happen, Miro.”
“It was my pleasure, Meira,” Miro replied. “I’m glad I could do this for all of you.” Miro had served on the Prometheus Project for nearly two years, and thus he understood the hardships of working and living in an underground base on the barren eastern Kansas prairie, disconnected from the world and far from friends and family.
Kapono studied the labels of the wine bottles on the table and noted they were all exceptional, and pricey, vintages. “You have excellent taste in wine, Katherine. Thank you for this treat.”
Katherine smiled, “You’re welcome. I know it breaks the rule about no alcohol at the base, but, what the hell—it’s Thanksgiving.” Everyone laughed. “I was thinking, given the day, it seems appropriate for us to think about what we’re thankful for—and, if you wish, share your thoughts with everyone. I’ll start.” She looked around the table at the faces of the team she’d built.
“I’m thankful for all of you—some of the most talented people in the world in your respective fields—who turned down positions offering more recognition, and certainly more money, to serve your country—and in fact the whole world—on a risky secret project with no guarantee of success. Because you knew that, if we are successful, we could save humanity from what might be a disastrous fate. I’m so grateful for each of you… and so very proud of you.”
After a few moments of silence, Kapono said with a smile, “I don’t know if I want to follow that! That was beautiful, Katherine. Thank you.”
“I’d like to share something,” Lai said softly. Everyone turned toward her. “I think you all know I don’t have any family. And when I came here, I didn’t have many friends.” Really, ANY friends, Lai thought sadly. But now isn’t the time to get into that. She looked around the table. “But in the little over one year I’ve been here, I’ve come to think of you as my friends… even my family. And I’m, uh, I’m very thankful for that.”
Kapono, who was sitting next to Lai, put his hand on her shoulder. “I’m thankful for you, Lai. I think we all are. I don’t know where we’d be today without you.” Everyone nodded or voiced their agreement. Then, starting with Kapono, everyone else shared what they were most thankful for.
“Thank you, all,” Katherine said when the last person had spoken. “Now, if it’s okay with everyone, I’d like to say a prayer that my father used to say on Thanksgiving.” Lai, who was a non-believer, and everyone else nodded. Katherine bowed her head.
“O God, we thank you for this food and remember the hungry. We thank you for our health and remember the sick. We thank you for our friends and remember the friendless. We thank you for freedom and remember those without freedom. May these remembrances stir us to service, that your gifts to us may be used for others. Amen.”
Meira spoke up, “That reminds me of something my father used to say after opening the wine at dinner: ‘Baruch ata Adonai, Eloheinu Melech ha-olam, boreh p’ri hagafen.’ That means, ‘Blessed are You, God, Ruler of the universe, who creates the fruit of the vine.’” She raised her wine glass. “L’Chaim.”
Everyone raised their glasses and echoed, “L’Chaim!”
“Let’s eat,” Katherine said with a smile. “We don’t want Haruto and Kapono to miss any football.”
(Image courtesy of Freedesignfile.com)
