Margaret St. Clair

“ Amy rotated the living room on its axis until the light was exactly right, and then sat down in front of her carving desk. What should she make? A statuette? A plaque? A plaque in low relief, a plaque of a flower. Somehow, she didn't want to think about animals right now.
She had sketched in the conventionalized Hermodactylus and was beginning to pick it out carefully from the background when it occurred to her that she hadn't been down to the hothouse this morning to see her plants. ”

“ What was the use of saving time in cooking if you ended up with food that wasn't any fun to eat?
"You aren't looking well, Amy," Captain Bjornson said three or four weeks later. He looked at her with the critical attention of an old friend. "You've got on a lot of cosmi-lac, but you still look peaked. What's the matter, worried about Bob? Ships don't get hurt in meteor swarms any more." ”

“ Important. (Her head hurt; how dizzy she felt!) She'd better go at once, she'd better ... go.... Cake of soap in one hand, knife in the other, panting a little, Amy set out toward her plants in a stumbling run.
She was half-way to the hothouse before it occurred to her to question the impulse which had taken her incontinently from her carving and set her in blind motion toward the hothouse, and by then it was too late. She was no longer a free agent in any sense of the term. The mental grip which had taken the rabbit and the cats to their death had tightened on her inescapably. ”

“ He's getting old, thought Amy Dinsmore, watching the gruff old codger limp around a flower bed (Bjornson had had prosthetic surgery after he lost his foot and, though it had been successful, grafts were never as flexible as natural members) , positively old. He ought to see a geriatrician right away. She'd tell him so the next time he came to see her. Talking about Robert that way!
She set the dial on the robot gardener on the front lawn to "Weeding: dandelions" and started along the path that led to the little hothouse where most of the plants Robert had sent her were growing ”

“ And as to being unpleasant, well, bollo meat commanded enormous prices in the market and, from everything she'd ever heard, the bollo was the very reverse of a fastidious feeder. Even pigs certainly weren't dainty in their eating habits. If she parboiled it in several waters and then braised it slowly, with a hint of ginger in the sauce.... Well, after all, why not?
Amy, the modeling knife in her hand, went into the hothouse again....
... "Gee, Aunt Amy, this meat's good," Robert said. He was talking with his mouth full. ”

“ I've eaten indigenous chow on three planets—four, if you call the stuff they serve you on Uranus food—and it's my opinion that there isn't a better cook anywhere in the system than you. Fact. How do you do it, anyhow? ”