Benning, tube three. Cooper, tube four…”
Sasha shook her head in amazement. “I’ve spent a lot of time in space but never seen anything like this.”
I felt defensive. “Sorry, but you had the expense money, and this is what $800.00 will buy.”
Sasha smiled apologetically, stood on tiptoes, and kissed my cheek. “Don’t worry, Max. Tube four is fine.”
I touched the place where she had kissed me. Was it my imagination, or was that particular spot warmer than the surrounding skin? I wanted to say something, wanted to thank her, but she had lowered herself into a tube by the time I was ready. My alias was called shortly thereafter. I looked, but the man in the green sports coat was nowhere to be seen.
I trudged over to the cargo module, peered down into tube twenty-four, and inhaled the powerful odor of disinfectants. I kneeled, placed a hand on the cold concrete, and jumped. There was padding in the bottom and all around the sides. I bounced slightly and looked around. There was nothing much to see except for a tiny, almost miniscule vid screen, a headset with mic, and some waist-high tubing. I was still trying to understand what the tubing was for when a voice said, “Have a nice trip,” and a lid slammed closed over my head. There was a moment of complete darkness followed by a yellow glow as the light came on over my head.
The vid screen came on about the same time that the cargo module jerked, swayed, and went horizontal. The screen swirled and coalesced into a picture of a pleasant-looking, middle-aged freelancer. I fumbled the headset onto my head in time to hear most of her spiel. “…join us aboard FENA Air. Now, settle back in padded comfort while your high-tech passenger module is loaded aboard one of our first-class ships, and lifted into orbit.
“The trip to Staros-3 will take approximately two hours. If you wish to catheterize yourself, please do so now, as the safety restraint system will make movement difficult during the journey itself.”
Now that I knew what the tube was for, I was determined not to use it. The woman continued to talk. “… medical emergency, then please notify the ship’s crew via your headset, and they will make sure that medical personnel are waiting when we dock with Staros-3.
“So, settle back into the padded privacy of your personal transportation enclosure, and enjoy the trip.”
Personal transportation enclosure? Who the hell did they think they were kidding? My enclosure was little more than a padded mailing tube, completely inaccessible during flight, and vulnerable to all sorts of potential dangers. Not to mention the fact that my accommodations would push the average claustrophobe over the edge in a matter of minutes.
The universe jerked as the autoloader came to a halt, then started into motion again as the cargo module was pushed up and into the shuttle’s belly, where it was hooked to the ship’s life support systems. Oxygen hissed in through a nozzle located next to my head, caressed my cheek with an ice-cold hand, and slid down my neck.
Maybe the oxygen stirred it up, or maybe it would have made itself known anyway, but the thick odor of sweat, vomit, and god knows what else oozed out of the tube’s nooks and crannies, overwhelmed the disinfectants, and filled my nostrils with a sort of funky perfume. It made me gag.
The restraint system was activated without warning. The first thing I noticed was a snug feeling as the padding pushed in around me. Then it had me in a soft but insistent embrace that allowed for almost no movement at all. But the laws of physics prevailed, and I felt the additional half-gee as the shuttle accelerated down the runway and blasted off. Though unable to see outside, I had seen countless takeoffs on television, and knew how it was supposed to work. Or thought I did, anyway.
Unlike the space shuttles used back in the 1990’s, the current equivalents used standard runways for takeoff. Once airborne they used air-turbo-ram-jets to reach Mach 25, or more than 17,000 mph. The trick was to compress the air through the use of turbines at lower speeds and use the force of the incoming supersonic air stream to compress the air at higher speeds. Or was it the other way around? In any case, rockets kicked in at Mach 16 or so, boosted the shuttle to Mach 25, and thus into orbit.
There were other factors too, such as the high-strength, temperature-tolerant materials that went into the hull, and the complicated technologies that cooled the aircraft’s skin. Taken together, they made the trip into orbit as routine as a flight from Los Angeles to New York had been a hundred years before. Unless you were making the trip in a glorified mailing tube, that is…which I don’t recommend to anyone. How do I remember this stuff? And forget less complicated junk? It’s like I said before…Beats the heck out of me.
Unable to move, and with nothing to do but watch the unending commercials that FENA Air pumped onto the vid screen, it was easy to fall asleep-something I did rather quickly. When I awoke, it was to mild nausea induced by zero gravity and a gentle bump as the shuttle docked with Staros-3. The inevitable announcement followed. Video swirled and the woman reappeared. She seemed happy with the way things were going.
“Welcome to Staros-3. There will be a short wait while your module is unloaded and steered into one of the habitat’s locks. Once the lock has been pressurized, and it’s safe to leave your enclosure, the door will open and you may exit. On behalf of FENA Air, and your flight crew, it has been a pleasure having you aboard.”
The woman disappeared and was replaced by live pictures of the docking process. It felt good to see what was actually going on. My stomach lurched as the module was freed from the shuttle’s cargo bay and pushed towards the habitat’s lock. The push was supplied by a one-person tug, no more than a sled with steering rockets, but sufficient for the job. The task was trickier than it looked, since the habitat had some spin on it, and the operator had to take that into account.
Once we were inside the lock, automatic cargo-grappling equipment grabbed hold of our module and clamped it in place. That’s when the process came apart. There was a forty-minute delay while modules filled with more important materials-like food, water, and toilet paper-were nudged into the lock, followed by a thirty-minute pause as the technicians made repairs to a faulty hatch mechanism, and a fifteen-minute wait as the doors closed and the bay was pressurized.
So, by the time the restraint system had released us from its mushy grasp, and we were allowed to climb out of the tubes, everyone had to pee in the worst possible way. Everyone except for the androids, that is, and a woman who had either catheterized herself prior to takeoff, or discovered a way to pee while standing up without wetting her pants in the process.
Gravity was about half Earth-normal, which caused most of us to move with extreme care, the exceptions being the androids, who had been programed for this sort of thing, and experienced spacers like Sasha, who made it look easy.
And so it was that a small group of grim-faced passengers shuffled, pranced, and groped their way towards the habitat’s center, encountered more gravity the further they went, and barged into a unisex rest room. There were a sufficient number of booths, but the fixtures were strange, and it took me five minutes to decipher the pictograph- style instructions and make mine do what it was supposed to. Sasha was waiting when I emerged. She seemed amused. “It’s nice to have you back. I wondered if I’d see you again.”
“Funny. Very funny. It’s not my fault that you need an engineering degree to operate the toilet.”
She looked quizzical. “What about all those years in space?”
I tapped the skull plate. The hat got in the way, but she understood. “Brain damage, remember? I can’t recall anything prior to my discharge from the Mishimuto Marines. Well, most of the time, anyway, although I have flashes once in a while, and dreams that seem real.”
Sasha shrugged. “Yeah, it seems funny, that’s all. Well, let’s get busy and find our cabins.”
I felt my face go blank. “Cabins?”
Her expression said it all. But there was no comment this time, and no recriminations, as she’d had time to think the matter through and made a conscious decision to tolerate my lapses. I didn’t know which was worse, being yelled at for being stupid, or escaping criticism for the same reason.
We headed for the habitat’s Administrative Control Section, waited through a line, and asked a graffiti-covered android for separate cabins. None were available, so we agreed to share a double, dropped one thousand four hundred and fifty dollars of the money Sasha had collected from Murphy Enterprises, and retreated to the cafeteria. It boasted a 360-degree view, and, thanks to the fact that we were a full hour ahead of the next shift change, there were plenty of tables. They had padded edges, were welded to the floor, and came with four stools apiece.
So there we were, sitting at our table and gazing at what was left of Mother Earth, when the man in the green sports coat appeared. I should have been surprised, but wasn’t somehow. He had carefully combed hair, narrow-set eyes, and heavily creased frown lines. A sack dangled from his right hand. The contents were round and about the size of a bowling ball. He gestured towards the table. “Mr. Doud…Ms. Cooper…may I join you?”
I looked at Sasha and she shrugged. “Sure, why not?”
“‘Why not,’ indeed,” the man said as he took his seat. “It’s so much more pleasant when people talk rather
