The sound of Peter’s breathing breaks the hiss of the open com channel inside his helmet. Charcoal-filtered re-breather regurgitates stale gulps of air. Peter stands by, entombed in a plain white coffin waiting for a crack to open.
The air lock starts a fast decomp to ten point two psi and the weight of a thousand black stars creep up Peter’s gut. Half an hour prep instead of two. Half an hour left, little more for those on board if he fails. Peter prays he doesn’t fail, prays the bends don’t kill him before the train does.
“Good to see you again so soon, George.” Kianga’s voice startled Peter from the monotonous gelatinous mass that was his meal. A poor repast, even by low G Beanery standards.
The Beanery itself was equally bland and disorganized. A mess of simple steel chairs surrounding long rows of stainless steel tables. A single set of double doors connected to a buffet-style cafeteria that devoured Venus miners and rail personnel alike and spat them out tray-laden and disappointed.
“And you, sir,” Peter said flatly.
“Don’t he to me, George. You know I wouldn’t be here unless this was business.”
Pullman Porters were all “George” in honor of George Pullman, founder of the Pullman luxury coaches one hundred and fifty years earlier on the terrestrial rails. The tradition was revived when spacecities like Venus Orbit made rail travel practical once again by way of spring-loaded suspension trucks that featured rollers both above and below the rails. In zero G, these suspensions allowed for rapid, reliable, and economical transport, free from the fear of floating off into space.
“Well, at least that business is rescuing me from this meal,” said Peter in an affable tone. Agreeability, not conversation or wit, was Peter’s stock-in-trade. Besides, the Beanery was job territory, like any coach or engine. It demanded a certain level of deportment regardless of how many Venus ore miners polluted its atmosphere.
“Still, I’m sorry about your meal, but orders are orders, and orders don’t eat,” said Kianga, barely moving a muscle in her face.
Peter folded his linen handkerchief precisely as he had been trained, and placed it neatly by his gray Mylar plate.
As a porter, it was Peter’s job to read people, but Kianga was suspiciously impenetrable. An automaton created by The Book. Tailor-made for the rails. Two meters of stark frame that wasted no energy on emotion or body language. Brown, closely cropped curls hugged her scalp like locomotive detailing that refused to give sway even to gravity. Her broad nose, generous lips, and an absence of line from the dark skin of her face betrayed no passion. Kianga’s body held to her thirty-five-year gauge perfectly, as did her mind. Both, constant reminders to Peter of his physical inferiority. Five years Kianga’s senior, Peter measured a balding head shorter, his pale skin and atrophic legs, sharp contrasts to the steadfast Engineer.
“No matter, I wasn’t enjoying myself anyway,” Peter said. “That’s the trouble with these Beaneries—they lack atmosphere.”
Railers and miners within earshot groaned at Peter’s ancient joke. That it was more fact than joke mattered little. Beaneries were stuffed into cramped spacecity support sections, no window ports, no ambience. Even so, Peter did not appear to have impressed Kianga.
“Beg your pardon, sir, my small attempt at humor,” Peter apologized.
“A momentary aberration, George. I’m sure it won’t happen again. Levity’s not for old rollers like us,” Kianga replied, making reference to the mag-levs that were slowly replacing their wheeled trains. “We’re taking a VIP Six by Six out on an extra ran,” she continued. “A rush job, and not our usual rig, but, as I said, orders.”
Not waiting for Peter’s response, Kianga turned and did what seemed to be her low-G best to stomp disapprovingly out of the Beanery. Kianga was not one who welcomed deviations from the rules of The Book, or from routine. But then, she was even less one to ignore orders.
A Venus miner popped a desiccated head up from the crowd, “She’s absolute-zero, man. You couldn’t pay me to go back on the job off-shift with her. Don’t know why you put up with that slag anyway. Puts a man down.”
Peter said nothing and started off after Kianga, letting the spasticity of his gait speak his answer for him.
The mine reacted immediately. “You’re a Defect, man! A slag-slipping Defect.” Others miners joined in to spread the word in a wave throughout the Beanery. Rail workers, Defect porters among them, looked on silently.
Peter’s head swims. Not from one hundred percent oxygen euphoria, but from nitrogen narcosis. Effects of the air lock rapid decomp, he tells himself. Half an hour instead of two. A whole person might pass out, but not Peter, but then a whole person wouldn’t be in Peter’s position. Zero-G and low-G jobs are best held by Defects, less healthy body mass to maintain, less normal skills to unlearn, more expendable.
“You all right in there?” Kianga’s voice startles Peter from his thoughts. Her voice hollow, harsher than usual, objecting to the confinement of Peter’s helmet. Or maybe she’s lapsing again. A train wreck isn’t part of her plan—especially with a VIP on board. “Telemetry spiked an alpha on your encephalo, George,” Kianga continued. “Wanted to make sure you were still with us.”
“I’m past it now,” says Peter breathlessly.
“Good, you’re minus eight minutes to EVA.”
“And the cowcatcher?” Peter asks.
Kianga’s answer tears away Peter’s last shred of hope. “The ’catcher’s retracted and locked up top… The break mags haven’t kicked in.”
Peter hates the cowcatcher now. Hates how it stabilizes the train at constant velocity, but shakes it apart if left deployed during accel or decel. Peter hates most how it sometimes reacts with solar flares to fuse electromagnetic brakes. In rare cases, retracting the ’catcher solves the problem. But not this time. Not for Peter. This time, the ’catcher will kill him.
Peter stroked his hand across the brushed aluminum belly of the Pullman Coach car. Above it, a continuous window, like welder’s glass, stretched the car’s full eighteen meters, interrupted at intervals by anodized handholds. A single full-height access port divided the coach vertically down its center. The name, Creemore, was etched in large green-oxide script beside the port. Named for an old Canadian whistle stop, the Creemore represented the highest standards of Pullman luxury. It was almost as famous as the numbered aluminum horse that drew it, the Oh-Six-Four.
The ‘Six-Four’s usual engineer was a maverick, notorious for bending the rules to get VIP cargoes to their destinations on time. The engine itself was an unremarkable box: a standard model crowned by a thin slip of window on its forward surf ace and headed by a retractable cowcatcher that resembled the wedge-shaped grille of its old-time inspiration.
The ‘Six-Four connected through baffles to the Creemore’s forward air lock. Past the Creemore, various containers and other modes of rolling stock coupled off into the workstation’s distance.
The workstation was one of many identical zero-G hangars on Venus Orbit. Dynamic plasma displays wallpapered its surfaces, displaying an evolution of travel information and advertising. A patchwork of passenger ports poked their way through the displays and opened onto a vast central platform supporting a checkerboard of benches and track work. In moments, the platform would be teaming with the bounce-skip of rushing zero-G passengers and load crew. Once underway, however, the crew of the ‘Six-Four would consist of the standard single train Engineer and her Porter.
The Creemore’s aluminum paneling felt neither warm nor cold to Peter’s touch—a disturbing lack of temperature. Its appearance, however, was sleek and clean, nearly reflective. Now it displayed Kianga’s diffusely growing shadow.