“Last-minute assignment, George. We’ve got a VIP in a hurry and the ’Six-Four’s regular crew is on leave, so we’re it,” she informed him.
Peter knew that other crews were available. Kianga had likely volunteered them for the detail. A VIP assignment meant plenty of Brownie points, maybe even a promotion. For Kianga. There would be no promotion for Peter. The highest rank a Defect could hold on the rails, Peter’s current rank, was Master Porter. It was one of the few prestige positions a non-intellectual Defect could hold, on or off Earth, and so widely held by them that the image of the friendly Defect Porter had become a stereotype. As far as Peter was concerned, however, this was no disadvantage. He prided himself on the status and lifestyle that stereotype afforded him.
Kianga pointed her PDA-corn low to beam the ’Six-Four’s manifest and train specs to Peter. Peter was relieved to see the engine was an old roller, tried and true, and not one of the new, buggy mag-levs. A six-by-six wheeler, stable and fast. Two sets of three roller trucks on each side of the engine: one set for propulsion, the other for stabilization. The cowcatcher housed another pair of smaller wheel triplets. These wheels retracted along with the rest of the cowcatcher during accel and decel, so as not to destabilize the train.
Peter continued to scan the data, then stopped abruptly. “The schedule’s too tight. We’ll never make the target workstation in time.”
“We’re dumping the checkout phase. Our VIP’s got a narrow connection window to Earth,” Kianga confessed, shocking Peter with this breach in protocol. Was she bucking that hard for promotion this early into her career as an engineer? “Not by my choice, George,” continued Kianga. “Orders, legit and by The Book. You best be careful with that VIP.”
Peter wondered if Kianga’s concern was for him, her VIP passenger, or herself. “I’ll see to my duties, then,” he said, hand-floating into the Creemore.
The Creemore’s interior was appointed in a retro luxury style that boasted rich wood veneers, ornate gilt trim, chandelier lighting, and velvet curtains. Scarlet Velero-velour couches and loungers replaced conventional bench seating. The thousands of softened microscopic hooks of the Velero-velour allowed customers to adhere more easily to seating surfaces during zero-G train rides. Elegant green carpets featured the muted colors and floral designs of the early Persian styles and incorporated the same Velcro technology.
The Creemore’s main compartment was unusually luxurious, even for a Pullman. Intricate faux gold inlay and molded carvings wended their way through the veneers, up to the ceiling, men around four elaborate crystal chandeliers— each an inverted crystalline wedding cake.
Seats had been removed to create the open space necessary to allow the compartment to better resemble a true Victorian parlor. The remaining seats were high-backed and featured highly authentic mahogany finishing. If not for the lingering hint of a PVC smell, many a passenger might have thought it all real.
A pair of modern lavatory compartments bookended the Creemore’s main passenger section. Peter pulled himself through a small passage around the forward lavatory and into a short plain cubicle that spanned the width of the coach— the porter’s compartment. Through it, a small door opened onto a whitewashed, smooth walled, air lock chamber—its only inhabitant an equally colorless, and rarely used, EMU suit. Another Kevlar-baffled door led out of the air lock to the engine room. In the air lock’s ceiling, an exterior hatch opened onto space for use during extravehicular activity.
Peter surveyed the porter’s cubicle, beginning with a quick inventory check: a standard assortment of low-G refreshments and comfort paraphernalia, stocked and ready for retrieval behind clear touch panels that posed as compartment walls.
Next, Peter checked the charge on the sonic vacuum shaver and hoped he wouldn’t have to use it. Shaving a customer was his least favorite task. The smell of scorched fresh shavings recirculating within the confinement of the coach reminded him of life with his father and of the accident that killed him. The same accident had splintered Peter’s young spine back in the Venusian mines.
Even so, if not for the weakness of his legs, Peter might have ended up a miner, like his father, a less respected position with less prospects for the future. Doors that opened to Venus miners led to a life of hardship, not opportunity.
Peter floated back into the Creemore’s main passenger compartment, smoothed the lapels of his uniform, and donned his short-lipped flat-topped porter’s cap. He crossed his hands before him, precisely as he had been trained, and waited patiently for the VIP to float through the port.
The exterior air lock hatch retreats into the Creemore’s ceiling like an engine struggling against a heavy load. Peter gazes up at the widening wound of exposed space and wishes for it to take longer. He wants each moment, each sensation, to stretch to fill what’s left of his lifetime. The cold fluid press of the thermal undergarment, the stale recycled smell of charcoal-scrubbed air, the Aqua-Lung sound of mechanically assisted breath. For a moment, Peter also wishes for a tether, but realizes it would be useless. It would only transmit the force of the train decel to his EMU, tear it apart, and shatter him like a piñata.
Peter’s helmet is first to rise through the air lock’s mouth, out into space. Night-side off the Venus Orbit, no sun. It is cold inside the EMU, the fluid warmth of the thermal undergarment limited to a chilly thirteen degrees Celsius.
Peter pulls himself out using the Creemore’s handholds. Gloved hands grasp tightly to retain contact. As long as Peter and the train are attached and at constant velocity, he’s as stable, as safe, as if they were standing still. But once the brakes are applied, the train’s deceleration and his momentum will tear him off into space. If he can stop the train.
Peter makes his best attempt at a full visual sweep through the helmet’s visor assembly. No Sun, no Earth. No warmth, no familiar comfort of home. The Book is failing Peter now. It never prepared him for this. Never told him how to feel, what to think, only what to do.
Venus Orbit unfolds before Peter. A massive conglomerate of satellites, barrels, and braces slapped seemingly together like some monstrous Tinkertoy in mid-construction, each section tilting impassively out into the distance.
Peter pushes forward to the next hold. He hooks a boot around the Creemore’s edge and peers over the side onto a maddening crisscross of track. Paired steel girders, married by emaciated polymer ties, weave their gravity-defying tapestry through the spacecity. All along the rails, clusters of green and red signal lights provide redundant instructions for the engineers and their crews. Those lights call to Peter now, blinking the same blood-red, angry warning: Runaway train.
The red call LED blinked through the wood veneer over the VIP’s head. On the Velcro carpet, Peter was able to simulate a stepped walk out of his porter’s cubicle and into the passenger compartment. The walk was a Pullman Porter specialty, and in zero G, something of an acquired skill to those who, like Peter, were unable to walk at all in full or even partial G.
Com systems weren’t open to customers on board Pullmans. Instead, they were encouraged to interact directly with the porters to create a more intimate and personal travel experience. Peter welcomed this as an opportunity rather than an inconvenience.
“How about a pillow over here, George?” asked the VIP, a handsome man in his late thirties wearing a fashionable high-collared smart-suit. His thin, sandy curls topped a generous forehead and lanternlike hazel eyes that inspired confidence and comfort. He lounged comfortably in a high-back, obviously aware he was the only customer on board. Peter had recognized him earlier as Haniel Elias, one of the new fast-track VPs with the Space-Rail Company. A real Rocket Scientist, as the Boomers called them. Elias specialized in traffic flow optimization and, according to rumor, had a true love for railroading that originated with an HO-scale model train set given to him as a child.