I smile, despite myself. I’m sitting in a space platform under IBDD quarantine, after a decomissioning shuttle disintegrated in orbit. Half the world’s media is yelling screwup and the other half conspiracy; the IBDD has canceled all its inspections until further notice and three countries have issued statements declaring they’ve decided to review IBDD participation in their own decommissioning operations. But things are quiet in Africa.
After that long, slow moment of lag—well beyond operating distance—he returns my smile. “Any chance I could talk you into coming out into the field again, next time you’re down? We should still be here; we’ve got some excellent colleagues, including some I’m sure you’ll have heard about, in telesurgery.”
“Luis… let me think. That’s not an evasion, I do need to think.”
He nods. “You should go. I don’t want you spending all your salary on expensive calls—”
“When you’ve expensive drugs to spend it on. I’ll send you a vmail. Look after yourselves. All of you. Stay safe.”
His smile is sweetly ironic, and fades just as one hand be gins to reach out to me, as I, deceived by the virtual image of him, reach out in turn, into the unseen space beyond the virtual image. The surgery interface re-forms around me, a series of windows on the two ORs still running, the biosensor outputs from recovering patients, a reminder from Julian about our appointment in the doctor’s lounge, from Luther about the need to start antifungal prophylaxis, from the research coordinator about the necessity of registering our optouts if we object to the medical information gained from our exposure (putative exposure) and prophylaxis being distributed to the scientific community…
Five facets of the icosahedral doctor’s lounge look up, or down, if you will, on Earth. It’s dark now, though if we turned off all our lighting, we could see the civilizations of Earth sprinkled across the landmasses. Only the seas of Earth are dark. And the space above.
Y’ slouches beneath the window, rumpled and squinting. Even without the contrast, Nuria would look graceful, even in the knees-up astronaut tuck. Julian hangs beside her, tethered by one arm to a strut, sucking on a coffee-sac. The dayshift duty-docs orbit them gently, as though they are convalescents and their recovery, precarious.
Julian lifts an eyebrow to me. “And how was your night?”
Alison Sinclair is the author of Legacies, Blueheart, Cavalcade (nominated for the Arthur C. Clarke Award) and Throne Price (with Lynda Jane Williams). She has lived in Colchester (England), Edinburgh, Victoria (BC), Hamilton, Boston, Leeds (England), Calgary, and Ottawa. She has done basic and medical research. In 1999 she graduated from the University of Calgary with an MD and now works in Victoria as a medical writer. When not working or writing she sings, swims, dabbles in computers, and fantasizes about being perfectly organized. Her Web site is at http://www.sff.net/people/asinclair/.
I Knew a Guy Once
by Tanya Huff
WANTED: SERVERS, CLEANUP CREWS
Temporary and permanent staffers needed for station recreation facilities. Apply in person to the Quartermaster’s Office. On-the-job training provided. Minimum wage. Shift negotiable, but failure to appear for scheduled work will result in immediate dismissal.
Applicants must show proof of station residence or have a valid employee number.
Although there were only two people in the passenger compartment of the supply shuttle, the cramped quarters had them practically in each other’s laps. The company had no intention of wasting shipping space on privacy; nearly every square millimeter of the four-by-eight-meter compartment they weren’t actually occupying had been filled with labeled containers.
As the shuttle left Io, they were a study in contrasts.
The young man, his environmental suit still so new it crinkled softly when he moved, gripped his helmet tightly in both gloved hands. He wore his dark hair at the Company’s regulation length, but it looked to have been styled rather than cut. His face was tanned with high spots of color on both cheeks, and he was trying too hard to appear unafraid.
The older woman’s short gray hair seemed to have been hacked off during a power shortage, when lights, as unessential, were the first thing to be shut down. Her skin had the almost translucent paleness of someone who’d spent her entire life protecting it from high UV, and her environmental suit was so old it had digital readouts in the cuff. As soon as the main engines cut off, she closed her eyes and went to sleep.
Tried to go to sleep.
“They say that this last bit from Io to the station isn’t as dangerous as it used to be.”
She opened her eyes and turned her head enough to see him smiling at her, his teeth very white, his lips pulled back just a little too far. “They’re right,” she said at last.
His smile relaxed a little although the rest of him remained visibly tense. “I’m Simon Porter. Dr. Simon Porter. I’m the new station psychologist.”
“What happened to the old one?”
“What? Oh. Well, actually, there wasn’t one. The Company only brings a psychologist out to the mining stations when there’s a problem they can’t solve through the usual channels.”
“Wouldn’t it make more sense to keep you on staff?”
“Too expensive.” He seemed proud of it.
“So, what’s me problem?”
“I’m afraid that’s privileged information.” He seemed proud of that, too. “But I can tell you that things seem very shaky on the station right now. Stress levels rising. You know…”
“Yeah.” And something in that single syllable suggested she did. Probably better than he did.
“I specialize in isolation psychosis. This is sort of a dream job for me.”
The following pause lengthened into expectation.
“Able Harris. I’m the new bartender for downside.”
“So we’re in the same line of work. You listen, I listen.”
“You pour drinks?”
“No, but…”
“Well, there’s your difference. I’m a bartender.”
“Okay.” His tone touched patronizing. “I’ve never been in a downside bar.”
Able turned just enough to look him full in the face.
“I’ve never actually been downside,” he admitted. “Or on a mining station at all.” He cleared his throat, as though confused by his confession. “So what happened to the old bartender?”
“He died.”
Dr. Porter nodded sympathetically. Everyone knew death and downside were intimately acquainted. “Of what?”
“Well, they said it was the sucking chest wound, but I suspect it was actually the wrench to the back of the head.”
“He was killed?”
Able shrugged philosophically. “Might’ve been an accident.”
“He was accidentally hit on the back of the head with a wrench?”
“It happens.”
He studied her face, dark brows knit together so tightly they met over the bridge of his nose. After a long moment, he nodded and relaxed. “I may be fresh out of the gravity well, but I’m not totally gullible. You’re making fun of the new guy. I’m onto you, Able… may I call you Able?”
“Everybody does,” she told him, unaffected by his accusation.
“It’s an unusual name. I assume it’s not the one you were born with?”
“Why?”
“Well, it’s just… unusual.”
She stretched as far as the straps allowed. “I knew a guy once named Strawberry Cho.”
“He had a birthmark?”
“No, he had a mother who was so homesick she didn’t consider the consequences.”