Doug excluded the possibility that it was aimed at their location. Shostakovich was the only one who even knew they were here. In addition, it was practically impossible to hit something from such a distance. It had to be an enormous coincidence, meeting this object at this very moment in a small corner of space, allowing them to reach it via their spaceship. This was as probable as shooting an arrow from the Moon and hitting a specific apple in a specific orchard on Earth, but somehow that is what was happening. They simply could not pass up this chance for experiencing something new. And who knows? Maybe this thing is somehow valuable.
Doug cautiously stood up. The computer was located in a corner of the living room on a small table. To be precise, the monitor and the keyboard were there, while the actual computer was located inside the wall. Doug just needed something he could swear at when it did not do what he wanted it to do. Therefore he considered the monitor and the keyboard to be the computer, which he vociferously criticized—at least when Maria, who often defended the computer against him, wasn’t there.
He pulled himself down to the edge of the table so he could type comfortably. First Doug called up the orbital data for the foreign object, and found the orbit was unchanged. He accordingly had the computer calculate a course. It took the software only a few seconds, and it offered a list of several suggestions, sorted by flight duration. That was the most important aspect of spaceflight. They had enough fuel, but the longer they had to leave the protection offered by their shelter, the greater the risk. Doug would have liked to start today, but the computer indicated one fact quite clearly—if they launched tomorrow at noon, they would have the shortest flight.
Grrr. Doug grumbled because this meant one thing in particular. He would have to use what he referred to as ‘the mill.’ He knew, of course, this was for his own good, but he still disliked being whirled around. Nevertheless, the calendar was unrelenting. Today was his turn for experiencing a dose of gravity.
He switched off the monitor. If he couldn’t avoid it, he might as well get the requirement over with right away. Doug floated through the living room to the central pole. Instead of going down, he first pulled himself upward. He had to use the restroom before his three hours in the mill. The door to the bathroom was open. The urinal on the wall consisted of an elongated plastic cup, and Doug inserted his penis into the opening. The urine would be siphoned off and then recycled by the system. When he was done he put everything back and washed his hands. He smiled to himself as he did this. Maria had trained him well. Before he met her he rarely considered it necessary to clean his hands after using the toilet. Besides, he almost never got sick.
Doug sighed. He wasn’t looking forward to the next three hours. He pulled himself down on the pole. Behind the living room were the kitchen and the workshop on the same floor, then the life support system, where air and liquids were recycled. At the bottom was the basement. This circular room had a height of only a meter and a half, and a diameter of twelve meters. The basement was dimly lit and smelled of sweat. Cold sweat, Doug thought, probably my own.
He floated down and looked for the center of the room. There was a motor there, which could rotate a metal bar with a length of eight meters. At the end of the bar was a sort of cage, which was well-padded, especially at the bottom. Doug moved to the wire cage, opened a door at the front, and pulled himself inside. This cage would become his prison for the next three hours. It contained a kind of low stool and a control panel.
Well, let’s get this over with, he thought. Doug closed the door, seated himself and pushed the big green button. The motor started humming loudly and the metal bar began to move. He immediately felt the force pushing him outward. His buttocks automatically sank into the cushion of the stool. The movement accelerated, while the automatic system dimmed the light. To avoid nausea, one was not supposed to see too much of his environment. For safety’s sake there were a few barf bags next to the stool.
Doug felt around on the floor. His book must be here somewhere. He never read otherwise, so he just left it in the cage. He only needed it for the first ten or fifteen minutes, then he usually got tired and dozed off. The book was made of real paper, so Doug had to switch on the reading light. He tried to focus on the pages. If he did not notice the motion, his body would believe what the machine was trying to simulate—that he was under the influence of normal gravity. While he weighed about twenty percent less than on Earth, Shostakovich’s aviation doctor promised this would help him avoid the worst effects of living for years in zero gravity. Spending three hours every third day at 80 percent of terrestrial gravity—NASA physicians would have never been satisfied with that, but in his former employer’s company they were a bit more pragmatic. In addition, nobody kept him from using the cage more often, as he was his own boss.
So there, Doug thought to himself. If someone had told him this 15 years ago, he wouldn’t have believed it. Back then, the NASA psychologists decided he should be fired because they thought he drank too much. Shostakovich had been more interested in his skills as a pilot. When all was said and done, he still did better with a blood alcohol level of 0.15% than many a young hotshot pilot. Then, when the Russian billionaire asked him to help solve a tricky situation, he could not say no. Doug stared intently at the paper and tried to focus on the letters. They no longer formed meaningful words, but jumped around wildly, fighting with each other.
His thoughts had strayed into a direction he did not like, but it was too late now. No one could have known two people were left on board the ship he destroyed with a controlled blast of the asteroid. It was only supposed to be a warning to a competing corporation, as Shostakovich had assured him. Doug had tried to save the passengers, but it had been too late—he even got a medal for trying. He sold it and anonymously donated the money to the families of the victims. Three years from now, when he’d be a rich man, he would pay the college tuition for the two sons of the female pilot whose death he had caused. He had promised himself that. He scratched his temples, loosening a scab. He had received the wound back then, and it had never completely healed.
Doug's thoughts returned to the approaching object, wondering if this was to be cosmic payback for his past.
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Brandon Q. Morris
https://hard-sf.com
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Translator: Frank Dietz, Ph.D. Editor: Pamela Bruce, B.S.
Final editing: Marcia Kwiecinski, A.A.S., and Stephen Kwiecinski, B.S.
Technical Advisors: Michael Paluszek (President, Princeton Satellite Systems), Dr. Ludwig Hellmann
Cover design: BJ Coverbookdesigns
Ice Moon 4 Return to Enceladus Page 32