April

by Mackey Chandler

  Thankfully, she had decided the moon man needed an extra hard examination so he had her attention. Some people didn't care for their odd culture. Skip unlocked the terminal cabinet by the hatch and folded the shelf down, exposing the screen and touch pad. The most eager passengers pressed forward to swarm past Skip. There was such light orbital traffic in and out of M3, that nobody was assigned to shuttle security permanently. Eddie hung back and allowed about half of the people ahead. He didn't want to be among the first or last, who get greater scrutiny. Eddie had done this security duty enough times himself, but if the pilots remembered him they didn't show it.

  That was a problem in trying to be secretive off Earth. There were so few people above the atmosphere you could be remembered too easily. Then there was a fear of being open with security Earthside, that might rub off on people's attitudes up here too. Everyone heard the horror stories, but he didn't want to believe people might be afraid of him that way. Every passenger came up to the terminal, offered their passport to be scanned and put his hand on the taster board to check against the passport data. Logging off the station computer, they pushed off for the port. Skip was cool enough not to greet him, or show any different reaction at all when he laid his hand on the pad and handed his passport back without comment. It was good as he didn't want the crew to have any reason to scrutinize him if they really didn't remember him.

  The only one to make a fuss was the moon man, who not only requested Skip wipe the board before he touched it, which meant a re-boot, but still washed his hands on an antiseptic wipe after logging out, just like several of the others. Even with both precautions it was obviously distasteful to him and he pulled gloves back on so shear Eddie had not even noticed them. They seemed to wiggle on by themselves the last little bit. It was creepy. Skip did a double take too, so it wasn't just him seeing things. He wasn't sure though what he'd seen. Moon dwellers seemed to have a lot of small technologies they didn't share quickly with anyone – even other spacers – and that little habit didn't seem to depend upon which country's base they called home.

  There was no need to check the passengers with a wand or anything, because the sensors in the boarding hatch theoretically checked for contraband as well or better than a hand held. He resisted the urge to fluff his shirt away from his holster because he was thinking about it. It was body molded and stuck on with a sticky sheet and the gesture itself would be more revealing than the thin shape.

  The twenty seats were mostly filled. It was a comfortable little boat and the seats were separate pods where you could watch vid or play music and had a little separation and privacy from your neighbor. You could even pull down a partial hood and recline to sleep if you wished. He clipped his bag on under his seat, strapped himself in loosely and reclined part way.

  The bin for the emergency p-suit was overhead and had the usual bubble head logo and warning that if you broke the seal without authorization there would be a fifteen hundred dollar inspection and re-pack charge. He hard plugged his own spex in the front of the armrest and was happy to see the crew offered a cockpit view and turned it on ghosted 70% over his cabin view. Some crews offered it and some didn't want anyone looking over their shoulders. The copilot was seeking departure clearance.

  The local controllers on M3 acknowledged their departure and reported they notified NLV they would be arriving. If there was any problem at the other end NLV would tell them now not to undock here, rather than arrive there and be unable to exit. So their affirmative was a prior OK for entry.

  The controller on M3 said, "You are clear Earthside," which sounded simple, but meant a whole chain of regional and national defense networks had been notified a large vessel was doing an orbital burn, even though it looked nothing like a missile sprinting to bring destruction down on them. They would watch anyway, to see its trajectory matched flight plan, but it saved everyone an adrenaline moment when something started to move.

  A slight sensation in his ears told him the lock had sealed off from the station and their internal pressure was adjusting to a slightly different level. The older pilot was soon strapping in the left hand seat.

  "Good morning folks. I'm your senior pilot Diane Walsh and I have journeyman pilot Harold Armstrong assisting today. Before anyone asks, yes, he is distantly related to that Armstrong and no he can't get you a deal on cubic in the Moon. The joke got an audible chuckle through the cabin. We will have acceleration in one minute," the lady pilot announced. Please double check all personal items are secure. If you need to use the head please be aware you will have to remain there for our main burn and it's not the best seat in the house.

  After a minute there was a light double chime and he felt a slight push to the right. He cut the cabin view through his glasses and took the full feed from the cockpit. Diane was letting the number two take them out and his inner ear gave an uncertain message as he tried to match the sensations with the view over the pilots shoulders. The nose swung toward M3 as they moved away, probably because the passengers enjoyed having a view. It would have been as easy to swing the other way.

  Harold was smooth he saw, easing his attitude burns on and off, overlapping them and starting the main engines before the nose had settled on its target direction. It was easier on the passengers than a series of abrupt burns, separated by pauses. As smooth as he was, Eddie saw the senior pilot was alert with her hands lightly resting on the controls. The main burn ramped up to about a half G and the junior pilot announced: "Coming off main burn in fifteen seconds." There was a single chime and the acceleration ramped down over only about a second to zero.

  * * *

  Almost as early the same morning, Tuesday Oct 12, 2083, Happy and Jeff were together at the Lewis cubic in the North hub for the second day in a row with very little sleep. Their original idea to get back together when the foils needed changing in the processing boxes was forgotten, in their new obsession to redesign the scooter. Both of them were a fortunate match in the way neither thought it strange to ignore most everything, including personal hygiene and nourishment, in the face of the joy a new project full of complex problems gave.

  Starvation had forced them to stop and seek food at the basic fuel level in order to go on, but the meal on the work bench was only recognizable as such to a gear head and a computer geek. A block of canned survival cheese, from a shuttle emergency kit was only four years past it's last use date and the hunk of vintage Spam, which they were cutting with an antique linoleum knife from the tool box was a fine match. They were on the second six pack of Negra Modelo beer and the idea you could get beer in glass bottles instead of a plastic pouch was almost as exotic to Jeff as keeping tools in an oak chest. The fact, printed on the label, you could get a fifty cent refund for returning the empty to California was hilarious, if you considered they probably cost about six bucks each to boost into orbit. Happy could tell Jeff was not used to drinking. The impact on his mental capacity, which would have left a normal person with the intellect of a ground hog, simply reduced him to using his computer. A frustrating inconvenience because the computer took time to process the answer, which normally appeared in his mind without all the bothersome intermediate steps being consciously worked out.

  He had learned not to display his talent to most people, because they looked at him most peculiarly and made a fuss. But with a friend like Happy he didn't hide his talents. Happy was expanding Jeff's vocabulary of helmet talk as they worked too. Happy had worked in vacuum so long he'd invented some of the facial language. The invention of which was not appreciated by Mitsubishi's executives, who's policy was to record all communications in a work area. They falsely thought audio recording would cover that.

  They were plain having fun, even if face talk got a little harder as your face went numb. The scooter which they were redesigning was already their scooter before they ever touched it, in the tradition of design people everywhere. Just as a masterpiece of architectural design is more often associated with the mind which created it and less re
membered for the owner who paid for its construction, even if it bore his name, Bob would never be the one historically associated with this vehicle.

  "OK, we don't want to hang everything out where it can be seen and give away the surprise," Happy agreed. "How about if we hide two plasma drives inside the bell of two of the standard engines and use the other two with conventional fuels to maneuver around the stations where we can be seen? Two engines are plenty for almost all the burns we would normally make and if we brace the plasma drives in properly without damaging or modifying the bell we can switch them out to the other engines when we have run the hours out on the other two."

  Jeff thought about it. "Well if we are going to switch them at the rebuild time there is no reason to carry around all the turbo pumps and stuff, for the two fakes we are using as shells to hide the plasma units. How much weight can we save if we strip all the extra stuff out and just save it for parts at the rebuild?"

  Happy started adding up the masses of all the parts listed in the rebuild manual for the engine in question. "So much will be missing we'll have to hang a shroud around the drive section, or it will still be obvious something is not kosher. What kind of tent you want - Mylar on a frame?"

  "Corrugated bucky-tube superconductor cloth, on top of a ceramic sapphire composite paper, shock mounted," Jeff said with a straight face, "all the way up to the ports."

  "It better be shock mounted better than me, 'cause you just blew me off my stool. What in the world are you thinking? You are talking thousands of dollars and even as light and strong as it is you are talking...." He pause and keyed a couple numbers in. "About eighty kilograms for a tube of it and stand-offs big enough to cover the whole scooter. A big chunk of what you save on one engine's auxiliaries."

  "Yes, but what kind of laser power density would be required to punch a hole through it?

  "I don't know but if it was laser proof wouldn't the space planes use it?

  "Nope, 'cause it burns like paper in hot air. Speaking of lasers, how about some of our own? I already have some made up with an independent power supply. Just gotta pull the guts out of the case and mount them. I'd loan mine and I can get another three.

  "Hmmm...You mean as offensive weapons? Happy asked dubiously.

  "If there wasn't a problem they'd use commercial transport."

  "But if there is a problem?" Happy asked. "This isn't a warship. I'd like to think they're not going looking for trouble."

  "They might not have the option to be reasonable, if the other guys start shooting first," Jeff insisted. "You didn't carry that pistol around jammed down your leg because you were looking for trouble did you?"

  "Also, it might scare Bob off. He'd see it as evidence we planned on exposing his asset to entirely too much risk."

  "Sneak them in on the camera arm. He'll never have reason to see it deployed. Be our little secret," he said, pushing his nose over with one finger.

  "That would work, wouldn't it?" Happy said thoughtfully. He stopped objecting.

  "Ok - I'll figure the shroud and do the numbers for performance with using both conventional and plasma engines." He kept keying in numbers and Jeff worked on the cheese and watched.

  "Well, I have to admit, with a full load of fuel this will do anything we want in an orbit to orbit configuration, with performance likely to be a real surprise to anyone watching. I just wish we had a little more room for reaction mass for the new engines. It wouldn't take much to make a lunar landing possible. We'd have to get refueled to get back. And the descent and lift off would both be fairly high G, but it would be possible."

  Jeff took a pull on his beer. "Figure a bladder cell on the rear bulkhead of the cabin and run the numbers."

  Happy looked surprised and started net searching for a custom bladder cell maker to get some numbers. After a few minutes he spoke. "We'd have to brace the bulkhead. Some sheets of buckyfoam crossed under in an X between the four frame rails and some arch shapes molded in to stiffen them. But we could put half a ton of payload on the moon. Then we'd need some landing jacks," he thought out loud.

  "But only for lunar gravity," Jeff reminded him.

  "And to support their own weight to 9 G," Happy mused.

  "How about just carrying them along under the shroud and go out and extend and lock them in position in a suit, if we have to do a lunar landing? It would be a long enough trip so we'd certainly have time. Then we would have no mass wasted for a mechanism to extend them, or sensors to confirm it. And we don't have them hanging there, visible, telling everybody we can do a landing."

  "You know. What we have here is an honest-to-goodness spaceship. I can't see going all the way to the moon in a p-suit. The cabin is rated for pressure for emergency medical work. What would it take to build in an honest airlock which would allow a shirtsleeve environment? Well, let you fly with your faceplate open at least and a shuttle style toilet."

  "And a green house with a Jacuzzi?" Jeff tried to make the helmet-talk face for doubt Happy had taught him, but the beer was interfering.

  "No, really, run the numbers. I think it can be done."

  Jeff thought about it a bit. "Make two airlocks. One a coffin lock on the inside of the removable hatch, just barely big enough for a suit to squeeze in, really snug, not standard dimensions, fill the corners with closed cell rigid vacuum foam even and the other is a locker, which stores tools and stuff for working on the outside, but can be accessed from either side with appropriate interlocks. It would have fitted drawers inside which pull out either way. Then you don't have to leave room in the coffin for a toolbox, or recycle in if you forget something. Minimum empty volume on both so they pump down to 80% or so quickly and the tool lock is not wasted space, because it is the usual storage volume for the tools anyway. Then if we have a shirt sleeve environment you need to design something important, or see if a design has been worked up elsewhere."

  "What Jeff?"

  "A coffee maker, capable of working from zero to 9 G."

  "Should it roast and grind its own beans?"

  "Why not?" Jeff asked.

  * * *

  Tuesday Oct 12, 2083, April was walking to the cafeteria trying to sort out the changes a week had made in her life. She had the news on her earphones, just listening again. She wanted to be treated as an adult and now her dad and Jon were treating her with the respect she had wanted for so long, but the weight of the decisions she was making were an unaccustomed burden.

  She was doing things which did not just affect how her friends or family regarded her. She was doing irreversible things, which would alter her own life and reach out and touch other people's lives, who might not even know what she was doing much less consent. The satisfaction of grasping these adult powers was tempered with the sobering realization she could mess up big time and fail in ways impossible to shrug off like blowing a test score in one of her classes.

  Her mind was racing with all these changes so much she realized she had no idea what the news announcer had been taking about at all and just switched it off. She had her usual good appetite, but was on a mission to talk to Ruby also, so she hoped she was on her usual shift. The cafeteria was still fairly busy as she loaded up her tray, but she was happy to see her friend at the grill.

  "Hi Ruby. I'd like a tall stack. When you take your break, can you talk? I have some stuff I'd like to tell you."

  "Sure but it might be awhile this morning. Don't know why, but everybody decided to get out of their quarters this morning. It's unusual for a Monday. We've got some nice fresh blueberries for the pancakes, not frozen. Want some?"

  "Sure, sounds wonderful, thank you." Ruby poured four big circles of batter on the grill and dribbled a generous handful of the berries in each circle. Her grandpa told her how when the habitat was first being built they lived on warmed up food. He said that tempers got pretty short around meal times and a lot of extra mass was smuggled up for candy bars and such, with people trying to get anything satisfying to eat. He seemed to be making up fo
r it now by being a real fussy eater.

  She fit the platter on the tray with difficulty, hanging off one edge as the tray was full up. As usual she headed for the back of the room, away from the crowd which clustered close to the serving line. There was a dark haired girl, Doris, she hadn't seen for a couple months sitting alone to the back just like she liked to do. It was unusual not to see someone in their little world for such a long time. She gave a wave and looked down, threading her way through the tables and chairs, which were loose on the deck instead of bolted down on this side of the room.

  Doris would give her somebody to chat with waiting for Ruby. Coming up on her table, she wanted to go around to sit beside her, looking back on the room and watch for Ruby to come. When she got closer and looked up at Doris, she was surprised and embarrassed to see she was crying. She briefly thought of changing course and sitting away from her, but it was too late to do so gracefully, it would have seemed terribly cold. Doris had one little tissue all used up and squashed to a golf ball size in her hands.

  "Here, I always get extras, even though they have a sign up telling us to conserve." April unfolded a paper napkin once and again to a single thickness. Doris took it without speaking and slowly wiped around her eyes with both hands, planted her elbows on the table and blew her nose in the napkin. April looked up embarrassed again. Blowing your nose at the table was a capital offense in her mother's estimation, but nobody at the other tables even looked up. Doris let out a big sigh and tried to say something to her but just let out a little hiccup, which she choked off instead. It at least made both of them laugh a little.

  "There's no hurry to talk. Sip on this a little and it will help with the hiccups." She sat her glass of orange juice in front of Doris on another napkin. She went ahead with her own breakfast and checked out the crowd in front of them. Between bites she stole a few peeks at Doris taking some small sips of the juice.