by Jim Rudnick
“Citizen…the yellow pods are always reserved for citizens only. The black ones always are used to carry convicts and you may also see red ones that carry prison personnel or police. Is that what you needed to know?” the female AI voice responded.
“Yes…” the youngster said politely, “that’s fine…” and she dipped her head back down to chat with her sister.
“AI…local time please?” said someone else.
“15:20 hours in Oncu, the second month of the 14 month year and dusk will occur at this time of the year at 21:15 hours later today. Our summer will be in 5 months’ time too, if you’re wondering about your crops and your growing season. Is this what you needed to know?” the AI asked as it always did. And the silence was the answer.
Shops went by as did pedestrians who were walking along the streets, as the pod slowly climbed the gentle city hill ahead and the flattened out as it moved away from the Andros city core and the EL station where the space elevator terminated on land. Above, way above almost 33,000 kilometers the upper EL station, called Pikes Station sat at the top of the elevator commonly called simply the EL and it was where these Olbia immigrants had off-loaded from their transport to Halberd the prison planet of the RIM Confederacy…
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