Space, Inc

by Julie E. Czerneda

  Cap said, “That is a bucket full of shit and we are squarely in it.” Cap was afraid. He had never been outside when the red light was on. He could already see the auroral glow as the ship’s GEMS unit intercepted charged particles and protected the main ship. Out here on the sails, though, there was no GEMS.

  As he began to lead Harley toward the creeper, he started to feel lighter on his feet. “They’re slowing the spin rate. That means they are going to take in the sails.” As he said it, he felt the direction that was “down” begin to change. “They’re precessing the wheel, too, turning it sideways so the peak of the radiation storm will hit the ship’s edge.”

  Cap looked around as he moved, figuring angles. Then to Harley over the radio static he said, “We’re heading for the creeper. We gotta get behind it. That’s where we’ll have the most passive shielding.” Halfway to the creeper, they heard the high-pitched squeal of their active dosimeters. When they got to the shadowed side of the creeper, Cap squatted up against it and told Harley, “Hunker down. Smaller cross section gets you less total whole-body exposure.

  “Bridge, C3 at D20. Mayday. Mayday.” Cap glanced toward the ship and saw the high-speed shuttle already on its way. Someone had remembered they were out here. He’d have to thank the officer of the watch.

  The whole situation was unreal to Harley. He hadn’t enough experience or knowledge to be properly scared. So far it seemed like an adventure that he could write home about! “Funny,” Harley said. “I believe the fact that there is a ton of radiation zipping by me, but I don’t see a thing. A person should be able to see what might kill him.”

  Cap nodded his helmet in agreement and pointed to the main ship. “You can, and that’s the worst view of it you’ll ever have … from outside the GEMS field.” They waited until the shuttle matched trajectories down light from the creeper. When the hatch opened, they scrambled inside and floated to the far side of the cargo area. The shuttle pilot in a full radiation protection suit looked at them to make sure they were clear of the hatch, then closed it and spun his craft around to streak for the ship’s hangar bay, bouncing them off of the aft bulkhead.

  The fully suited hazard control crew met them in the hangar bay. They were escorted to a nearby decontamination area before their EVA suits were stripped off of them, then their Anti-Cs. The material was all put in a large foil bag with radiation symbols and the words “Danger! Radioactive Material” on it in case they had picked up charged particles. The radiation hazard evaluation team collected their dosimeter sets, the active dosimeters’ alarms screaming their electronic heads off at the indignity of being exposed to so much radiation. Then the riggers were scanned for discrete particles, issued new dosimeters, and escorted to sick bay. The medical team was waiting for them.

  * * *

  The doctor looked up from the records on his desk as Cap entered his office. “Master Rigger Hardesty? I thought you’d like to know that your lab results are in. How do you feel?”

  Cap answered calmly. “Well, pretty much okay now that I quit barfing. I mean I think I might have a little temperature, and feel a bit tired, but I’ve felt worse. I’ll get over it.”

  The doctor was nodding his head. “Well, that is consistent with your lymphocyte count and about what I expected.” The doctor made a note on the record before him, the silence in the room stretching as his stylus tapped data into the chart. Finally he sighed and looked into Cap’s expectant eyes. He quietly said, “I’m afraid I have some bad news for you. Your lymphocyte count was really low. It was just above fifty percent. Do you know what that means?”

  Cap’s mind went blank, then seeing the doctor was waiting for a response said, “Yeah, I know what it means. It means I’ve got anywhere from a couple of hours to a week of feeling normal, then my body parts start falling off. How much radiation did we get?”

  The doctor looked at the chart. “Not enough to make body parts fall off, at least. There’s actually no way to tell for sure exactly how much. It was significant. Apprentice Rigger Harley got the most, I believe.”

  Cap stiffened in surprise. “How could he get the most? We were standing side by side! Besides, I have four-plus years of accumulated dose.”

  The doctor shuffled the records and read for a second. “As of right now he’s almost caught up. We wondered the same thing, so we checked it out. A careful analysis of the sensors indicated that a heavy dose covered your location from the shadowed side. The preliminary incident report suggests that as we took in the sails, something—a gust, a surge of photons and charged particulate matter, maybe even a filament plug in the solar wind—caused a sail to dimple. In short, it acted like a dish and focused on your area. Rigger Harley must have been on the side the beam came in from. It’s the only explanation that works.”

  Cap’s face became wary as he asked, “Are we treatable?”

  The doctor nodded, “I believe so.”

  “Believe so? Can’t you do better than that?” Cap demanded.

  The doctor responded quickly. “I’m sorry, no. In a week, as soon as the storm is over and it’s safe to do so without getting you additional exposure, we’ll ship you both to one of the orbital treatment centers and get things rolling. While you’re up here, we’ll want to see you at least once a day at a consistent time. Meanwhile, you just take it easy and rest. I’m taking you off the duty roster. If your symptoms change, call us. We’ll do all we can for you, but we are not set up to do the major work in these cases. We can, however, make it somewhat easier for you, you know.” The doctor’s eyes had drifted down to the desk as he spoke. Now he made direct eye contact. “I’m terribly sorry. I do wish there was something more I could do.”

  Cap nodded in understanding and resolved to put a good face on the situation. “That’s okay, Doc. It’s not your fault.” He rose slowly to his feet. “See you tomorrow, then. Thanks,” Cap said as he stuck out his hand and shook the doctor’s. Then he turned and left the office.

  Harley was in the tiny waiting room, waiting for his turn. In a small voice he asked, “Well, Cap. We gonna live?”

  Cap smiled grimly and said, “At least until we die, Ace.” Cap could see that the situation was finally becoming real to the kid. He sat down and watched Harley go into the office and close the door. A few minutes later he came out with a numb expression on his face and they both left the office and headed for the inner spaces where their rooms were and where there was less spin-gravity.

  Feeling that something needed to be said, Cap finally spoke. “Well, Ace, looks like we’re going to be grounded.”

  Harley cleared his throat before he said, “Yeah. Short career, huh? They said we were probably treatable.” Harley looked searchingly at Cap. “What do you think? I mean you’ve seen this sort of thing before. What are our chances?”

  Cap turned and looked full at him and lifted an eyebrow. “Of what?”

  “Of living. Of surviving this?” Harley’s eyes drilled into Cap’s.

  Cap answered as he made the transition from light on his feet to weightless and began pulling himself along the passageway by grabbing the rings on the bulkheads. “Like I said before, Ace. We’ll live until we die. A man can’t ask for more man that, now, can he?”

  As Harley less gracefully followed Cap along the grabrings, he thought about what Cap said and finally understood what Cap had been telling him since their first conversation. It was an attitude, a necessary attitude for those who worked under dangerous conditions. Soldiers, high steel walkers, deep-sea construction workers, space workers were all subject to it because they worked in unforgiving environments. “You live until you die.” He liked it. It struck him as funny that he had no sooner learned it than he wouldn’t need it any more.

  * * *

  Michael E. Picray was born in Des Moines, Iowa, and left the state at the first reasonable opportunity. A graduate of Northwest Missouri State University (‘91) with a major in accounting, he now resides in Missouri with his wife and such children who have not y
et lost all patience with him and moved out. In “Riggers,” he combines firsthand knowledge of the blue-collar world with his experience as a U.S. Navy veteran to provide a view of working in space from near the bottom of the human food chain. “If we could send humanity into space without sending people, it would he perfect.” Mike hopes you enjoy the story and thanks Julie E. Czerneda, the editor, for putting up with him along the way.

  SUSPENDED LIVES

  by Alison Sinclair

  GENERAL SURGEON

  The IMS series of Medical Space Stations provides medical services to all orbital facilities and traffic, including government-run, privately-run, and nonprofit freehabs. Currently, each station serves over 15,000 personnel. To provide this level of service, the IMS stations are fully-functioning hospitals, with telesurgery and other specialists available at all times.

  Immediate openings exist for three full-time telesurgeons. These positions have a mixed cycle of shifts, including the required three-month time Earthside.

  Qualifications: As per IMS regulations, including a specialization in space-related trauma.

  Personal: Must pass all physical and psychological tests required for prolonged work in space, including tolerance to zero G and a genome screen for susceptibility to radiation-induced cancer.

  Responsibilities: As per IMS policies, procedures, and directives.

  Compensation: Based on the existing IMS grid, which includes substantial incentives and benefits as well as insurance coverage.

  Please apply in confidence to: IMS Hospital Services, Attention: Human Resources: File #5672298A-06 Only candidates to be interviewed will receive a reply.

  FIVE facets of the icosahedral doctor’s lounge look up, or down, if you will, on Earth. The dayshift surgeon, Ygevney Barishenkov, slouches beneath the window, rumpled and bleached in the Earth light. I’d think he’d had a bad shift, but that Y’ always looks as though he hasn’t grown to fit his skin, never mind his scrubs.

  I attach my coffee-sac to my belt and monkey along the perimeter struts in the approved manner. No microgravity aerobatics in the doctor’s lounge.

  “I accepted two transfers from Franklin, Artemis? construction crew,” Y’ says, by way of evening greeting. “Both stable.”

  “Tell me about them; I’m awake.” I suck on coffee, to ensure I can live up to the promise. I could ask the genie for the hand-over, since all the information is databased, but nobody comes up here to be a hermit.

  “The first one’s Maria Jose Elliott, twenty-seven, closed-suit crush injury to right leg. Vascular repair was successful with recovery of good perfusion; some ischemic damage and rhabdomyolysis. No genetic risk factors for muscle breakdown, however, slightly increased risk of thrombosis. The gene-genii flagged two separate polymorphisms associated with mild thrombophilia.

  “Second one is Li Shu Quen, thirty-four, decompression injury to left arm, sustained when she went to assist the first casualty. Transferred primarily for pain management; she’s a known hypo-responder to synthetic opioids and Franklin didn’t have the drugs to cover her.” I agree with his scowl; if they have a known hypo-responder, they should have the drugs to cover her.

  “I thought Artemis’ argument for all-female work crews was that they had a better record in hazardous work environments?”

  Out of the corner of my eye I see the nearest genie’s eye brighten. “Genii, cancel review request,” I get in, before the knowledge system starts to pontificate on the world literature on gender differences in safety practices. “When are they going to give us an upgrade that can recognize a rhetorical question?”

  Y’ can recognize a rhetorical question. “Stephe Te Kawana has a hot gallbladder over at Sharman. The auditor-genii says she doesn’t have acceptable live experience, and so she wants to know whether she should transfer or whether you’ll operate from here.”

  “How’d someone get up here with a hot gallbladder? They should have been screened out and treated Earthside.” Y’ produces another from his repertoire of shrugs. “What should I know about him?”

  “Forty-eight-year-old male, Ellis Keene. Engineer with Faber. No known health problems.”

  “I’ll review him, see whether we should transfer him here. What’s the lag between Sharman and here?”

  “Seventy-one milliseconds,” supplies the genie, on cue.

  Telesurgery is limited by, among other things, the signal round trip. Humans can only accommodate two, two fifty milliseconds delay between their movement within the operating station and the visual feedback from the OR suite. Much more than that, and the rhythm is broken, instruments get out of position, incisions are too shallow or too deep, sutures are ill-placed.

  Then Y’ adds the joker to the pack. “We heard an hour ago that there is an IBDD shuttle due in at 2307 for Semmelweis.”

  Another platter of dainties left over from the bioterrors. HIV-’flu, for instance, or Jerusalem hemorrhagic fever.

  Although the last proven biowarfare release was seventeen years ago, and decommissioning of the former biowarfare labs is slowly proceeding worldwide, nobody quite wants to let go. Hence Semmelweis, another example of a small, not so bad idea that grew into a monster. We can see it from here, off to the right, a clutch of polyhedral pods, tube-linked, with solar collector deployed.

  Unlike any other department of the IMS, there are no tubes linking it to the rest of the platform, only support struts. Semmelweis is entirely self-contained, shuttle and bubble-car being the only way to reach it. Initially, it was intended to be a temporary research and storage facility; now, because the IMS is the organization that all bodies and states distrust least, it has become the repository for all the ostensibly decommissioned pathogens … just in case.

  “Genii, please confirm that all departments have been officially notified that ambulances are exempt from the standard security lockdown?” Two years ago a critical transfer was delayed by security, such that we nearly lost the patient. I might forgive and forget; space doesn’t.

  Roll on the happy day when Semmelweis gets floated off on its own. Roll on the happier day when Semmelweis gets dropped into the sun.

  “What else?”

  What else is our current cadre of trauma inpatients, tucked away in the flare-shielded infirmary pods toward the center of the platform. Given the screening our crews undergo, they’re as near to perfect specimens as the human race produces: young or middle-aged adults selected for excellent health, low cancer risk, mental stability, intelligence, adaptability, and a variety of other assets.

  Not that we are underemployed, since the five IMS platforms are effectively the tertiary care centers for the orbital population, the fifteen thousand or so inhabitants of everything from the great solar taps to long-term experiments in closed-environment living, with various materials manufacturing, materials research, and pharmaceutical research and manufacturing platforms in between. Trauma accounts for most of the surgical caseload. Platform construction crews are disproportionately represented, because of the number of new and short-term workers, then platform maintenance, particularly the outdoor monkeys, those whose work involves EVA. Inboard and teleconstruction crews are less likely to wind up in here, though we currently have two survivors from an explosive depressurization that killed one over on McAuliffe. One might be discharged back to McAuliffe today, assuming traffic control can clear the backlog created by the IBDD shuttle in time. The other is likely to be transferred Earthside if the anti-PTSD pharmacotherapy doesn’t take effect soon.

  “G’ night,” I said to Ygevney, who waves an idle hand at me and monkeys toward the nearest hatch. I tuck myself into one of the lounge’s blebs—recessed communications alcoves—to look in the genii’s eye. I’m considered eccentric for my appetite for Earth news, but my family, like myself, incline toward dangerous places. My plant geneticist parents are currently working in the Christian States of America, whose attitude to gene-engineering is nothing if not ambivalent, even though climate change has so altered the Prairie
and Southern landscape that no unengineered crop plants can survive. My marine-biologist sister, the radical conservationist, is campaigning against the expansion of the fish plantations in former New Zealand waters. Since a third of the world’s population is now dependent on the sea for food, the campaign has been, and will continue to be, violent. My peacekeeper brother is guarding a forensics team investigating accusations of bioagent release somewhere in Mid-Europe. And my ex-marital partners, a mobile group practice, have just been granted license to practice in a region of United Africa formerly closed to, and still very suspicious of, Western medicine.

  I don’t want to be taken by surprise by the official message that begins with the words “We regret to inform you …” though I know I probably will be.

  None of my spiders snag anything of interest, except for an item on the case before the World Court determming plat-formers’ rights to rear children in microgravity. A verdict is pending.

  Pregnancy is both achievable and sustainable in a platform habitat, though there are challenges involving oxygenation and circulation. Study of mammals in microgravity suggests that the postnatal maturation of skeleton, muscle, and circulation under gravity is likely to be abnormal. Perhaps abnormal enough that any child raised purely or mostly in space would have serious difficulty readapting to Earth.

  As far as those on the international and commercial platforms are concerned, the issue is academic. Our contracts stipulate contraceptive implants, and our benefits include gene-banking and IYF. But several platforms established by smaller governments, private foundations, and organizations explicitly promote procreation in space. Four infants have been born in the freehabs over the past three years, and the Earthside relatives of two have taken the argument over their well-being to court. The freehabber parents are refusing to take the children Earthside at all until their rights are upheld.