Habitats

by Laurence Dahners

  Then the beat strengthened and sped, the bass began to thump and Donsaii began to fly… It may have been years since Donsaii performed in the Olympics, but she left no doubt that she could still do everything she had once done, including the oh so many things Donsaii could do—that it seemed no one else would ever be able to match.

  ***

  Morehead City, NC—Gymnastics fans everywhere were thrilled yesterday when video began to circulate of Ell Donsaii putting on an impromptu performance. This apparently occurred at the request of a child at a local gym in her home town. This floor exercise featured many of the signature moves with which she stunned the world seven years ago at the Olympics. One of the most highly watched video clips in the past 24 hours, it shows her performing the stunning moves no one else has been able to duplicate. The ease with which she performs them has renewed speculation that she may be secretly training for the next Summer Olympics…

  ***

  After a pleasant Christmas Eve dinner with her mother, Gram and Miles, Ell spent the night at her mother’s new house. In the morning they had waffles, opened Christmas presents and then Ell left to spend Christmas evening with the Kinrais family. She felt sad that Shan hadn’t been able to spend Christmas Eve with her family, but if she were going to keep her life as Ell and Raquel separate it would have to be that way. At least, she’d realized that the island would be a place where her family and Shan could see one another.

  Ell pulled off the road at a rest stop and entered the bathroom there. A couple of minutes later, Raquel left the bathroom and got into her little truck which had parked itself at the rest stop thirty minutes earlier. The truck started on its way to the Kinrais house. Ell’s Ford Focus left the rest stop a few minutes later and drove itself back to her house in Chapel Hill.

  Ell bounced up the steps and touched the doorbell at the Kinrais house. The house AI said, “Hello Ms. Blandon, you are expected, please come in.” Ell heard a click as the door unlocked itself.

  Shan’s mother met her in the entry with Shan right behind her, “Raquel, we’re so del Se/font> day with us!” They moved into the great room where a Christmas tree stood. Two young women and Shan’s dad sat nursing cups of something steaming. “Let me introduce you to Shan’s sisters, Morgan and Lane.” They rose and each gave Ell a hug which made her feel very welcome.

  The Kinrais had small gifts for “Raquel” which made her glad she’d brought some for them. She ran back out to her car for some of the snorkels that had ports in them. She’d wrapped them the day before. “I hope you guys like to swim and snorkel. D5R, where I work, made a bunch of these up. The employees can buy them to give as gifts. Since they aren’t sold anywhere yet, it’s kinda cool that we can give them as Christmas gifts before anyone else can get them.”

  Not surprisingly, Shan’s sisters were more excited about the snorkels than his parents. After turning the base ports on and trying breathing through the snorkels, Lane asked, “So do you see Ell Donsaii very often? At work, I mean.”

  Feeling a little guilty about keeping a secret like this from Shan’s family, even though she and Shan had discussed it, Ell said, “I don’t work at the main facility very often, but I do see her pretty often when I’m there.”

  Lane lifted an eyebrow, “So is she nice at work? I mean, you hear about celebrities who act all nice out in public, but then it turns out that they’re really jerks to the people they work with.”

  Ell blushed, “Well… she’s always nice to me…” she glanced at Shan.

  Shan grinned at Ell and said, “I’ve talked to her quite a few times, you know, ‘cause of our paper. She’s always been very nice.”

  Morgan said, “Good! I’m always so disappointed to find out that someone I admire isn’t who I thought they were.” The family as a whole nodded and Lane began an anecdote about a popular television star who played a pleasant, all knowing father on a sit-com but had treated a friend of hers very badly in person.

  Ell almost responded with her own story about what a jerk Michael Fentis had been to her at the Olympics. Then she remembered that she wouldn’t be able to explain what she’d been doing at the Olympics herself. After stifling herself, she sat back as the family’s conversation washed around her, thinking again about how weird it was to have people admiring her because she “knew” Ell, rather than for being Raquel. Yet how could she not like having people admire Ell more than Raquel? She’d purposely kept Raquel low on everyone’s radar after all. She snorted softly and shook her head over her own idiosyncrasies.

  The dinner conversation ranged broadly and Ell found herself enjoying Shan’s family a lot. She felt quite touched when they invited her on their annual ski vacation in February, especially when Shan later mentioned that they’d always had a strict no boy/girlfriends policy in the past.

  Though the Kinrais’ Christmas dinner was very nice, on the drive back to Chapel Hill Ell admitted to herself that she missed going to the Emmerit’s huge celebration. Who knows what kind of embarrassing things Grandmother Emmerit might have said this year?

  Riding beside her, Shan said, “What0">T S ’t re you thinking about with that little smile on your face?”

  “Oh, nothing. Just some pleasant ghosts of Christmases past.”

  ***

  Stacy stepped into Benny’s and headed for the bar, looking forward to a couple of beers to take the edge off the day. Her usual stool stood open so she claimed it, “Hey Benny, you got any decent beer? Or just the usual?”

  “Stacy, Stacy, you know I serve only the best to my fine clientele. The usual for you?”

  “Yeah, sure, I guess it’ll have to do.”

  “Let me buy that beer for the lady,” a man said from two stools over. “I’d like some advice.”

  Stacy looked at the man, recognizing the fellow who’d bought her several beers a few weeks back. “Hey,” she said, lifting her chin at him, “Thanks. I’ve forgotten your name though.”

  “Bart.” Basir said. “You helped me understand those port thingys that first time when I met you. Can I ask you more stuff about them?”

  Benny slid a beer over to her and she lifted it at Bart. She winked, “Looks like you’ve paid for the right.” She took a sip. “Ahh, tha’s good.”

  “I’ve got this old hot rod I race sometimes. Runs on gasoline. I realized that I could get quite the advantage over the guys I race against if it didn’t have to haul around a tank full of gas. Do you have any ideas about where I could get a port that I could send fuel through?” He lifted an eyebrow, “I’d pay good money.”

  Stacy shrugged, “Nah, told you last time. Ports for flammables are restricted. We only make a few of them anymore. And, it would be really hard to lay hands one.”

  “Hey, let’s move over to our own little table where we can talk in private. I have some ideas and I could really make it worth your while.”

  Stacy’s eyes narrowed as she thought about the little talk that boss lady, Varka, had given them about offers “too good to be true.” Still, it couldn’t hurt to hear what the man had to say. “OK.” She got up off her stool.

  ***

  Dr. Charles Rhoades left his office and saw the math department’s chairman, Jacob Bensen, a little way ahead of him down the hall. Lengthening his stride, he caught up to him, “Jacob, what have you decided about Kinrais?”

  Still walking, Benson eyed him, “Well, he’s got good scores…”

  Rhoades nodded impatiently.

  “And that paper he’s publishing with Donsaii is an amazing piece of work, certainly a firm foundation for his doctorate.”

  “More than a ‘foundation.’ His committee voted that he be granted his PhD.”

  “Yes, yes, but I worry, what if he jus Shats ct rode Donsaii’s coattails? You know, contributed a little and she decided to list him as an author?”

  “Come on Jake! She listed him as first author!”

  Benson shrugged, “Maybe she’s just taking the senior author’s place as ‘last author’?”


  Rhoades couldn’t believe his ears. He’d never had a student with the potential that Kinrais had, and he’d never really tried to get one a position on the faculty before. Then when Kinrais had had the insight that launched this paper, one he thought might actually win a Nobel for pulling so many things together, he’d thought the young man was a shoo in for a position. He opened his mouth to vent his spleen but Benson shied away, grinning and holding up both hands in defense.

  “Come on Charlie, don’t go postal on me! I’m just pulling your chain. I called Donsaii and she was highly laudatory. Called his insight into the long distance implications of her math a ‘stroke of genius.’ She said if we didn’t want him, they’d really like to offer him a job at D5R, however, she thought he’d prefer academics. I’ve got an appointment with young Shan to offer him the job this afternoon.”

  “You’re a son of a bitch, Jake, you know that?” Rhoades grinned at him and thumped his own chest, “I was going to have to go in and get my heart restarted if you didn’t give that young man a job.” He paused and narrowed his eyes, “I don’t suppose you’d let me give him the news.”

  “Oh hell no. I’ve got to get on the good side of the young lion before he casts his shadow over all of us.”

  ***

  Carter nervously watched the huge 747 based space plane maneuvering closer to the habitat. He waved, or, actually had his waldo wave, at the plane. Eventually the space plane stopped moving relative to the habitat. A couple of Carter’s waldo crew jetted over to open the cover over the large airlock adaptor that had been built into its nose. He jetted into the small airlock on the habitat and pressed the button to close the outer door. He saw the ports open and watched air blasting into the airlock, visible because it fogged a little as it shot into the vacuum in the lock. Once the gauge said the pressure was up, the inner door slowly swung open. He jetted into the habitat and told his AI to close the lock again. He glanced at the main readouts:

  Temperature – 24oC

  Pressure – 1.0 atmosphere

  Oxygen – 21%

  CO2 – 0.035%

  The atmosphere pretty much had to be rig Shad habitat. ht since there were a bunch of open ports connecting the habitat to North Carolina, but the readouts were up in big lights so everyone could be certain that things were OK.

  He turned the waldo to wait for his guests.

  When nothing happened for a while, he switched his “presence” momentarily to one of the waldoes that still hung outside. The spaceplane was just puffing into place, the airlock fitting they’d uncovered on its nose seating against the outside of the habitat’s big cargo airlock. Switching back to his inside waldo, he watched the airlock readouts and after a moment saw that the outer door had opened. Shortly afterward it closed again, the inner door cracked open and people in emergency suits with their helmets thrown back began to drift inside.

  Carter grinned as he saw their eyes widen. Taking in just how huge the space inside the habitat was should confound them. At 100 feet long and 120 feet in diameter with no intervening walls it just felt enormous. The sense of “huge” was probably enhanced by the relatively featureless walls. Their lack of anything to focus on made it hard to tell just exactly how far away they were. Chuck Lane and Annie Jones, the two experienced astronauts on the trip immediately grabbed onto grab bars on the wall near the airlock. They moved from bar to bar to make room for those behind them.

  Carter smiled without surprise when Guy Spaulding, the engineer from the company that fabricated the habitat, pushed through the door without grabbing onto anything and shortly began flailing around with nothing to hang onto. Chuck and Annie shook their heads in amusement. Spaulding was enthusiastic and a sharp engineer, but seemed sorely lacking in common sense. Carter began jetting that way.

  When Carter had nearly reached him he said “Dr. Spaulding?” When he’d first found out that the waldoes had speakers on their torsos he’d thought it was pretty silly for something meant to be used in space. But, of course they could be used inside too where a speaker was a great help.

  Spaulding continued making spastic, panicked movements, eyes rolling a little like a cow in a terror.

  “Dr. Spaulding!” Carter barked at him, “Hold still!”

  Spaulding suddenly froze in place, eyes spastically darting to look at Carter, or actually at his waldo—same thing to Carter’s way of thinking nowadays.

  “It’s me, Carter. You met me down at the D5R facility yesterday. I’m operating this waldo in front of you. Remember,” Carter said patiently, “you have a reaction pistol in the holster at your right hip. Pull it out, point it away from the airlock and squeeze the trigger. It’ll push you toward the hand holds near the lock. Try to aim it through your center…”

  Stiffly, Spaulding had jerked out the pistol shaped jet and, without letting Carter finish, had squirted some compressed air out toward the middle of the habitat. Unfortunately, he did it at an angle to his center of mass, which imparted some spin. The spin panicked him. Then, he kept his finger on the trigger too long which really started tumbling him. e s>

  “Dr. Spaulding! Keep calm. I’m going to catch you and stop that spin. Then I’ll take you to the wall. Try not to move your arms and legs.” Carter jetted closer and grabbed a passing arm, then used it to pull Spaulding to him until he had him in a bear hug. Rather than try to do it himself, he just asked his AI to stop the tumbling, which it did with a few judicious puffs of the waldo’s jets. “OK,” he said, “Now we’re going to the wall. If you’re dizzy, it should get better in a few seconds.”

  Carter used just a few puffs from his jets to move Spaulding to the wall. Unfortunately, just as they got there, Spaulding threw up. That didn’t surprise Carter. After all, even without the tumbling, just being in a weightless environment made quite a few people sick. Carter had come prepared though. He pulled a port off his torso that connected to the vacuum outside, snapped it on, and quickly sucked up the barf. Even though the vacuum port was only two centimeters in diameter, the amount of vacuum it had pulling to the outside made short work of the mess.

  Spaulding gradually settled down and eventually started moving around the inside of the habitat, though he was careful to keep his hands on the strap grips attached all over the inside. Lane and Jones, with their extended experience in weightless environments, were soon bouncing from one place to another and using their reaction jets to scoot around the huge cavity. Carter thought they were doing much of it in pure delight. Not to say that they neglected their inspection; just that they delighted in flying from one spot to another.

  The large “cargo” airlock opened and several of Carter’s waldo crew came in with a huge bundle of material. With a little work, Carter and the other waldoes stretched it out at the far end of the habitat, attaching it at the anchor points it had been designed for. The material had been folded carefully enough that they didn’t have much difficulty with tangling. Once stretched tautly, it provided a series of hexagonal chambers like a big honeycomb that could serve as a “dorm” of sorts for visiting researchers.

  Each hexagonal chamber was airtight when its door was closed and they all had their own ports connected to sea level air pressure back on earth. The idea being that if the habitat suffered catastrophic decompression, but if you were in a chamber with the door closed, you could ride out the emergency in your chamber until rescuers arrived. Besides, having fresh air constantly entering each room ensured that atmosphere didn’t get stale. Air was exhausted from the habitat near the ends and entered through numerous ports scattered everywhere. Until there was more experience with the habitat, personnel would also be encouraged to wear “emergency suits” which had open ports by each person’s chin. Then if catastrophe struck they could close their helmet, pull on their gloves and be relatively safe wherever they were.

  There were even “shower” chambers in each “room” that astronauts could climb into, wearing goggles and a ported snorkel. A port on one end sprayed water and air in, while hig
h altitude ports at the other end sucked it out, keeping a high enough air flow to keep the water moving along. In theory, at least. At the end of your shower, turning off the water port left warm Caribbean air blowing through to dry you. Chuck Lane happily tried it out, having been on many missions where sponge baths were all that were available. He came out proclaiming his delight at getting truly washed in a space environment. The fact that SThephic water and air were no longer precious commodities in space was changing life out there.

  The next mission was slated to bring up another set of hexagonal chambers. These would be larger to provide work spaces for various microgravity labs and the first synthesis and manufacturing concerns that wanted to rent space on board.

  After an extended examination, Spaulding, Lane and Jones proclaimed the habitat ready for occupancy. They had taken “Lifeboat 1” out for a spin. Carter felt proud as they admired its construction.

  To Carter’s surprise, before leaving even Spaulding became semi-proficient at jetting around with his reaction pistol.

  Chapter Seven

  Hanson stepped out into the post-surgical waiting room. She glanced around and found John Parker’s wife. Stepping that way she saw Donsaii again waiting with the woman. She said, “Ms. Parker?”

  The woman looked up from her book.

  “Everything went fine Ms. Parker. We installed the stems and checked the osseointegration implants. The implants were fine.”