Descending Road - VAC-E by Dana W. Paxson

VAC-E

0 NC, Day Minus 5, Hour 21

The clinic callbox blatted, “Medic to Utility Pod Bay 36, Vac-E.”

A vacuum emergency. The other two physicians in the clinic looked up from their patients at Miriam. “Your turn,” they chorused.

Damn. She snatched up her pressure kit and kicked to the ship’s midline chute. The clinic hung in the zone near the spin axis, low-grav during spin, but zero-grav since they’d stopped spin to do the teardowns; the midline chute ran the length of the ship, five kilometers along the original tube of steel that anchored the ship’s gigantic segments.

The ship circled Opo Bira Lima in an orbit period-locked with the moon Layo Lamba; their circuit lay further out from Opo than Layo, but still within a zone swept fairly free of space debris. The starship Tompuso was to stay here permanently, its deep data archives and computational fabrics to be linked to the colonists’ settlements.

She hitched to one side, kicked with hand and foot, and shot herself forward; the tube’s walls flicked past. For vacuum hits, speed was essential.

Miriam dived from the chute to the sixth tier and stared between her feet through a transparent floor panel into darkness. Pod Bay 36 lay open to space, skeletal, its outer walls and bulkheads almost completely cannibalized for the lander and its planet-bound load. Yellow ovoid utility pods swarmed at junctions of metal, their lights and welding torches flickering as the women and men inside them gripped and hauled large composite panels and girders with the powerful mechanical arms on each pod.

“Anybody? Doctor here!” she called.

“Doctor to Utility Pod Bay 36, damn it, vacuum emergency! Where the hell are you?”

She found a number. “I’m here at, what is this, 3620? 3623. Where in the bay are you?”

They exchanged shouts; she finally arrived at a pod socket: a docking site for the one-person pods. These sockets, elliptical in profile, fitted a pod‘s transparent access door precisely; the user would back into the pod‘s seat, latch in, and turn a handle. A pair of heavy robot arms would lower the door into the pod‘s entrance, and the pod‘s phasemetal seals would clamp the door tight against the hard vacuum of space. Two layers of the door remained in the socket, sealing it while the pod was out. No space suit required, and no airlock.

Two muscular men in stained brown skinsuits, dark circles of exhaustion under their eyes, stared upside-down at Miriam as she entered the socket room. Before her the socket held a pod, its steelglass access door frosted over on the inside, the top of the door fogged with bright red mist. Blood.

Story List	SURPRISE ME	Author Page
USER SURVEY	PUZZLE ME	MAKE ELM MARK

HOVER Lucida Bright BARE	HOVER Lucida Bright FULL	HOVER Palatino Linotype BARE
HOVER Palatino Linotype FULL	HOVER Times New Roman BARE	HOVER Times New Roman FULL
PAD Arial BARE	PAD Arial FULL	PAD Lucida Bright BARE
PAD Lucida Bright FULL	PAD Times New Roman BARE	PAD Times New Roman FULL


	VAC-E 0 NC, Day Minus 5, Hour 21 The clinic callbox blatted, “Medic to Utility Pod Bay 36, Vac-E.” A vacuum emergency. The other two physicians in the clinic looked up from their patients at Miriam. “Your turn,” they chorused. Damn. She snatched up her pressure kit and kicked to the ship’s midline chute. The clinic hung in the zone near the spin axis, low-grav during spin, but zero-grav since they’d stopped spin to do the teardowns; the midline chute ran the length of the ship, five kilometers along the original tube of steel that anchored the ship’s gigantic segments. The ship circled Opo Bira Lima in an orbit period-locked with the moon Layo Lamba; their circuit lay further out from Opo than Layo, but still within a zone swept fairly free of space debris. The starship Tompuso was to stay here permanently, its deep data archives and computational fabrics to be linked to the colonists’ settlements. She hitched to one side, kicked with hand and foot, and shot herself forward; the tube’s walls flicked past. For vacuum hits, speed was essential. Miriam dived from the chute to the sixth tier and stared between her feet through a transparent floor panel into darkness. Pod Bay 36 lay open to space, skeletal, its outer walls and bulkheads almost completely cannibalized for the lander and its planet-bound load. Yellow ovoid utility pods swarmed at junctions of metal, their lights and welding torches flickering as the women and men inside them gripped and hauled large composite panels and girders with the powerful mechanical arms on each pod. “Anybody? Doctor here!” she called. “Doctor to Utility Pod Bay 36, damn it, vacuum emergency! Where the hell are you?” She found a number. “I’m here at, what is this, 3620? 3623. Where in the bay are you?” They exchanged shouts; she finally arrived at a pod socket: a docking site for the one-person pods. These sockets, elliptical in profile, fitted a pod‘s transparent access door precisely; the user would back into the pod‘s seat, latch in, and turn a handle. A pair of heavy robot arms would lower the door into the pod‘s entrance, and the pod‘s phasemetal seals would clamp the door tight against the hard vacuum of space. Two layers of the door remained in the socket, sealing it while the pod was out. No space suit required, and no airlock. Two muscular men in stained brown skinsuits, dark circles of exhaustion under their eyes, stared upside-down at Miriam as she entered the socket room. Before her the socket held a pod, its steelglass access door frosted over on the inside, the top of the door fogged with bright red mist. Blood.