Before - Greg Egan
Short Story
Number of words : 5400
Percent of complex words : 10.8
Average syllables per word : 1.5
Average words per sentence : 11.8
READABILITY INDICES
Fog : 9.0
Flesch : 65.7
Flesch-Kincaid : 7.0
PEOPLE
Martin
A reporter on SciNet assignment at the Hotel Tereshkova.
Zoe
A medic at the Hotel Tereshkova. Has a brief affair with Martin and invites him on a callout.
Madame Mityashin
Hotel Tereshkova designer.
Rykov
Zoe's callout colleague.
Wittgenstein
A philosopher.
Franz
The OES team's liaision.
PLACES
Hotel Tereshkova
In orbit, the dome consists of two concentric plastic shells, with a metre of heavy water between them.
Sumatra
Part of Indonesia.
OMAF
The Orbital Monopole Accelerator Facility. Studies states before the Big Bang, currently. The accelerator itself is a wire-thin cylinder, 50x20 km. Arrays of solar panels distributed along the length feed power into the giant superconducting solenoids. The central cluster of detectors, is housed in a sphere about two hundred metres wide.
Sakharov
The OES has colleagues there.
Geneva
City in Switzerland.
VEHICLES
Orbital Transfer Bus
Moves people from one space facility to another. 15 metres long, 5 wide 1/3 of its length is fuel cells and ion drive.
CONCEPTS
New Standard Model
A theory of physics.
Femtoplasmas
Big Bang hot and small.
Four-space
In a sense, joined to the 'past side' of the Big Bang singularity. It can't be given time coordinates, so it can't belong to the 'history' of the universe.
MEDIA
Phase transition between Lorentzian and Positive Definite Metrics
A paper by one of the OMAF theoretician.
TECHNOLOGY
Monopole
A massive particle. The OMAF is using them for experimenting with in their accelerator.
Suit
Spacesuit that has partial sentience to help with operation and safety.
Hawking radiation
Given off when a micro black hole instantly decays.
ORGANISATIONS
SciNet
Martin's employer, a science media company.
OES
Orbital Emergency Service. Space paramedics.
PLOT
Martin is a journalist on a self-admitted junket to an orbital hotel to cover a conference. He meets an orbital paramedic and has a fling. Afterwards, he mentions that if she gets a callout to a job he could come along and cover it.
This eventuates, so he has to throw on his sentient spacesuit and get down to the Orbital Transfer Bus. The accident is at the OMAF. They discover it is not your garden variety accident. Whatever has happened with their monopole smashing accelerator has killed some people there, because it changed the local spacetime they eventually discover.
A scary situation, as they have to strain to avoid the same fate, and the conditions cut off communication with their base. And are they sure they are really going to get out?
4 out of 5
Number of words : 5400
Percent of complex words : 10.8
Average syllables per word : 1.5
Average words per sentence : 11.8
READABILITY INDICES
Fog : 9.0
Flesch : 65.7
Flesch-Kincaid : 7.0
PEOPLE
Martin
A reporter on SciNet assignment at the Hotel Tereshkova.
Zoe
A medic at the Hotel Tereshkova. Has a brief affair with Martin and invites him on a callout.
Madame Mityashin
Hotel Tereshkova designer.
Rykov
Zoe's callout colleague.
Wittgenstein
A philosopher.
Franz
The OES team's liaision.
PLACES
Hotel Tereshkova
In orbit, the dome consists of two concentric plastic shells, with a metre of heavy water between them.
Sumatra
Part of Indonesia.
OMAF
The Orbital Monopole Accelerator Facility. Studies states before the Big Bang, currently. The accelerator itself is a wire-thin cylinder, 50x20 km. Arrays of solar panels distributed along the length feed power into the giant superconducting solenoids. The central cluster of detectors, is housed in a sphere about two hundred metres wide.
Sakharov
The OES has colleagues there.
Geneva
City in Switzerland.
VEHICLES
Orbital Transfer Bus
Moves people from one space facility to another. 15 metres long, 5 wide 1/3 of its length is fuel cells and ion drive.
CONCEPTS
New Standard Model
A theory of physics.
Femtoplasmas
Big Bang hot and small.
Four-space
In a sense, joined to the 'past side' of the Big Bang singularity. It can't be given time coordinates, so it can't belong to the 'history' of the universe.
MEDIA
Phase transition between Lorentzian and Positive Definite Metrics
A paper by one of the OMAF theoretician.
TECHNOLOGY
Monopole
A massive particle. The OMAF is using them for experimenting with in their accelerator.
Suit
Spacesuit that has partial sentience to help with operation and safety.
Hawking radiation
Given off when a micro black hole instantly decays.
ORGANISATIONS
SciNet
Martin's employer, a science media company.
OES
Orbital Emergency Service. Space paramedics.
PLOT
Martin is a journalist on a self-admitted junket to an orbital hotel to cover a conference. He meets an orbital paramedic and has a fling. Afterwards, he mentions that if she gets a callout to a job he could come along and cover it.
This eventuates, so he has to throw on his sentient spacesuit and get down to the Orbital Transfer Bus. The accident is at the OMAF. They discover it is not your garden variety accident. Whatever has happened with their monopole smashing accelerator has killed some people there, because it changed the local spacetime they eventually discover.
A scary situation, as they have to strain to avoid the same fate, and the conditions cut off communication with their base. And are they sure they are really going to get out?
4 out of 5