Merry Christmas.
Trans-neptunian orbital H3 trawler "Baarsheeba" Drags it's siphon lines through Neptune's deep blue atmosphere. This job is delicate, so you need real people to sit at the controls.
Erich Resch, is one such dogsbody.
In his time Vancouver is home to almost 10 million people, many of them environmental refugees from the United States and China. He's German-born, but remembers little of his childhood.
On a whim one night he empties his bank account and gently removes himself from the apartment he shares with a girl while she sleeps. If she stirs at his exit, he doesn't know it.
2 years pass until he's at the extreme edge of the solar system's spinning platter. 6 months of deep suspension, and six months awake during transit. Crew Compliment of 26 split into two shifts of 13 to keep the ship awake during gravity assists around Jupiter and Saturn. They use the planet's present positions to thier greatest advantage, but must also burn precious fuel Guided by radio signals much as modern commercial airlines are. He's contracted as a Siphon Technician/Pilot to the Fusion Power conglomerate Fusicom that monopolizes all of humanity's electricity.
He draws the short straw and puts the 2km long ship into parking orbit. Then they unfurl the siphon lines and drop them miles below into the atmosphere. Thier mission lasts 5 months until the ship's tanks are completely topped. They harvest Helium-3, necessary for clean fusion power; Hydrogen, for the ship's VASIMIR engines; and methane for a vareity of uses.
Erich works as a siphon consellation manager, keeping the siphon heads in formation at different depths and draw rates.
Everyone else aboard the ship, he realizes, must have been like him. Willing to go into exile for years at a time. The ship's Dispensary pharmascist, for instance, claimed to him to have had no true attatchments back on earth. She was a little older than him and carried herself as if she was perfectly aloof. But she undersold this tactic since Erich succeeds in initiating a physical relationship with her. One that she insists is perfectly platonic, but involving sex also. One needs a sexual hookup out here in space, she explains to him, and I like you. Erich's dissafected in general, distaining human sentimentality in his youth.
when not working, the crew has little else to do but party. Erich's best friend aboard the ship is a kid from California named Greg. The two of them contrive to throw tremendous bacchanals in the lower gravity parts of the ship. (Centrifugal Gravitation makes your feet heavier than your head, and takes some getting-used-to. By moving closer to the inner axis of the ship, the gravity is lessened.]
Erich uses his pretext with Sina, the Pharmacist, to aquire stimulating chemicals, which he and Greg hawk at thier parties. This Sina-Erich-Greg triad soon monopolizes the narcotic trade on the ship.
Greg admires Erich for what he sees as his worldliness, and is much more distraught within than he lets on to anyone except erich. Erich's sympathy for gregory is genuine, but he doesn't know how to impress this on him. Greg explains that he's here becuase he felt like he had nothing tying him to earth. But he had fooled himself into believing this, and accepted the truth much too late. Erich tries to tell him that you have never yet "become", you are always "Becoming".
But what Greg naively sees as Erich's Worldliness, is actually Erich's Cynicism. He doubts as he sees Erich doubting.
After one of thier parties the pair are sitting watching Neptune pass below them. Greg asks Erich what would happen if you went outside the ship without any protection.
Well, Erich explains, you wouldn't freeze, your body won't lose heat that quick. Your skin might swell a little where it's exposed. The air in your lungs would get sucked violenty out of you. Out through your windpipe if you let it out, out through your ribcage if you try to hold it in.
If you're in the sunlight at the time you'll get the mother of all sunburns. Out here the sun is just a bright star though. Some say that the water on your tounge boils. You'll have maybe 20 seconds to time to think about what's happening before you asphyxiate.
That's interesting says Greg.
Later Greg makes a sexual pass at Erich, who is taken aback, and refuses, as politely as he can.
Much drug intake follows. Erich lapses into unconsciousness on a couch in the lounge, snoring contentedly. Silent hours pass around him. Sightless eyes spin in thier sockets, surrounded by sourceless laughter. Greg enters the lounge, smiles at sleepyhead Erich. Kneels next to him and says in his ear: "Goodbye Erich, I'm going outside."
Words of shattering importance know the route though even the addled brain in lockdown. Greg's words sink through layers of viscous morphine sleep untl they detonate against the surface of ERich's conscious reason. ....mmrmmmrml... [RED ALERT!] Erich's eyes snap open, and surge with fear. Seconds later he's barreling down the corridors to Red Atmosphere Lock A. Vaulting over equipment carelessly displaced by the shipwide affair the last party turned into. On the way he passes the Captain, talking to the Bursar, his frenzied look are enough to encourage them to follow.
Skidding around the corner, Erich sees that he's arrived too late to intervene.
Greg's sensations are filled with an unparralelled sensation of being exposed. his throat would be making a croaking noise if any air surrounded him. A stunned smile cleaves his cheeks.
Out the porthole, Erich sees greg's little body afloat against the black.
"no..."
Erich Resch, is one such dogsbody.
In his time Vancouver is home to almost 10 million people, many of them environmental refugees from the United States and China. He's German-born, but remembers little of his childhood.
On a whim one night he empties his bank account and gently removes himself from the apartment he shares with a girl while she sleeps. If she stirs at his exit, he doesn't know it.
2 years pass until he's at the extreme edge of the solar system's spinning platter. 6 months of deep suspension, and six months awake during transit. Crew Compliment of 26 split into two shifts of 13 to keep the ship awake during gravity assists around Jupiter and Saturn. They use the planet's present positions to thier greatest advantage, but must also burn precious fuel Guided by radio signals much as modern commercial airlines are. He's contracted as a Siphon Technician/Pilot to the Fusion Power conglomerate Fusicom that monopolizes all of humanity's electricity.
He draws the short straw and puts the 2km long ship into parking orbit. Then they unfurl the siphon lines and drop them miles below into the atmosphere. Thier mission lasts 5 months until the ship's tanks are completely topped. They harvest Helium-3, necessary for clean fusion power; Hydrogen, for the ship's VASIMIR engines; and methane for a vareity of uses.
Erich works as a siphon consellation manager, keeping the siphon heads in formation at different depths and draw rates.
Everyone else aboard the ship, he realizes, must have been like him. Willing to go into exile for years at a time. The ship's Dispensary pharmascist, for instance, claimed to him to have had no true attatchments back on earth. She was a little older than him and carried herself as if she was perfectly aloof. But she undersold this tactic since Erich succeeds in initiating a physical relationship with her. One that she insists is perfectly platonic, but involving sex also. One needs a sexual hookup out here in space, she explains to him, and I like you. Erich's dissafected in general, distaining human sentimentality in his youth.
when not working, the crew has little else to do but party. Erich's best friend aboard the ship is a kid from California named Greg. The two of them contrive to throw tremendous bacchanals in the lower gravity parts of the ship. (Centrifugal Gravitation makes your feet heavier than your head, and takes some getting-used-to. By moving closer to the inner axis of the ship, the gravity is lessened.]
Erich uses his pretext with Sina, the Pharmacist, to aquire stimulating chemicals, which he and Greg hawk at thier parties. This Sina-Erich-Greg triad soon monopolizes the narcotic trade on the ship.
Greg admires Erich for what he sees as his worldliness, and is much more distraught within than he lets on to anyone except erich. Erich's sympathy for gregory is genuine, but he doesn't know how to impress this on him. Greg explains that he's here becuase he felt like he had nothing tying him to earth. But he had fooled himself into believing this, and accepted the truth much too late. Erich tries to tell him that you have never yet "become", you are always "Becoming".
But what Greg naively sees as Erich's Worldliness, is actually Erich's Cynicism. He doubts as he sees Erich doubting.
After one of thier parties the pair are sitting watching Neptune pass below them. Greg asks Erich what would happen if you went outside the ship without any protection.
Well, Erich explains, you wouldn't freeze, your body won't lose heat that quick. Your skin might swell a little where it's exposed. The air in your lungs would get sucked violenty out of you. Out through your windpipe if you let it out, out through your ribcage if you try to hold it in.
If you're in the sunlight at the time you'll get the mother of all sunburns. Out here the sun is just a bright star though. Some say that the water on your tounge boils. You'll have maybe 20 seconds to time to think about what's happening before you asphyxiate.
That's interesting says Greg.
Later Greg makes a sexual pass at Erich, who is taken aback, and refuses, as politely as he can.
Much drug intake follows. Erich lapses into unconsciousness on a couch in the lounge, snoring contentedly. Silent hours pass around him. Sightless eyes spin in thier sockets, surrounded by sourceless laughter. Greg enters the lounge, smiles at sleepyhead Erich. Kneels next to him and says in his ear: "Goodbye Erich, I'm going outside."
Words of shattering importance know the route though even the addled brain in lockdown. Greg's words sink through layers of viscous morphine sleep untl they detonate against the surface of ERich's conscious reason. ....mmrmmmrml... [RED ALERT!] Erich's eyes snap open, and surge with fear. Seconds later he's barreling down the corridors to Red Atmosphere Lock A. Vaulting over equipment carelessly displaced by the shipwide affair the last party turned into. On the way he passes the Captain, talking to the Bursar, his frenzied look are enough to encourage them to follow.
Skidding around the corner, Erich sees that he's arrived too late to intervene.
Greg's sensations are filled with an unparralelled sensation of being exposed. his throat would be making a croaking noise if any air surrounded him. A stunned smile cleaves his cheeks.
Out the porthole, Erich sees greg's little body afloat against the black.
"no..."