Two months since Rudy did a flying Dutchman when his safety line snapped while he was out working on the external antennae array, way up high there where there were no safety net floating forty meters out, where the beacons were all turned off because otherwise they could interfere with the signal. He should have remembered that his beacon was off ( Read more... )

Time to purge the inactive, he decided grimly. It had been 40 days since the last purge, and after the expected relaxation, all should be back to their normal rhythms. Some were not. Maybe they thought it would be another year until the next purge, or maybe they were ill or injured--and if that was the case, they needed to be assessed for treatment ( Read more... )

The eight jobs of Mama Koi were legendary around the station, even though nobody knew what the sixth, seventh, and eighth were. She wouldn't tell you, just smile a little and say, "Maybe you find out someday." Nobody knew if that was a threat or a maybe-if-you're-good. Turns out the sixth job of Mama Koi was a little bit of both. The first job of ( Read more... )

Dog meets snail. That's how it all started, at least if you ask the dog. That's me, by the way. The dog. That's what they called me, to my face and in front of the cameras. Bitch is what it was when nobody was recording it for possible disciplinary purposes. At first, I hated it and I let them see it. That was a mistake, of course. As soon as they ( Read more... )

The shipboard life was not a glamorous one, at least not on a ship like this. He'd signed on with dreams of being--if not a passenger--at least one of the servants, so suave and polished, that he'd seen on the advids. He'd known, intellectually, that he wouldn't find a job like that at a small port, and that even if he did he wouldn't qualify for ( Read more... )

The scarab ring was lying in the bottom of an old jewelry box sold in one of the knick-knack shops that seemed designed to pretty on the tourists who came to see the dig. She would have scowled at the shop and moved on, but the glint of enamel caught her eye and drew her in. Despite knowing better, she still felt as drawn to such gewgaws as any ( Read more... )

The mrbrppthing sound came from underneath the console. For a minute, he stared at his hands, resting lightly on the wrist bar. No, he had not accidentally hit some strange combination of buttons. He hadn't touched the board in the last two minutes: the undock procedure was handled automatically by the station's managing artificial intelligence ( Read more... )