EXILE

Like every other large-scale space stations, the orbital platforms had been designed and constructed in a modular form. The basic unit was a central hub, which had two long arms extending from it. At the end of each arm was an activity module, housing the permanent habitat work and living space for the module. Each arm was, in effect, three long tubes that were bound together. Two tubes provided personal access for the platform personnel to and from the hub, the third tube containing all vital services, these being communications networks and enviro-matter transfers that handled all air, water and waste products. Each end-arm module served a specific purpose, whether it was a communications centre for the Earth, or if it electrolysed the water stores that were hauled aloft from Earth.

Each unit could be docked to two others at the hub, allowing a wide range of platforms to be built. Often, when a new independent platform was being constructed, it would be assembled as a progressive extension to an existing platform, the end hub being separated when enough units were in place to allow it to maintain its own hab-space. Alternatively, if maintenance programs required it, platforms could swap individual units. The end result was that if a person returned to a platform it would often be greatly changed, with different units replaced by others.

For each unit, the revolution of the arms about the hub created a force of gravity that gradually increased in strength as it one moved from the hub outwards to the service module at the end. The revolution of each unit was independent of any other unit that it might be joined to. As a result, each platform had the appearance of an uncontrolled series of revolving styles piled end on end, each spinning out of sync with its neighbours.

It was to the end unit that the shuttle with Stein on board eventually docked. In silence, the men waited for the shuttle’s payload specialist to open the cabin. Unloading the shuttle of its passengers and cargo was a skilled job, and one that required much understanding of the mechanics of free-fall manoeuvring of large objects. The wait was a long one, as the convicts were their last priority, lower even than the cargo of fresh food and bulk water. Suited up, the pay-spec left the shuttle through the aft air-lock, positioning himself into a small power back-pack. Working his slow way around the shaded bulk of the shuttle’s hull, he inspected the docking anchors and the hatch connection. Confident that the shuttle was in no danger of floating away from the station, and that the hatches had locked together safely with no chance of an air leak, he jetted his way back along the shuttle to where the water hold was located. Opening a locked flap, he reached inside and pulled out the clamped end of a high-pressure hose. He continued to pull the hose out, until several metres of its plastic, yellow length was floating in space like some gigantic Guinea worm lodged under the skin of the shuttle.

Looping a short length of plastic cord from his suit around the hose, the pay-spec then jetted over to a marked panel on the platform unit, pulling the hose with him. Reaching the panel, he pulled the hose’s flanged nozzle up to where he hung in the sky, and plunged the nozzle into a small opening, automatically clamping the hose into place. Certain that it was a firm joint, he tapped a couple of buttons on his jet unit’s arm rest, triggering the shuttle’s pumps into action. Soon, the gently peristaltic movement of the pumps began to be felt, as the water flowing from the hold rushed into the platform’s system. The pay-spec studied the join - no leaks. He jetted back around to the underside of the shuttle, re-entering the airlock and climbing out of his suit.

Inside, the shuttle engineer was monitoring the transfer of water from the hold to the platform outside. Out of his zero-grav suit, known as ZGS, the pay-spec jiggled his arms to get a comfortable fit in his Space-Unit fatigue overalls, personalised with his name and rank stencilled onto his left breast. Free from the confines of his ZGS, he set about organising the passengers.

His first task was to open the joined hatches that were the main junction between the shuttle and the platform. Moving past the convicts cabin and the cargo hold, he arrived in the main passenger area. Today was a busy flight, the beginning of the heavy transit runs. Public confidence had not been total, despite the publicity build-up to the spaceport opening. With two weeks of successful launches behind them, the well-heeled and the bored were beginning to line up for their chance to experience the launch, and a brief visit to one of the platforms. Certainly, of the passengers and crew on board only ten, less than half, were joyriders. It was four more than the last launch, and eight more than the one before that. The pay-spec passed the public gallery, where he could see five of the public pressed against the outside window, its protective heat shield withdrawn after the shuttle had entered orbit. The view wasn’t marvellous, but it was still exciting for the paying customers, none of whom had been in space before. The paramedic with them was blase’ about his charges and their glee - he was busying himself with compiling his end-of-flight summary report.

In terms of priorities, the public were low down, marginally ahead of the convicts. The pay-spec moved on up to the hatch. On the control panel next to it, there was a green light on next to the com-centre. Good, he thought. The platform had linked up with the intercom system. Flicking it on, he spoke into the microphone. “This is shuttle payload specialist O`Brien. Do you copy, Platform?”

“Hearing you, Mick. Dawn hear.” Mick smiled. He and Dawn went way back, having been in the same Space Unit recruitment unit, through payload school. Dawn had opted for permanent platform rotation, so as to be with her husband, the platform commander.

“Dawn! Hi! How’re you and Dan doing?”

“Why don’t we see about opening the hatch, so we can talk face to face?”

“Good thinking, Robin.” Mick flicked off for an instant, then “I’ve performed the external, looks good. Internal pressure here is at zero point eight atmospheres, sea level.”

“Okay, Mick. We’re running at zero point nine ASL. Are you ready to equalise?” Mick checked a couple of readings from the shuttle. His report, as was hers, was an average. The isolated cabins were still at one ASL, but the draining holds lowered that average pressure. Isolating the low-pressure areas, he redirected the platform air lines to the hold. All air pumped over would then equalise the hold, reducing differential stress on the surrounding shuttle superstructure.

“Roger, Dawn. Let her rip.”

Dawn did not reply, but as he watched the display, Mick saw the pressure in the hold begin to rise until it evened out at 0.88. Although it had equalised with the platform, the continually draining water worked to suppress the effective internal pressure. Mick opened the intercom.

“Dawn, Mick here. We’re ready to open habs.”

“Hear you, Mick. I’m opening the platform hatch now.” Within five seconds, the pressure in the duct that joined the two hatches increased from zero to 0.9 ASL.

“I have a positive on the duct, Dawn. I’m opening now.”

Entering a code into the control pad, he released the electric lock, allowing him to move forward. Grabbing hold of the hatch hand wheel, he turned it in an anti-clockwise direction. As the seal was broken, Mick felt a slight whisper of air escape from the duct into the lower pressure of the shuttle space. Pulling the hatch backwards, he opened up the duct fully. Mick then locked the hatch into its full-open position, and turned back to the duct, where he could see at the other end the familiar face of his old friend. Smiling, he pulled himself into the duct, passing through to the platform staging area where Dawn was waiting.

“Greetings, stranger!”

“Cut the wisecracks, buster. What have you got for us this time?”

“Usual water. Ten tourists - congressmen, movie stars, authors. Bored rich kids. Regular four convicts, and their guard. Four paramedics, three flight crew, pay-spec junior and myself makes twenty four.”

“Full house, huh?”

“Yup. First time since construction of the last units, last April.”

“Long time. Who’s the guard?”

“Old friend of ours - Jordan Michaels.” Dawn groaned. Years before, he had been part of a group of cadets “hazing” a new recruit. Dawn and Dan had interrupted the proceedings, almost certainly saving the recruit from drowning in a toilet bowl that the other “hazers” had pissed in. The young Jordan had aspired to a career as a navigator. His maths was good enough, he insisted later. He had always won the tavern quiz nights. Calculus and algebra were just different ways of adding and subtracting, and didn’t figure in the grand scheme of things, he would say in his dangerously serious ignorance. He had instead been condemned to the inevitable thug’s career path, first in the active soldiery, and later as a prisoner escort. Although he would admit, on occasion, that it was probably the best thing for him and that he had actually enjoyed his life’s work, he still harboured a grudge against Dawn and Dan. Not that it mattered much, now. They were so far ahead of him up the Space Unit hierarchy that he was limited to surly grumpiness when dealing with either of them.

“Again. Hah, well, you can’t win `em all,” Dawn continued. “Have you seen him?”

“Nope. Junior loaded them. Doubtless we’ll catch up with each other soon.”

“Yup. Look, you’d better get back and start sending them through. I dare say that half of your people would be keen to come over.”

“Hint taken. I’ll send the tourists through, with their paramedics. Routine.” Without waiting for a reply, Mick flipped over, snapping a neat half-somersault before kicking off back through the duct into the shuttle, where he found his assistant waiting for him.

“You ready, or what?” Gerald Harrison was young, still a cadet. He had been assigned to active duty under Mick O’Brien’s tutelage. A very capable, eager young man who Mick found to be very quick to learn, and, a rarity, very willing to admit to his shortcomings and anything that he did wrong. As he said to Mick, it was always better to own up instantly before anyone else could finger you, than to try and cover up. In the end, what goes around comes around, and if you clean your own mess there will be nothing to slip in later.

“Yeah, yeah, Jerry. Let’s get started. Usual stuff - tourists first, cons next, crew last. Even if we move them up the queue, they’ll still be too busy with their run-down cycles to move for an hour or so.”

Moving on past the cadet, who remained at the duct entrance, Mick unlocked the cabin seal, causing the cabin to immediately equalise with the central gallery. Through the double-plexiglass window, he could see the passengers waiting expectantly. A couple of them were still peering at the station through the small cabin window, and a middle-aged woman was floating above her chair, looking decidedly green. The paramedic was waiting on the other side of the door as it slid open, and, seeing Mick, flicked his head quickly in her direction, raising two of his fingers to his mouth. Mick grinned - there was a vomiting woman on every trip. Miguel, the tourist paramedic, had had to clear up more than his share of regurgitated knobs’ diet. Short of working in a kitchen, he had a better idea than most as to what the wealthy ate. Some said the poor and babies, but Miguel knew better. He also knew how much was currently in orbit.

“Hey, Mig, fat lady sing?”

“Shh! And believe me, this one is over. Get ’em out, Bro. It stunk!”

“Whoa, easy on, Mig. That’s why I’m here.” Mick then called into the cabin.

“Alright, everybody. I’m Payload Specialist First Class O’Brien. You would have met my assistant Gerald when you boarded. If you could please find a hand-grip and anchor yourself, we’ll get you into the platform as soon as we can.”

Responding in slow-motion, the passengers very clumsily grabbed around them for the soft, looped hand-holds that were dotted around the cabin. Mick moved aside from the door as the first of the passengers moved through. Miguel stayed inside, moving into the cabin to help the woman in the corner. As each person came out, Mick placed one of their hands on a rail that ran the circuit of the cabin and hallspace, and pointed them to where Gerald was waiting at the entry hatch.

One by one, they walked their hands along the rail, before being guided into the duct. Gerald was strict in his job, not letting anyone into the duct until the last person was safely through and in the platform proper. Owing to the difficulty that they had with moving in zero gravity, it was several minutes before the cabin was empty and Miguel had pushed his space-sick patient through the hatch. Mig did not follow, as he still had his post-trip report to compile. Free of his charges, he moved on down the hall to the sick-bay, a small, desk-sized cabin that the paramedics used to store drugs and equipment. Once there, he tapped into a standard terminal his summary information, in this case who his passengers were, who had what happen to them, and what Miguel’s response was - drugs, how much, etcetera.

The cabin empty, Mick passed across the gallery to the other passenger cabin, passing right by the central, forward flight deck area. The paramedic in the second cabin, Hiro Suzuka, had had an easier time, with his passengers all being experienced, some of them on their third or fourth trips. Two of them were a Space Unit Colonel and her husband, the two of them opting for permanent platform residence in their retirement, in the hope of being among the first civilian residents in the new lunar colony quadrant, currently being excavated. Mick liked cabins like this one - although they were less messy and less exciting, they were certainly much quicker to unload, and with less fuss.

Mick watched the last of the passengers enter the duct, and Hiro pass by towards the sickbay. He waited for a few moments at the door before Miguel emerged. Hiro then entered the sickbay to fill out his report, while Miguel took his turn at leaving the shuttle for the relative open spaces of the platform. As he waited, Mick noticed the cockpit door open. “Hey, Mick!” the navigator called. “Are you done yet?”

“Are you?” he replied.

“Almost. We’ve got itchy bits in here. Roger’s keen to get to that dietitian that he met last time.”

“Yeah? Is she still keen?”

“Well, you know Roger - never say die.”

Mick laughed. Roger Reczeski was the shuttle commander, and, for him, depressingly single at thirty-eight. Although many men would have envied his single status and freedom to date many different women, Roger, known to most as Roger Ramjet, wanted nothing more than to complete the old ideal of a stable, permanent relationship. For him, nothing short of marriage would be acceptable. The only trouble was that his chosen career did not lend itself to family life, and women usually stayed away after the initial, “see what a pilot’s like” date. Except for the dietitian. No wonder, then, that the flight crew were winding up so early.

Mick called back, “Just have to shift the cons. Tell Ramjet we’ll be a while yet”, and turned away to hear Roger’s mixed American-Polish baritone rumble back “Well, make it snappy, O’Brien.”

Mick smiled to himself as he pulled himself along the handrail down the corridor past the water hold to the aft secure cabin, where the four convicts and their escorts waited. Yeah, their guard. Michaels.

Reaching the cabin, he hit the single button on the door that activated the security lock. He leaned forward to the small fish-eye lens viewer, and saw that all was as it should be. As he looked, a refractive prism inside the lens angled a low-power laser into his eye, measuring his retinal print. Confirmed as the first of two authorised gatekeepers, the other being the commander, the door slid open.

Sergeant Michaels heard the door slide open, and turning his head, saw Mick and groaned. Mick nodded, to let Michaels know that yes, they knew each other. Still, they had their jobs to do. Mick broke the silence. “I’m Payload Specialist O’Brien. We have arrived at the orbital platform GUP-4, where you will be held on remand until you each receive your transfer to the lunar colony. As Sergeant Michaels would be willing to attest, the security here is more stringent than what you may have experienced on Earth. This is not because we consider you to be any more of dangerous than they do downstairs, but because the safety and survival of everyone on the platform cannot be compromised. Don’t take it personally, but you are the convicted menaces to society, and are to be treated as such. Clear?”

Four head nodded slowly.

“Good. Sergeant, would you care to move your crew?” Mick stood aside, while Michaels scowled and straightened. During their wait he had checked all of their chains, and they were secure. Mel had given each man a brief check, and was satisfied that they could all move. Following his lead, the four men pushed themselves out of their couches, to take hold of the groove in the wall above. Using this groove, they filed out of the cabin, past Michaels into the hallway. Mel followed, and disappeared down the other end of the hallway, which turned a corner to trace along the edge of the engine module, to loop up with the parallel hall on the other side of the shuttle hab-space. With the cabin empty, Mick led the way down the hall towards the gallery and the hatch. The chain-gang followed, with Michaels bringing up the rear.

The procession reached the hatchway within a few minutes, and paused while Mick called through to Dawn. “Dawn, Mick here. Is Trev there yet?” Trevor was one of the platform military police, and was usually assigned to receive convicts into the platform before their guard passed through.

“I’m here, O’Brien,” came the gravelly reply. “Pass ’em through.”

That said, Mick signalled to Michaels, who moved ahead and unlocked the leg chains of the four men. Now floating free of each other, the convicts were each guided to and through the hatch by Mick, to be met by a slight, wiry man who seemed to be ageless - he could have been twenty-five, he could have been fifty-two. When Stein followed the first three men through, he recognised the small flying-dragon tattoo under the guard’s ear, a subtle badge that showed the man’s rank as first-level grand-master of kao-khan, an amalgam of old Asian martial arts that was developed for equal effectiveness in zero and positive gravity. Michaels may be a thug, but this guy was the one to be avoided in a fight.

With the guard was a woman, her sandy-blonde hair swept back to show a scattering of freckles across her face. She was definitely in her thirties, and a career spacer - that was evident from her breasts, still full, firm and high - old Mister Gravity hadn’t had much say there, or anywhere. Identical rank markings on her platform fatigues indicated that she was the platform’s payload specialist. And her ring said that she was married, as was he. Still, regrets, regrets, more bloody regrets. He had had none so far, not until now. But it was useless - he still had his mission to complete, and he would work from the moon as well as anywhere else. Behind was the shuttle, the last real link with Earth. He was now on the platform, being shepherded down the axial tube. From zero gravity to near normal, and now fading again, he had certainly arrived.