Howie said, "You ready?" and Libby nodded. Howie touched his thumb flat against the inside corner, and the numbers on the packet jumped to "1:59:59" and started counting down. He handed it to Libby and said, "I'll be at the next table if you need anything."
Libby touched her thumb to the same corner, and the thin membrane holding the pages together made a dry click as it disengaged. Libby turned to the first page and started working.
Chapter 7
Libby skimmed the test first, checking to get a feel for it. Mostly multiple choice, a few fill-in-the-blanks, and a couple of essay questions. There was more calculation than she would have liked, but she felt pretty good about the memorization questions she saw. She flipped back to the first page and started answering.
From the other end of the bar, a raucous party was starting up, as some of the miners had just finished their shift. It wasn't terribly annoying, but Libby could tell that it was just starting up. As she looked up at the group, so did Dora and Woody.
The youth behind the bar tonight was Mahmoud, a good man who could handle the difficult job of pouring drinks in low gravity with skill. But he was a soft-hearted man who didn't like confrontation. He was watching the party with growing unease, slowly drying a glass in his apron.
Woody got up and shouted to the partygoers, "We got a test going on over here. Shut yer pie hole!"
The largest of them, who was already looking drunk, turned and faced him. He stood easily seven feet high, and was built so solidly that he didn't seem to react to the low gravity.
Libby frowned at the growing danger in this display, and said, "It's okay. No big deal."
Woody just waved her off, "Get yer mind on yer test, darlin. I got this."
The mountain of a man seemed to weave as he stood and shouted, "What'ya - what - shut my hole or what?"
Woody took one step away from the bar, not advancing on him, but clearing the area between them. He stood directly facing the man and put his hands on his hips. In a soft voice, he said, "Or else."
There was a tense pause as the party seemed to be trying to figure out what exactly that threat entailed. Then one of his friends put a hand on the mountain's shoulder, "Come on, Ben. We were havin' a good time. Don't be a - y'know. Just don't, okay."
The mountain, Ben, turned to his friend as though he was surprised to see anyone standing next to him, and fell down into his seat, "Yeah. Okay."
Woody returned to his seat, and Libby asked, "What was that about?"
Woody picked up his drink, "That was about thirty seconds off of yer test, wasted watching a high-card bluff".
From behind them both, Howie shouted, "No asking questions while you're taking the test. If you have a question, you have to ask me. That's the rules!"
Libby held up both hands in surrender, and got back to her work.
The time seemed to slow after that, as Libby turned her mind to the test. A couple of times, she found easy questions that she only later realized were trick questions, and forced her to go back. It felt good, though. She felt like she was in command of the information, and she was pretty sure of all her answers. She could feel herself falling into the groove, and when she checked the timer, she saw that she still had plenty of time left.
Woody sat at the bar the whole time, alternating between watching her and watching the group at the end of the bar. They looked up at him from time to time, sometimes Ben scowled at him, but nobody made too much noise. Dora sat at the other end of Libby's table, bouncing a ball off the ceiling about thirty feet up. She got up a couple of times and paced the length of the room, as though worried about her personal stake in Libby's education.
Howie sat at the next table, a weatherbeaten comic book in his hands. He read the adventures of Space Captain Smith with rapt interest, stopping every minute or so to look up at Libby. He checked constantly, as though proving his skill as a proctor, by the way he diligently performed his duty.
All too soon, it was done. Libby checked over her answers quickly, then checked the front of the packet again. it read "01:05:13". She grinned as she held it up, "Done. And in half the time it was scheduled to -"
Howie pulled out another packet and said, "Good work, Ms. Carter. While I'm grading it, you can start on the second section." He read the numbers off the first packet, and set the second packet to that time, while Libby gaped.
As he handed it too her and touched his thumb to the contact point, she stammered, "Second section?" Dora and Woody both cast worried glances at Howie, but he just smiled, "Yes ma'am. Don't worry, it is more difficult than the first, but you did very well on the first, I'm sure you'll do well on this."
"I - ah - okay." Libby tried to push the concern out of her mind, and set to the second part. As it snapped open, Libby could tell it was thicker. Skimming through it, she saw more essay questions, more fill-in-the blanks, more computation. The questions also were more judgment calls than memorization or calculation, with some of them reading, "How would you handle this situation?" Libby almost laughed when she realized that no less than three questions were based on that same set of rare minerals she and Dora had been going over that morning. Flipping back to the beginning of the test, she realized that this section was far more difficult than the first, and she only had an hour to do it.
Libby took a deep breath and started in on the test, while Dora and Woody walked over to Howie's table. She could see them asking him questions, could hear their quiet argument, but whatever the problem was, he obviously wouldn't back down. He just shook his head, hissed responses to them, and continued grading the first part of her test. Libby wanted to listen in, but she didn't have time to worry about that.
She made one quick pass through the test, where she answered the questions that she already knew. Then she took the questions that looked like pretty straightforward calculation. Several of them were columns of ore analysis data, with a judgment call on "What would you refine for?" On those, Libby was tempted to answer with her new two-pass solution, but she figured the test couldn't have been made for that, so she played it safe and went with the obvious calculations.
As she worked through it, Libby realized that the questions she thought were the easy ones were more often trick questions. The difference was more subtle in this section, making it all the more difficult to catch the tricks. She could feel sweat on her brow as she made her second pass through the test. She was answering essay questions because they ended up being the most likely to be judgment calls, where she could get partial credit for just getting the basic idea right.
She made another pass through, with the more difficult questions, taking the time to do them right, trying to ignore the countdown glowing on the front page. As she finished that pass, a quick scan showed that she'd answered almost all the questions, so one more pass should do the trick. As she flipped to the front page for her last pass, she heard the page start keening. It started vibrating in her hands, and almost as instinct, she dropped the packet to the table. There it landed, snapped back into a locked position, and she saw the numbers in red on the top "00:00:00"
Libby didn't pick it up, she just slumped in her seat and put the pencil down carefully. Maybe it would be enough. She only needed an 80% to pass the test anyway. Maybe she didn't need to answer them all.
Howie scooped it up and said, "Thank you Ms. Carter. I've got the key at my table, so I should have your grade in a minute. You may come back if you want, or stick around at the bar."
Libby nodded dumbly, and went to sit next to Woody at the bar. She asked Mahmoud for a tea and waited as Woody studied her face. "You look like the cat who swallowed the mechanical bird toy."
She smiled at that, and said, "Yeah, I - I dunno, Woody. I honestly have no idea how I did on that." Mahmoud brought the tea around, and she sipped at it.
He shrugged, "Ah, yer a smart kid. I'm sure you did fine."
She shook her head, "I really want to. I really do. I put a lot of work in getting this done. Months of study. If this doesn't
work - I dunno."
His eyes narrowed as he looked at her, "If this doesn't work, what?"
She took a huge gulp from the tea, put it down and said, "If this doesn't work, I go back to studying, and I keep it up until I beat this thing."
He barked out a laugh, "Good girl! That's the stuff." He slapped her on the back with one calloused hand. "You got what it takes, kiddo. You'll beat it."
Libby smiled and started to respond when she heard Howie's voice. "Ms. Carter?"
She turned to face him. He looked pleased, but at the same time, she could see there was something wrong in his eyes. She walked over to the table and said, "So, how'd I do?" She saw Dora sitting next to Howie, looking angry.
He looked down at the table as he pushed the first section over to her, "Here's the first part of the test." She could see the grade written in the corner of the page. 97%
Libby looked over at Woody, confused. 97% was an excellent grade, so why were they all acting so strange? Then she realized. The first and second half must be averaged together or something for the final grade. 97% was great for part one, but if she got a 50% on part two, the average would still be failing. She touched the first section and said quietly, "What about the second section?"
He took a deep breath an pushed that packet over to sit on top of the first. It read 86% on the corner.
Libby looked at them, confused. She wanted to be happy, she wanted this to be good news. So why did they look angry? Even if the sections were averaged, she still got over 80%. She passed, right?
Then she looked at the second section cover page again, and she saw it. She pushed the two apart so she could read the covers for both sections. Section one read "Geology 4 Ranking Aptitude Test", while the second section read, "Geology 3 Ranking Aptitude Test".
She looked back over at Howie, who was meticulously avoiding her glance as he packed up his stuff. She held it up, "Wait. What does this mean? What is this?"
He looked up nervously, "It's entirely within the rules. It's totally legal."
"What is it?"
"An officiate has the right to test on whatever level he feels the applicant is best suited for."
Her eyes narrowed, "I came to take the Geology 4 test."
He nodded, "Yeah, but I figured you could handle the Geology 3 work. So . . . " His voice dwindled away, "So I gave you the test anyway."
She looked at Dora and Woody, "So, I'm ranked, then, right? I mean, I'm Geology 4 now?"
Howie shook his head frantically, "No ma'am. You're Geology 3 now. Much better ranking and pay."
Dora huffed, "I still say it's a dirty trick."
One corner of Libby's mouth started curling up, "So, are you telling me that I just skipped a grade? I can get a Geology 3 level job now?"
Howie nodded vigorously, his eyeglasses bouncing absurdly on his nose, "Yes ma'am. Just as soon as there's an opening."
She laughed out loud, "That's great!" She bounced over to the bar, "Drinks for everyone. I just jumped a grade!" Dora and Howie cheered, and Woody thumped the bar with his fist. Down at the end of the bar, even the revelers seemed happy to hear it. They each raised a glass to her and shouted, "Tumbler!" People started coming over to Libby, shaking her hand, tousling her hair, laughing with her.
She turned back to her group, "So, how soon before I can start the new work?"
Her group stopped as if a switch had been flipped. They all turned to look at her, confused. Woody asked, "what new work?"
Libby made an exaggerated rolling wave with her hand, "You know. When can I start the new job?"
Woody shook his head, "It doesn't work like that, honey. You're eligible for the job. Don't mean you can just start doing it. There's gotta be an open slot."
She nodded, "Okay, sure. So, I need to check the want ads or something. I get it. I'll find out which company needs a Geology 3 tech, and I'll be out of here in no time."
Howie, Woody, and Dora all looked at each other, then Howie looked back at her, "Ms. Carter. There aren't any openings. Not anywhere."
Libby frowned, "Well, how do you know? There's lots of companies out here, how could you know that none of them need -"
Woody broke in, "Tumbler, if there were an opening, it'd get snapped up in an instant. There's a lot more trained labor out here than there is untrained. Remember, it's expensive to get out. There's not a lot of turnover for jobs."
Libby sank into her chair, "Well, what good is this, then? What did I just spend two months of my life doing?"
Woody shrugged, "Becomin' a better miner. Besides, if somethin' comes up, yer ready for it, right?"
Libby buried her head in her hands and with a muffled voice said, "Yeah. Great. Thanks. Wonderful."
Chapter 8
Libby turned her head to the extreme left, outside the range of her visor, and wiped her face against the rag that hung from the inside of her helmet. On the standard work suits, the atmospheric regulation system was supposed to compensate for exertion and sweat, but nothing ever worked as well as it's advertising promised.
She looked back at the furrow she'd been digging for the last two hours. It was rugged, but straight, which was good enough. About fifty feet down that line, she could see Joey finishing up his furrow, two feet distant from hers, and exactly parallel. "Of course", she thought, "half of his line is easy to do, just by following my path. I have to alter my lines just to fix his inconsistencies." Past those furrows were a dozen other parallel lines, all nearly exactly two feet apart.
She frowned at the drill system, and switched on the cleaner. A plastic shield extended to cover the length of the drill bit, then filled with cold water. The water swirled around the drill bit, cooling it and removing the dirt that clung to it, as the bit itself spun down lazily. She flexed her numb fingers as the process ran, then watched as the dirty water was sucked into a bag attached to the drill. Looking at the markers on the bag, she could see that she'd finished this line after only stopping twice to clean it. That would look good on the tally, providing the drill bit didn't come back with any obvious nicks or scratches.
She picked up the drill easily (one nice thing about working in zero-g, no equipment is too heavy to cart around), and bounced carefully four feet over to start the next line. As she landed, she picked a tool shaped like a spacer's ray gun off of her belt. Placing one foot carefully on the ground, she pointed the gun at her foot. She aimed using a laser pointer which shone directly through the hole at the toe of the foot. She pulled the trigger, and a thick spike shot out of the gun. The propulsion of the shot pushed her body into space, while simultaneously nailing her foot to the surface of the rock. The bone-shuddering jolt was unnerving at first, but after a few days, you get used to it. Libby had done it so many times, she didn't even need to let go of the drill to do it.
She placed her other foot down, parallel to the lines, and aimed the next piton shot. Just as her gloved finger was curling on the trigger, a loud buzzing started in the back of her helmet. She smiled as she clipped the piton gun to her belt. Libby wiggled her bound foot, worrying the previous piton out of her shoe. Quitting time.
She grabbed hold of the drill and hit the "retract" button near the power/water cable. The cable started spinning back quickly, rocketing her off of the surface, and back to the main system that powered all of the drills. She flew about a hundred feet, then let go of the button. The cable went slack, then tightened again as she overshot the massive drill system, and bounced on the cable, just feet away from the system itself. She hit the “retract” button again, this time bouncing just inches away from the huge central block of the drill system. On the other side of the giant machine, Libby could see her boss frowning at her. He pointed at her, then at the trailer. She shook her head sadly, pointed at her wrist, and shrugged melodramatically. "Sorry," she mimed, "Can't. It's quitting time."
She turned to the drill system, and started attaching her drill to the main mechanism for storage. She felt a hand on her shoulder, and as she turned, her visor b
umped into the boss' helmet. He pressed his helmet up against hers, so that the vibrations of his voice would be carried through the hard plastic, and into her helmet. His voice sounded far away, as though under water, "Ten minutes, Carter. My office. No games."
Libby pulled back, frowning, but she nodded. She gathered up her feet under her and pushed away from the drill system, toward the changing station. She slammed her way through the pressure doors, and bounced loudly against the walls, smacking everything between her and her locker.
As she pulled off the sweaty helmet, she heard Joey call out from behind her, "Hey Tumbler. You get chewed out again?"
She shucked off the outer hull suit, leaving only the environmental control skin, "Hey Joey, why don't you go pucker up and run back to the old man?"
He smiled widely as he pulled off the environmental skin, "Back off, killer, I wasn't the one who got him so ticked. I was just wondering about that little face-to-face at the drill station."
She stripped off the sweaty, slimy environment skin and grabbed a towel. After tying her hair back, she bounced into a shower stall next to Joey. Once the shower stall was airtight, jets from all directions fired thirty seconds of water at the center of the stall. In one of those showers, a newbie will be caught off-guard and end up thrashing and squalling, with jets spraying down their throats. Libby knew enough to keep to one side, and stay out of the spray's direction. What was left was a thickly humid room, full of water with no outlet. Just like she liked it.
Libby spun around in the humidity, letting it sink into her skin, as she grabbed the cloth that she'd brought with her. She started waving the cloth around, letting it collect water, and mix with the dehydrated soap that was bonded to the cloth. She did all this silently, as did Joey in the stall next to her.
After a moment of scrubbing, she finally broke the silence, "It's not like I did anything wrong. I do my job. The old bastard just wants to give me a hard time."
Tumbler Page 5
