Habitats (an Ell Donsaii story #7)

by Dahners, Laurence

  Morgan felt like Lane’s flamboyant dancing looked a little bit desperate, but it felt nice to be out with her sister, moving to the beat and having a good time. When she saw Shan and Raquel near the floor with the drinks, she shouted to be heard over the heavy beat, “Let’s get a drink,” she inclined her head at her brother and his girlfriend. When the song finished, they headed over. Lane slugged back her drink and grabbed Raquel’s wrist, dragging her out to the floor for more dancing.

  Watching them Morgan tilted her head curiously. Raquel didn’t perform any special moves. In fact, it looked like she was imitating Lane’s moves for the most part, just… more gracefully. Something about her moves… so perfectly on the beat… so coordinated, seemed to show the potential to do… more… Despite the fact that many dancers were performing more exotic moves, Morgan realized that a lot of the others were watching Raquel too. Morgan thought Raquel danced somewhat like Ell Donsaii did when Donsaii danced to slow music. Not doing Donsaii amazing physical feats obviously, but the sinuous, agile, flowing steps and turns had a lot in common. Morgan wondered if Raquel consciously tried to imitate her boss’s style. She pictured her dancing at home in front of a mirror while videos of Donsaii played on a large screen nearby. Maybe I should practice that way?

  Suddenly Jordan was dancing next to Lane out on the floor. He looked wild and clumsy in comparison to Raquel. After a moment Morgan recognized that he was drunk. She had the feeling that, sober, he’d still look clumsy on the dance floor. But he had enthusiasm. Lane brightened at his appearance and began dancing with him. After a moment Raquel left the floor and rejoined Morgan and Shan. Belatedly, Morgan realized that AJ stood next to her, watching the floor. She punched him playfully on the shoulder and he turned to her with a shy grin cth t h, “Didn’t think you’d ever notice me. Wanna dance?”

  AJ danced well and enthusiastically, so Morgan had a great time. Shan and Raquel danced a couple of times, but vanished after a bit, apparently tired of the singles scene. Jordan started trying to get Lane to go someplace “quieter.” Acquiescing, she asked Morgan and AJ to go with them. Thus, Morgan found herself with her sister and the two guys at a midnight deli, picking out snacks and laughing. Lane and Jordan were both pretty drunk and Morgan felt a little unsteady herself. As they sat down, Jordan said, “Heeyy, you ladies should come check out our place. Bottom of the run, big hot tub.” He waggled his eyebrows and took a big bite of his sandwich.

  Lane glanced at Morgan, then turned to Jordan, “Hey, you know, that bitchy girlfriend of my brother’s doesn’t believe you have a job at D5R or helped with the orbit for their habitat.”

  He snorted, “Glad they went home then, I hate putting people in their places.”

  Lane leaned drunkenly away from him, shoulder up against the table and body turned toward him. She sent an admiring smile back his way. “And the type of orbit the habitat’s in now, what kind is that?”

  He glanced up to the left, “Uh… geosynchronous, why?”

  Lane held her left hand up between them, palm towards herself. “Because,” she reached up with her right hand and pulled down her little finger, “You’re,” she tucked in the thumb, “an,” she pulled down her ring finger, “ass,” she pulled down her index, “hole.” Her hand remained with just the middle finger still extended. Lane straightened in her seat, suddenly looking much more sober, “Morgan, let’s go home,” she picked up her sandwich and stood.

  Morgan got up and picked up her own sandwich.

  Jordan spluttered, “You’re leaving because of, what, an orbit?!”

  “I’m leaving,” Lane smiled, “because you don’t know anything about the habitat’s orbit, you lying, bragging sack of shit.” She snorted and muttered disbelievingly, “Geosynchronous habitat!”

  Morgan wanted to applaud her little sister as they walked out.

  They walked along, eating their sandwiches and not saying anything. Finally Lane said, “I guess, I owe Raquel an apology.”

  “And a ‘thank you’ too, I think.”

  Lane nodded and tossed the rest of her sandwich into a trash can.

  ***

  Shan and Ell quickstepped across the frosty deck to the hot tub outside the condo the Kinrais’ had rented. Shan tossed back the cover of the tub, shucked his robe and dropped into the water. Looking up he admired Ell’s amazing body as she let her own robe fall and slid gracefully into the wonderfully hot water next to him. She snuggled in under his arm and said, “Wow, this is nice!”< cze= snuggl/font>

  “Yeah, there’s just something about a hot tub when the weather is frosty,” Shan said with a sigh.

  “They don’t always feel this good?”

  “You’ve never been in a hot tub before?”

  Ell shook her head and looked up at him, looking innocent, “I’ve led a very sheltered life.” She grinned, “Not a dissipated and slothful one like you.”

  Shan snorted, but then relaxed and let his head rest back on the rim of the tub. They sat in peaceable silence for a while, then Ell slid a hand up over his firm chest and turned her face up next to his, “Shan?”

  “Um hmm?” he said, eyes closed.

  “What do you think our future is?” she asked, heart suddenly thumping. Men hated these kinds of relationship questions she knew, but she felt a need to figure out where they were going. Rationally, she didn’t know why she needed to know, but emotionally she had a drive to understand. She hoped it didn’t all blow up in her face.

  “Hmmm,” he said, “I don’t know. I haven’t really gotten past hoping you’ll ask me to marry you some day.”

  “Me… ask you?” she whispered emphatically. “You’re the guy!”

  He opened an eye and peered down at her with one of his lazy grins. “What? You’re not bound by those traditional sexist roles are you?”

  “Uh, no…” Then puzzled, “But why haven’t you asked me, if you’re really hoping for such an outcome?”

  “Because, you’re Ell Donsaii. I could ask Raquel Blandon, she’s not so scary. She wouldn’t make my manhood vanish by out-skiing my ass on her first day down the slopes.”

  Ell grinned at him and poked his hard stomach gently with a finger, “Well then, you should ask Raquel. Because, remember, I want to live my life and have a family as Raquel, not as Ell.”

  Shan slid off the seat out into the middle of the tub and turned to face her, then reached down to untie the drawstring on his trunks.

  Ell sat up, glancing around, “You’re getting naked out here?! The people in the upper condos can see down into this tub!”

  “No,” he grinned, “I have something tied to this drawstring.” He lifted a ring out of the water, “Raquel Blandon, will you marry me?”

  Ell’s eyes widened, then she threw herself forward and wrapped her arms around him. “Yes!” she said fiercely. “Yes, a thousand times yes.”

  Epilogue

  The small rocket squirted air out of its attitude jets a couple of times as the rim of the enormous ring approached. The jets pivoted it so its main engine would push it in over the wall of the ring. The main engine exhausted hydrogen at full thrust for a minute, then turned and thrust the opposite direction once the rocket was over the top of the sidewall.

  As the sidewall rose to meet it, the main nozzle turned downward and opened up, gently bringing the rocket down to a landing on the upper surface of the wall. It stood there motionless for a minute, then a circular area on the large, odd fin sticking off to its side went fuzzy and a rolled up tube slid through it, dropped onto the sidewall and also stood motionless for a moment.

  The band holding the tube rolled up snapped and the tube unrolled revealing a much larger circle. That circle also vanished and an object three feet long with a maximum width of seven inches extruded through the 15 centimeter circle.

  The object lay motionless for a few moments, then sat up, revealing an anthropomorphic form with two legs, two arms and a head. It stood and walked to the edge of the ring’s sidewall. There it stood a whi
le, looking out over the enormous expanse of apparently flat, open land fading into the misty distance ahead. It turned to take in the distant, upwardly curving shape of the ring on either side.

  The PGR chip inside it sent back data:

  “Apparent gravity 0.338G”

  “Apparent atmosphere inside ring, Oxygen 28%, Nitrogen 71%, Others <1%”

  The waldo knelt and chipped off a small piece of the material beneath its feet, inspected it for a moment and then dropped it into a port on its chest.

  After looking out over the vista ahead another minute, the waldo lifted on a jet of highly compressed air and floated out over the incredibly deep valley ahead.

  The End

  If you enjoy the Ell Donsaii stories, you might also enjoy reading “Vaz” about a scientifically brilliant but socially inept father, struggling to be allowed to do the research he loves, to be treated fairly by the company he works for and to send his kids to college. A sample is provided at the end of this book.

  Hope you liked the book!

  If so, please give it a positive review on Amazon.

  Try the next in the series, to be published someday soon.

  Author’s Afterword

  This is a comment on the “science” in this science fiction novel. I have always been partial to science fiction that posed a “what if” question. Not everything in the story has to be scientifically possible, but you suspend your disbelief regarding one or two things that aren’t thought to be possible. Then you ask, what if something (such as faster than light travel) were possible, how might that change our world? Each of the Ell Donsaii stories asks at least one such question.

  “Habitats” continues asking what kinds of cool things we could do with even small wormholes or “ports.” Modern prostheses really are terrible and being able to do some of the things that ports would let you do could be a great boon to amputees. However, this book also asks what kind of terrible things might terrorists try to do with them and how might other countries begin to react to the advantages ports give the owners of the technology. It also starts asking what kinds of space habitats might we, or others, might realistically construct (at least, if we had the technological wizardry that ports could provide).

  Acknowledgements

  I would like to acknowledge the editing and advice of Gail Gilman, Elene Trull, Kerry McIntyre and Kat Lind, each of whom significantly improved this story.

  Prologue to “Vaz,”

  Available from the same sellers where you purchased “Habitats”

  Lisanne Frye pulled her blond hair back behind her ear and turned her eyes to glance at her teammate. He’d surprised her at every turn since Professor Albrecht had assigned them to be a team at the beginning of the semester. That assignment had been solely based on their positions in the alphabet. She’d had this Vaz Gettnor kid in some of her classes before but had never spoken to him because he seemed so… weird. Stodgy clothes, odd tufty dark hair, never spoke unless spoken to and never looked you in the eye. She thought he must have some kind of psychiatric disorder.

  When the Professor had listed them as a team, before even having a first meeting with Gettnor, she’d gone to Albrecht and asked to be reassigned. Albrecht had abruptly dismissed her, “Someday you vill nfon iith have to work vis people you don’ like,” he’d said in his funny accent. “Just as vell start now.” After cursing Albrecht for a suitable period she’d sent an email to Gettnor asking him to meet her in a study center.

  His only reply had been, “OK.”

  At the meeting, Gettnor had been waiting uncomfortably at a table in the first floor study area like she’d specified. He’d been sitting, staring at his slate. The slate had been laid out on the table but not turned on. Lisanne had introduced herself and he’d shaken her hand. Even his hand shake had been creepy. It had been a “put your hand out, allow it to be grasped, twitch it, take it back” kind of shake. During the handshake his eyes had risen briefly, though not even to her face, then dropped immediately back to the table.

  When she’d asked if he had any ideas on how they should go about the project they’d been assigned, he’d only shaken his head. Deciding she’d have to lead their team, she divided up the various tasks that would need to be accomplished to build the software controller module they’d been assigned. She turned her slate with its list of nine tasks to him and asked him which ones he would like to take on. He’d looked at it a minute and, to her astonishment, selected seven of them.

  Bemused she’d picked four and left him with five. In view of his difficulty with communication she hadn’t been surprised that “writing up the results” was one she’d been stuck with.

  They’d met a week later to discuss their progress and determine if parts of the project were going to be problematic. She’d said “Hi Vaz,” as she walked up to the table.

  After a pause, without looking up from his blank slate, he’d said only, “Hello.” Thinking like the programmer she intended to become, she’d decided he was running some poorly written software that required a lot of processor cycles, just to conclude that he needed to respond to the social debt created by her “Hi.”

  She sat beside him and flipped on her slate. “I’ve finished my first task and started on numbers two and three. Of course I haven’t started on number four, the write-up of our results, since I don’t know what they’ll be.” With some dread she said, “How are you coming with your parts?” Her fear that he wouldn’t finish any of his tasks and she’d have to do the entire project herself to pull a decent grade had been giving her stomach cramps.

  He said only, “Done.”

  Lisanne blinked a moment or two, not sure what he meant. “Done with which part?”

  “All of them. Well except the write-up… I suck at that.”

  Her eyebrows shot up, “You’ve finished all five of yours?”

  “I did the first eight. Even though you’re doing some of them I wanted the practice. We don’t have to use mine though.”

  She drew back, “You’ve finished the first eight,” she said dubiously.

  He nodded.

  Her eyes narrowed. “You haven’t plagiarized some programming off the net have you?”

  “No. I looked at a couple, but they weren’t written very well.”

  Suspiciously Lisanne said, “Okaaay, send them to me and I’ll look them over.”

  He mumbled to his AI (Artificial Intelligence) and a moment later a tone and a blink on her HUD (Heads Up Display) told her she’d received the files.

  “Meet here again, same time next week?”

  He nodded.

  Back in her dorm room she pulled up the files he’d sent her and cursed. They were much too small to be able to achieve the complex goals the team had been set. Rather than start analyzing them line by line, she just tried them to see if they could possibly respond correctly based on Albrecht’s specifications.

  They did. Every single one of them.

  She began looking through the code he’d written, feeling more and more awed as she went through it. Sparsely written, it didn’t use any of the modules of code that were in such common use that programmers normally just plugged them in to accomplish certain tasks without trying to write something themselves. These common modules were in such wide use that no one knew who’d written them or thought that using them was plagiarism. In places Lisanne could find blocks of Vaz’s code which did the same thing as the canned code blocks. She compared Vaz’s code to three of the modules available out there in various libraries and his were 10-30% more economical of processor cycles. They also spread the load over the available processors very nicely,

  With awe, she recognized that what he’d already finished on each of the eight tasks was head and shoulders above what she could do, even if she spent the entire semester on a single one of the tasks.

  Lisanne shivered and set out to complete the write-up that would be her only contribution to their shared project.

  Lisanne walked into the library the ne
xt week and found Gettnor waiting at their usual table. “Hey Vaz, I’m taking you for coffee, let’s get out of this place.”

  “I don’t drink coffee.” He hadn’t looked up from the table.

  Lisanne grabbed his elbow and tugged. “OK, you can have a Coke or a juice or something.”

  Gettnor reluctantly got up from the table, “Where are we going?”

  “Union coffee shop. Come on.”

  “I’ve never been there,” he said, almost plaintively.

  Lisanne didn’t feel any surprise. “There’s always a first time.”

  Once she had a coffee and he cof size="+0"had a Diet Coke, they sat facing each other at a little table for two. As she sipped her coffee, she stared over the rim of her cup at him. “Vaz, you didn’t use common code blocks in your programs.”

  “I know.”

  “You wrote everything new?”

  “No, I’ve already rewritten most of the common code blocks. I do it for each one I come across. They’re sloppy.” He said this as if he were offended that someone had written code that was inefficient.

  She realized that though he was staring down at the table, she thought he had a nice symmetrical face. He might not be “model” handsome but he wasn’t bad looking either. “Vaz, look at me.”

  His eyes flashed up at her momentarily, then back to his blank slate. He sucked on the straw in his drink.

  “No, really look at me. I don’t think you’ve even seen my face.”

  “I have...” he said quietly, “You’re very pretty.”

  “When?” she said in surprise.

  “On line. There are many pictures of you available.”