STAR OF EPIPHANY

by OMAR FINK

  Zorba chuckled, “I’m not teasing you Professor. I can’t make any promises yet, because it’s not my lab. But I do have some connections inside AGT and I’m fairly certain they are interested in your success. I can promise you this. If AGT is not interested, I will personally fund a lab identical to the one in Zurich, and make it available to you. In my mind, there is nothing more important than the work you are doing.”

  The Professor settled down, “Oh my. This is unbelievable. I can’t wait to tell Genaro. When should we start packing?”

  Zorba smiled at him, “All of this will come with a price, but one you will find easy to pay, I imagine.”

  The Professor deflated a bit and asked, “A price?”

  Zorba said, “Relax. In exchange for my support, I want you to grant HU full rights to use your DMJ technology to make stronger ribbon cables for the space elevators. This will be a gift to all humanity and an essential piece of ensuring our evacuation from this planet and future survival. In addition, for myself, I want you to promise to consider allowing me to fund your future work, once this ribbon cable project is concluded. I believe in you Professor and I’d be honored to be your silent partner, providing you the resources you need to do your work.”

  The Professor said, “Done! And done. And thank you. The honor is mine.” He took another sip of his coffee.

  Zorba said, “Maybe you should lay off of the coffee a little bit, Professor. Or eat something. The jalapeno gravy here is to die for.”

  +7 years, 3 months, HABITAT-34, AU 1.9

  Lee Martin stood on the side of the wide boulevard on Level 5, floor 50 of Habitat-34, watching a long parade of masked and costumed marchers dance and wind their way past where she stood. Marco Lagorio stepped up behind her, and put his hands on her shoulders, and began to massage the muscles there.

  Lee twisted her head to one side enough to see that it was Marco and said, “Hi Marco.” then turned her head back to a face forward position. About a minute later, she murmured, “Don’t stop.” Marco chuckled, and kept doing the massage. After several more minutes, he began running his knuckles up and down the middle of her back next to her spinal column.

  Lee shivered, “That’s an amazing feeling. What are you doing?”

  Marco grinned, “Seducing you.”

  Lee turned around to face Marco and laughed, “Your place or mine?”

  Marco replied, “Maybe later, but right now I was talking about seducing you into sharing some coffee and pastry with me at the cafe right over there where we can continue watching the festival marchers.” He flashed a broad smile at Lee, and nodded over his shoulder.

  Lee smiled back, “I’m game. Lead on.”

  Marco grabbed one of Lee’s hands, and pulled her along with him, “Come on.”

  A few minutes later they were sharing a table at a cafe, and sipping cappuccinos and munching on croissant-like pastries.

  Lee said, “These are amazing pastries considering that the ingredients are made from algae. I remember how primitive our diet was the first few months we were out here. Some of the foods tasted like crap even if they were nutritious.”

  Marco agreed, “Yes. The essence of good pastry is folding layers of flour and butter several times over almost like you’re making a samurai sword. I know they make both the flour and the butter from algae. Oh, and the quality of the coffee has improved greatly too. I have no idea how they have managed that, but I’m grateful for it.” He smiled, then asked, “Have you ever been to see the algae tubes?”

  Lee shook her head negatively.

  Marco smiled, You should go do that sometime. It’s fascinating. The translucent tubes are about four or five inches in diameter, many feet long, filled with water and algae, and have light tubes inside the center of the fluid. They blow fine bubbles of air up through the tubes to oxygenate the algae, then harvest the larger clumps at the bottom of the tube. It’s really impressive to see long spaces filled with glowing green tubes that feed us all.” He nodded.

  Lee smiled at him but said nothing, so Marco added, “The latest thing in restaurants and food here is subscription services. If you find a favorite coffee or sandwich or other form of food that you find yourself ordering often in a restaurant, why not order it on the mesh and have your own synthesizer make it right there at home. All you need is the recipe and the right combination of synthesizer ingredients. So the local restaurants will sell you access to their recipes, and a regular supply of any special ingredients needed on a subscription basis. Beats delivery or drive-through.” He smiled at Lee. She still remained silent, so he added some more, “Of course, if you want to get out and enjoy good company, you still need to leave your quarters.” He shrugged.

  Lee sipped her cup of coffee carefully, and watched the parade march past the cafe for several minutes. The costumes were vivid and spectacular, often with changing colors and patterns that danced and swirled across the fabric that presented them. The dancing figures and dancing colors blended together into a kaleidoscope of celebration. Finally, she remarked, “This festival is a wonder. I still don’t understand completely the thinking of the ‘Orphans of the Sun’ group, but I love their happy exuberance.”

  Marco said, “Doesn’t the ‘orphans’ name come from the old Greek legend of Orpheus?”

  Lee replied, “Yes, Orpheus was a prophet and poet and musician of such great talent that he could charm even rocks with his song and music. He was supposed to have composed a set of mystical poems in hexameter set to music and known as the ‘Orphic Hymns’. Out of this evolved a pseudo religion based on the secret knowledge of the ‘Orphic Mysteries’. Access to this knowledge was supposed to include revelations to things like a circle of immortal re-incarnation.” Lee paused for a moment and studied the wild march progression nearby.

  Lee turned back to face Marco across the table, “I understand the old legend of Orpheus and all that. What I don’t understand is how they relate it to today, living here out in space in this marvel of modern technology. I guess it doesn’t really matter. The only thing that does matter is they seem to be happy and enjoying themselves and their joy is contagious. If I wasn’t in the presence of such good company, I’d consider getting up and dancing with them.” She smiled at Marco and pushed some blond locks of hair back off her forehead.

  Marco smiled back, “They certainly have a lot of energy. I like that too. Have you seen the groups of acrobats yet?”

  Lee replied, “No.”

  Marco said, “Pay attention when they come by. We’re sitting here on floor 50 of this ring habitat and the gravity here is just less than 50% of that on Earth. With only half of normal, acrobats find they accomplish far more. Some of their moves here are a lot of fun to watch.”

  Lee said, “I’d never considered that. So, if they were to do their routines on the upper floors, it would be even better, right?”

  Marco said, “That’s right. This is a class C ring with a radius of 500 meters. It has a rotation speed of 1.32 rotations per minute. The size and speed of rotation give us a range of comfort to work with from a design point of view. At the outer edge with a radius of 500 meters, the gravity is just under the level of normal Earth gravity. Here on floor 50, the gravity is half that. Up on the top floors on level 7, the gravity is a little less than one third of Earth normal. At that point, a lot of daily exercise is required to stay healthy. For general design, we try to aim at a sweet spot in the gravity range from 90% of Earth normal to about 35% of Earth normal. A little less than Earth relieves some of the strain without negative effects. As you decrease gravity, you increase the need for exercise to stay healthy. Everybody can find a range they feel comfortable with.”

  Lee looked like she was absorbing all the numbers Marco had spit out. Marco paused then said, “By the way, it’s worth mentioning that at the outer edge of this ring, the circumference is just over three kilometers. Another general design principle we’ve evolved as we’ve built these rings is to include a wide avenue like one we are sitting
on, about every ten floors. As you can see, this allows an atrium like overhead free space of between four and eight floors, still retaining plenty of structural integrity. These soaring ceilings create a positive psychological feeling of a lot of open space. We want that. And as designs evolved, somebody thought to include side ramps that allow a long slow elevation from one floor to the next. A series of ramps that interconnect are now pretty standard in our designs allowing continuous walking space or rolling space across all floors to all other floors. With an outer circumference of three kilometers in this ring and seventy floors, you can walk for a long time before you need to retrace. Of course there are also plenty of elevator shafts everywhere, so you always have a choice to walk or roll or just take an elevator up or down.”

  Lee whistled softly, “With seventy floors and an average circumference of somewhere between two and three kilometers, you could have a potential parade route of well over a hundred kilometers in length.”

  Marco grinned, “You got it.” He looked down at his nearly empty cup, “I love a girl who can do her own math.”

  Lee looked over at Marco and smirked a little then added, “So what have you decided about moving over to the new hab when it’s finished? It will be pretty much exactly like this one won’t it?”

  Marco answered, “Yes, essentially it will be the same. It has been designated HAB-107 and is C class, 500 meters radius, etc, just like this one. The software is constantly being updated, and some architectural changes that result from that will be incorporated into the new builds a little faster, but the old rings also get the software updates, so it’s just a question of when something needs to be repaired or replaced that determines how fast an older ring catches up. I’m going to stay right here on this ring. How about you?”

  Lee shrugged and frowned slightly, “I’m going to move over to the new ring.”

  Marco smiled, “I thought you might. You always seem to push forward into everything new and exciting. And the new ring will be moving out eventually to AU 3.3. There is another new ring designated as HAB-75 that will soon detach from its parent, HAB-58. This ring will be staying in a home orbit around AU 2.5 and that suits me just fine. I’ll be near the middle of everything when the dust settles.”

  Lee smiled, “You’re right. I always push forward, and you always seek the center.”

  +7 years, 4 months, HABITAT-58, AU 2.5

  Keel O’Donnell parked his habi-craft ring near HAB-58, set the navigation computer to ‘hold position’, put the bot crew on sentry status, and used a small pod to thrust over to the docking port at the end of the spindle. Lewis “Sonny” Barton met him at the spindle transfer and shook his hand, “Nice to see you again Keel.”

  Keel smiled, “Likewise. Sonny, right?”

  Sonny smiled back, “You remembered. Nice. So is that your own craft out there?”

  Keel replied, “Well, sort of. I’m in the progress of building it out to my own plans. I won a small crew ring and have plans to add a spindle and expand it, but it’s my home for now.”

  Lewis said, “You won it?”

  Keel smirked, “Indirectly. I won a football sim league championship with a big prize and used the prize money to buy a ring that had been serving as our crew quarters near HAB-1. They decided to upgrade the crew ring, and were willing to sell the old one to me for a song.”

  Lewis asked, “Football sim? That’s the game where you record your actual personal skills and create simulated players based on them?”

  Keel said, “That’s right. I was a pretty good athlete in my younger years, and did well at everything in the trials. That’s where they have you do specific moves to analyze your speed and agility and experience. Then they use the analysis to create composites for each player position on the team. I was able to avoid stressing my bad knee, and did fine. I know a lot about the old style football and I think that gave me an edge in the strategy of calling plays. As a matter of fact, I’ve named my ring, ‘Counter-Tre’ after an old running play the Washington Redskins used to use. That play is what earned me the championship prize, so it made sense.”

  Lewis smiled, “I remember that play. It looked kinda like the older power sweep the Green Bay Packers used to roll up some championships.”

  Now it was Keel’s turn to smile, and he replied, “That’s right.”

  Sonny waved his hand toward a device made of metal and composites and padding and said, “This looks like your standard Exo-Multi-Couch right? Yeah? But it’s so much more. Hold my beer and watch this.” He stepped forward into the open arms of the couch, turned around and leaned back into it. The arms wrapped around him, the seat rose to fit his back and legs, the shoulder pads and helmet assembly moved into place behind his head, and the leg pieces wrapped around his calves and joined with his boots.

  Sonny continued, “See, everything works just like normal. But now watch this.” He spoke to the couch, “EMC command, run exercise routine Barton six.” The exo-multi-couch began to move and Sonny’s legs moved with it in small circles that widened into larger circular strides.

  He said, “Of course I control the stride pattern, and speed and resistance. But so far, this is nothing special. You can get any elliptical exercise machine to do most of this. But watch this.” Again he spoke to the machine, “EMC command, run exercise routine Barton swim two.” The exo-couch morphed again until Sonny was leaning forward, then making swimming motions with his arms and legs doing the breast stroke.

  Sonny grinned at Keel O’Donnell as he kept swimming and spoke to the exo-couch again, “EMC command, run exercise routine Barton wings.” He kept grinning at Keel as the couch morphed again until it seemed like he was flying, flapping his wings and then gliding on them, then flapping again.

  Sonny finally said, “EMC command, stop exercise.” The exo-couch relaxed and slowly sank back into a default standing position with Sonny still resting in it. He smiled again, “Ain’t that great?”

  Keel shook his head slightly, “That’s amazing Sonny. How many routines are there?”

  Sonny responded, “We have almost a hundred so far with many more small variations on themes, but you can train it to make as many of your own custom forms as you want. And the engineers who helped set this up for me suggested we can add scenic virtual backgrounds to make them more interesting.”

  Keel said, “I can see that. Wow!”

  Sonny added, “But wait. That second generation under-skin you guys have been using has integrated electronics that connect it to your space-suit, right?”

  Keel nodded. Sonny continued, “Well, we’re pretty sure we can do the same thing with this device. We may need to modify the suit a bit as the middle piece, but when that’s done, your skin will talk to your suit, and your suit will talk to the couch, and everything will work together.” He waved a hand in the air.

  Keel said, “I’m beyond impressed. This should be useful.”

  Sonny said, “Yeah, there’s unlimited potential here. And it’s actually important because the rescue service we’re talking about may entail working in low G environments for extended time periods. That means a lot of exercise will be mandatory to maintain health standards.”

  Sonny waved his hand at the exo-couch and said, “But all this aside, we need to talk about the rescue service itself. You and I both have special forces backgrounds. You did the Air Force para-rescue jumper training before your knee injury washed you out, and I was an active Army Green Beret for several years before being recruited by HU and ending up out here in space. I think special forces training doesn’t have to be a requirement for our new recruits but we need to consider what parts of that training has benefited us most and figure out ways to replace it in recruits who don’t have the same background.”

  Keel nodded his acknowledgment at Sonny, “I’m listening.”

  Sonny looked serious, “Our basic mission is rapid rescue operations in space. The experiences you and I and some others have been through with accidents and urgent needs in the space en
vironment has taught us that one of the biggest problems is response time. Our greatest single threat is explosive decompression and loss of breathable atmosphere when hull failure occurs. The most common cause of that is collision with either construction debris or fast moving micro particles. Slow moving and large objects can be detected at longer ranges, and we can take action to avoid them or deflect them. But the smallest, fastest moving particles can do a lot of damage, and often only give us a few seconds warning time.”

  Keel said, “I’m still with you. And when we encounter loss of atmosphere, we have some emergency provisions available to us. We have the oxygen respirocytes that hold reserve oxygen in our blood stream, and can offer up to an hour without actually breathing. You and I have both been dosed with the nanoparticle respirocytes, but the general population has not. We need to create a push for anybody who routinely travels in space to have them infused and maybe eventually to just get them into everybody. That may take years, but we need to start somewhere.”