by OMAR FINK
Sonny kept talking, “Our mission evolved from the need for emergency services to help the many remote groups and communities and small craft. The big cities have plenty of emergency capability, but they can’t get it to a small group quickly when they’re far away. The distances out here and the travel times involved make this a problem. Eventually, we may develop a network of remotely operated aid stations, but in the meantime, we just have a few craft and a few people and everything is pretty much an experiment. This means you’ll be working in a fluid environment that changes a lot, and our requirements will no doubt change also.
+9 years, 9 months, HABITAT-58, AU 2.5
Delize Naidu pulled several dishes out of the food printer and moved them into a warming drawer. She said, “Zoey, go ahead and set the table. And Linc, you can choose some wall scenery you like. Dinner will be served in a few minutes. Just the apricot pudding left to go.”
Lincoln said, “Oh yum. I haven’t had apricot pudding in ages. What else is on the menu?”
Zoey interrupted before her Mom could answer, “All the usually homey stuff. You know: pap and greens, chakala relish, curried lentils. Nothing ever changes here.” She sighed.
Delize turned to scrutinize her daughter, “Well, tell us how you really feel.”
Lincoln laughed, “Oh Mom, you know she likes that food. She just likes to gripe more.” He grinned at Zoey.
Zoey scowled at Lincoln, “Don’t be picking stars for the wall again.” Then she turned toward the table, “Table, family dinner setting for three.” There were four rectangular box-shapes on the table-top. Three of them reformed themselves into eating surfaces, including a single spork utensil in the center and a cup on the side. The fourth box remained as it was. Three seat blobs moved up to the table edge and formed comfortable looking seats. Zoey smiled, “Table’s set.”
Lincoln was talking to the wall, “Wall, show me new scenery.” He pointed at the list that appeared on the wall and a spot of light appeared there, then moved the spot and used it to scroll down through the list. He said, “Wow Mom, you have really good scenery here.”
Delize replied, “I can afford to buy the best software now. And the stuff we get out here in the belt is better than anything from Earth.”
Lincoln said, “I’ll say. This stuff is outstanding. I’m impressed. By the way, where did you get the curry and the apricots?”
Delize moved some more dishes around and replied with looking, “The recipes all came from the mesh, although I made a few tweaks from my experience. Getting curry from the food synthesizer is not a problem unless you want a special blend, and I subscribe to a supplier who specializes in spices. Apricots are also pretty standard fare, at least for a five-tank synthesizer. It’s amazing what they can do with different varieties of algae mixed together.”
Zoey was listening intently, “Remember, the algae just provides the nutritional substrate that all our food types need. We add the flavoring with chemically synthesized seasoning and the texture is added by the food printer templates.”
Lincoln crowed, “Oooh, listen to the biology apprentice. Not even certified yet, but she can already preach algae tech with the best of them.” He smirked, “Wall, show New Zealand forest scene 6.” The wall complied and became a dense forest with a plank pathway that crossed over a babbling brook. Lincoln frowned, “Wall, show Germany Black Forest scene 3.” The wall changed. There was still dense forest but the foliage was different somehow and upstream from the babbling brook was a clearing with a chalet-style cabin.” Lincoln smiled and left the wall alone.
Zoey surveyed the wall, “That’s actually nice. I don’t understand why you never seem to get tired of looking at star patterns. They all look the same to me.”
Lincoln responded, “Just because I work in astro/nav center and look at stars all the time doesn’t mean it gets old to me. And every single frame looks different if you know what you’re looking at.”
Delize interrupted, “Okay, you two. Dinner is served. Come sit down at the table.” She carried dishes from the warming drawer to the table and went back for more.
Zoey and Lincoln both moved to the table and sat in the seat blobs that gently molded themselves to their forms. They watched as their mother finished placing the dishes filled with food on the table and then took a seat herself.
Delize looked at each of her children then reached out to grasp their hands. She spoke, “We don’t have a lot of religious tradition in our family, but one thing we’ve always taken time for is to be thankful for what we’ve had. Zoey, you’re over twenty now and becoming a beautiful young woman. Lincoln, you’re a professional astro-navigator working with state-of-the-art technology and with a bright career path in front of you. Not to mention your wonderful girlfriend. I wish she could have been here today. As I look across this table, I see some of our old faithful foods that we’ve been eating for many years. But I remember how hard it was to get the food on our table back in the days. And I remember how I could hardly see how we’d get through the next month or even the next week. But now we have everything we need and more. And I am truly grateful for what we have and for the quality of adult both of you are growing into. No mother could be more proud. Thanks.”
+9 years, 10 months, RRRT HABICRAFT, AU 3.7
Sonny Barton was holding his index finger down on a panel on the top of a machine. He said, “Okay, let me see if I’ve got this right. It can be difficult to accurately track a fast moving small particle that is coming straight at us in enough time to take protective measures before it strikes. But the same particle is much easier to track from sensors that are off the side of its path because they can determine the speed and direction faster and with more accuracy. That won’t help us unless we happen to have sensors deployed off to the side of every craft. If we did, we could then relay that information to the craft that is in the way of the particle with more time to enable protective measures. Is that it?”
Keel O’Donnell nodded, “That is correct sir. The larger rocks are fairly easy to track, and we know where they are at all times. Anything down to the size of a baseball we can see with either radar or optical sensors in enough time to issue warnings. But now and then, we have a particle more like the size of a bullet that is moving at speeds in the neighborhood of fifty thousand kilometers per hour. Do the math. That means they cover more than eight-hundred kilometers every minute. If you have the ability to spot a bullet moving at that speed while it’s still eight-hundred kilometers away, what can you do in one minute? It’s possible to sound an alarm, seal some bulkheads, get to a backup air supply, and maybe some other measures, but it’s not practical to try to move the craft out of the way. And it’s also very difficult to accurately calculate the trajectory of a fast moving particle coming straight at you with enough precision to know whether it will hit you or miss you by a few meters.”
Keel looked at Sonny’s finger and added, “Just keep your finger on that spot for a few more seconds please.” He smiled.
Sonny replied, “And by deploying all these sensors all over the belt, we’re creating a network of navigation sensor stations that can cover the entire belt and give navigators fresh information no matter where they are.”
Keel said, “Yeah, the information database replicates pretty quickly and light speed communications limits us to about one hour maximum delay time from one edge of the belt to the other edge, but for most nearby updates, we’re talking about a few minutes or less. The time delay at eight-hundred kilometers is near zero. Or working backwards, that same one minute range we were talking about, covers about eighteen million klicks at light speed. There’s more math to do to figure out how many sensors we’ll need to cover how much space with how much time delay between each sensor, but I’ll let the computers do that.”
There was a brief silence, then Sonny said, “I’ve been wondering how we can improve our pod design with a focus on longer term survival.”
Keel responded, “Isn’t that what the emergency life-
pods are for on every habi-craft ring?”
Sonny looked up, “Yes, it is, but they are optimized for survival, and our pods are optimized for thrusting and grappling. What would we get if we combined those functions? I’d like to see more thrusting capability in life-pods and more life sustaining capability in our pods. The life-pods are designed to eject to safety and drift for a long time until somebody responds to their rescue beacon. Our pods are designed to do everything but not for very long. It’s mostly a matter of how we decide to allocate storage space for fuel and oxygen.”
Keel said, “Maybe we should consider several variations of time versus thrusters.”
Sonny smiled at him.
Keel added, “You can take your finger off now.”
Sonny removed his finger and shook it with fatigue, “How come if the bots can build all these sensor stations, you have to get me to hold my finger on a repair until the glue sets?”
Keel smiled and shrugged, “It just seemed easier to do it that way than to try to explain to the bots how to fix the problem or even have to modify some program to get it done.”
Sonny said, “I heard that.” Then he added, “But quit calling me ‘sir’.”
Keel saluted him, “Yes sir.” Sonny picked up a piece of soft tubing and threw it a Keel, but missed.
+9 years, 11 months, SPACE ELEVATOR 776 ANCHORED AT SAO TOME
Ulrich Giger sat on a couch in a climber car with a strap across his waist holding him down. Tony Azaria sat on the next couch in similar fashion. Both men wore blue jump-suits. A large screen on the wall showed the Earth shrinking below them, and a tiny platform above them with a wheel turning slowly in the background.
Tony began speaking, “We plan to refuse the current offer from HU for HAB-58 and make our final counter offer which we fully expect to be accepted. Zorba has some inside channels on their pricing, so this should be easy.”
Ulrich replied, “That’s great. What kind of turnaround time do you expect?”
Tony responded, “Two weeks max, maybe within a few days.”
Ulrich said, “Good. What’s your assessment on how to frame this city and what we can do with it most effectively?”
Tony said, “First of all, I’d like to propose we rename the city from HAB-58 to ‘Arete Station’. That’s from the Greek word, ‘arete’ which means excellence. That sets us up to focus the intention of the city on doing things with excellence, but doesn’t limit us much in what we choose to do.”
Ulrich said, “I like that. Continue.”
Tony said, “Well, one of the key characteristics of this city is its location. It sits in an orbit at AU 2.5 and is in the middle of the second major Kirkwood gap. While there is no real convention for this yet, I’d expect to see some form of commerce and transportation lanes begin to focus on the areas of the Kirkwood gaps over time, and this one should be the widest highway, so to speak, if that happens.”
Giger asked, “I thought the asteroids are so spread out that it will be rare for two rocks to be anywhere near each other?”
Tony said, “That’s true. And in a local sense, there won’t be much reason to concentrate resources in the gaps, because the entire asteroid belt will seem empty to the occupants and you won’t really be able to tell whether you’re in a gap or not. But still, it just seems to me that maybe from the viewpoint of navigators looking at a large scale maps of maybe just for psychological reasons, this concentrating in the gaps seems intuitive. This is just my guess, and I may very well be wrong about it. The main actual reason for this would be the placement of nav/comm sensor stations in the gap to minimize collision potential and maximize a clear field of vision for the sensors. Once the nav/comm stations are established there it makes sense for at least some traffic to also stay in those zones. We’ll see.”
Giger said, “I see what you’re thinking.”
Tony continued, “Also, at least two other major habitat city rings are in different stages of construction also in AU 2.5 and there are several more nearby including two of the new Kibbutz agricultural cities at AU 2.4 and 2.6. This cluster of resources should help promote a highway in space kind of thinking.”
Giger said, “I like the theme of excellence idea, and as usual, you’ve scoped out the environment of the project well. I think you should record some of this conversation and send it out to Peter and Zorba.”
Tony said, “Order us some lunch and I’ll start recording.”
About ten minutes later, Tony announced, “V-mail sent to Peter Anderson on HAB-58 and to Zorba Omega on a private habi-craft ring near AU 2.5. What’s for lunch?”
Ulrich was unwrapping a package and grimaced, “Algae sandwiches and protein pudding.”
Tony laughed and held out his hand for his share, “Well, let’s see how it tastes.”
16 Choices
“There are more stars than there are people. Billions, Alan had said, and millions of them might have planets just as good as ours. Ever since I can remember, I’ve felt too big. But now I felt small. Too small. Too small to count. Every star is massive, but there are so many of them. How could anyone care about one star when there were so many spare? And what if stars were small? What if all the stars were just pixels? And earth was less than a pixel? What does that make us? And what does that make me? Not even dust. I felt tiny. For the first time in my life I felt too small.”
— Frank Cottrell Boyce, Cosmic
+10 years, 2 months, HABITAT-107, AU 3.3
Lee Martin smiled into the viewpoint, “Hi, this is Lee Martin. A lot of people have been asking about buying things from HU. I can explain at least some of that to you.”
Lee smiled again, ran some fingers back through her hair, then continued, “HU was originally formed in order to deal with the threat from the comet and the first thing they did was create a new form of cyber currency, and use it to start buying everything. They bought all kinds of resources because everything was going to be needed to mobilize our efforts to move into space. They bought old currencies. They bought real estate. They bought businesses and industries. They bought everything that they could. But now that a lot of us are already out here in space, and the threat from the comet is in the process of being diminished, a lot of people are going to want their old lives back. And they’re also going to want their old things back. That means all the things they sold to HU back in the beginning.”
Lee paused and smiled. She lifted one hand into the air, palm toward the viewpoint, with her fingers loosely spread, “Here’s where it gets kind of tricky. Some of us have already migrated into space but some are still on Earth, and may decide to stay there. So each of us may want different things. Those who stay on Earth are likely to want back some of their old things, but maybe not. Those of us who are now out here are not likely to want old things because we have entirely new lives and new things, and are not too likely to want to go back.”
Lee tilted her head a little to one side, “We were all paid handsome sums of HU coin when we sold our property to them, and the value of that currency is now worth a lot more than it was at the beginning. So no matter where you are and what you want, we are all much better off now than before.”
Lee waved a hand in front of her like she was brushing something away, “But what if you want your old life back? What if you’re still on Earth, and the news is that the comet train is most likely not going to be a problem soon, and you want to get back to living the way you did before? What if you want back your house, your property, your business, or even your nation? These are serious and complex issues. Well, HU is now offering what they call ‘reversal transactions’ which means rolling things back to the way they were before. Values have changed a lot in recent years and that includes the value of HU coin, so in most cases, you can get a real bargain. That means you can buy back what you sold to HU years ago for bits on the coin, or as we used to say, ‘for pennies on the dollar’. The combination of old property not being worth as much as it was when it originally sold to HU plus all
our increased wealth make this an attractive looking deal. It has been reported that in many cases, HU is taking some big losses in these reversal transactions.”
Lee frowned, “Now HU was never designed to become profitable, so it’s okay for the organization to lose some money and return some of the wealth to the people who offered it to create the organization in the first place. In fact many people think HU should plan on shrinking and eventually dissolving completely. As the emergency is scaling down, the need for the HU organization is also fading.”
Lee smiled again, “For those of us who have decided to stay out here in space, there is little point in considering a reversal transaction to recover what we once sold. We’re happy here, and we’re rich here, and our lifestyle is far better here than it ever was on Earth. But HU is also selling off resources here in the asteroid belt. They had to build a lot of mining and construction equipment, and many small crew rings. These are all going to be sold off. It’s even possible to purchase a large ring habitat city that can house millions of people. Of course, these purchases will be expensive so in most cases they will be bought by groups of partners who share like investment interests.”
