I sat in the control seat and watched as the bonder vibrated along its predestined way. The hard work was welding the track. The bonding operator really just sat there and watched to see that nothing went wrong. Riding the bonder was easier, but it was colder, far colder, and I went back to welding another section of track after the bonder finished smoothing and flattening track and composite into the hull along the first less-than-meter-wide strip of hull, a strip but fractionally smoother than the untouched hull on either side.
We alternated once again, and after four standard hours my coveralls were filled with cold clammy sweat, despite the best efforts of the scavenger nanites, and the sweat that had pooled in my boots and extremities had begun to turn to ice.
'It's time for a break,' Sanselle announced. 'Move the bonder down to the end of this run. We'll ease it over and tie it down on the next section of track.'
She watched as I sat and monitored the bonder. It lumbered and vibrated the last half meter of track, then hung on tethers above the hull after bonding the last centimeters of composite track. We switched places, and she guided it onto the next section of track, where we added tie-downs. Then we pulled ourselves along the tethers and back to the open number one cargo lock, standing there and shivering as the air filled the space and ice crystals swirled around us.
The cargo locks took longer to warm up than passenger locks, and more ice crystals formed. I was shuddering, rather than shivering, by the time we had our soft helmets off and floated out of the lock and into the lower corridor.
'Everything comes off, Tyndel. Send it all through the cleaning unit and put on fresh stuff before you eat or shower. You'll need it dry and clean after the next shift.'
I wondered if I'd survive the next shift.
The null grav shower was a cylindrical tube with water jets all around. The nanites scavenged the water after it bounced off skin or walls. Usually I didn't care much for the steamy mist, but after a shift in an outside suit, this mist was more than welcome.
My sandy-haired coworker and supervisor was already eating when I reached the canteen.
I glanced at the dish before her, the food trapped under the shield that was transparent to the null grav fork. Then I sniffed. Coriander, saffron ... curry? 'That's a Dhurr dish.'
'My mother was Dhurr. Always liked food with taste.'
I nodded, my mind trying to grasp the idea that there were Dhurr demons. 'Did she come from Dhurra?'
'No. Great-grandmother did. She just walked across the border and announced she was tired of being a Dhurr and wanted to be a demon.' Sanselle laughed. 'She tells the story to anyone who will listen - when she bothers to stop working.'
I had to force a swallow after the casual references to someone three generations older who was still active. My mind accepted the idea; my emotions and conditioning didn't. 'What... who does she look like?'
'My cousin Eldroth says we could be sisters. Great-grandmother and I look more alike than Ellsinne and I do.' Sanselle laughed. 'Once she wore a festival dress - back from the old traditions - and when Isjant came to pick me up, he thought she was me and began to flirt with her. She still jests about that. She'll make some comment about young Isjant within minutes after I come home.'
Sanselle had a home of sorts.
'How did you get here?'
'I chose it. I'm lazy. I could spend fifty years paying my debts to Rykasha for the next three centuries - or I could spend ten. My debts are high.' Sanselle smiled. 'That's the first personal thing you've asked.'
Had I been that cool? 'Adjusting to demon ... Rykashan ... life has been hard.'
'Fersonne said you were a Dzin master.'
'I was a Dzin-trained teacher. I hoped I'd get to be a master.' After another bite of the hot Dorchan riced shrimp, I added, 'Matters didn't work out that way.'
'They never do.' She frowned. 'I didn't think I'd be back here.'
'Back here?'
'This is my second time. I do free rock climbing. Most climbers don't make three centuries.'
I managed not to swallow as I considered to what lengths the Rykashans had gone in enshrining athanasia. 'You don't sound like you want to last three centuries.'
'I don't want to live hoarding my life. Do you?'
Hoarding my life? Was that what I'd been doing? Or denying it?
'Oh ... they always talk about how the forebearers sacrificed to create what we enjoy, but they didn't hide in dwellings or avoid the stars.' After a pause, she added, 'I like working the outside better than inside the station. It's another way to live, but it is living.'
I sipped the last tea from the squeeze hot bottle and asked, 'Is it always like this? The hull rebonding?'
'We started with the easy sections. Wait till you have to weld track around the cargo locks. Or the upper emergency locks.'
I nodded solemnly, but my thoughts remained on the sacrifices of the forebearers - and another sacrifice, one far more personal and closer.
'Do this for a tour on a station,' Sanselle muttered, 'and it's near as dangerous as being a Web jockey. But you don't get the pay or the perks. Or the company.' She slipped the sticktites and pushed away from the canteen table. 'I've got another shift. You've got two.'
I followed her down to the number one lock and the rebonding that awaited us both, idly considering how much easier the job would have been with any sort of gravity.
Amazing how what you didn't have kept coming to mind.
37
When you seek a cause, you have already created a result.
I was back on the top level of the station, hurriedly replacing the ballast for one of the glow strips outside the guest quarters. Glow strips lasted for years, but the one I was replacing had chosen to gutter out just as a needle ship with unexpected passengers had popped out of overspace and sent a comm announcing its arrival.
Gerbriik's image appeared beside me. 'As soon as you finish, head down to cargo lock three. The Reichmann has more cargo to transship.'
I eased the edge louver back in place, eased the old ballast into the flap pocket of the tool pack, and glided down the corridor to the lowest level. Sanselle had the sled out when I got there, but the lock door was closed. The Reichmann hadn't yet docked.
'Took you a bit,' she commented from beside the cargo sled.
'Fixing a glow strip on the upper level. For our passengers.'
Gerbriik's image appeared. 'The captain's about to blow the lock. You're to unload all the cargo that has a violet lumntag on it. Nothing else to begin with. Then take that sled down to lock one and secure it there. Use one of the other sleds for the rest of the cargo - it goes in the transshipment bay.'
'Yes, ser.'
Sanselle nodded, and we waited as the lock door opened and the scaturient ice crystals billowed out and around us in their transitory glory. Two figures in green with silver bands across their sleeves were in the cargo hold, watching as we surveyed the stowage before beginning the muscular work of moving it all up the shaft from the hold and through two locks onto the sled.
After an initial silence, the two began to talk, inaudibly at first, their voices slowly rising, perhaps to be heard over our efforts.
'... still think there's something wrong on Thesalle?' The angular woman glanced toward me. 'Be careful with the green-striped case.'
I nodded without looking directly at her and eased the case toward the sled, netting it high on the side frame. I wouldn't secure it firmly until all the other lumntagged cargo was off-loaded.