James Gardner - Space Inc (collection)

Dr. Isaac Szpindel is a Toronto-based author, screenwriter, producer, electrical engineer, and neurologist. His published short stories include “Downcast in Parsec” and “By Its Cover” in Tales from the Wonder Zone: Explorer , Isaac’s screenwriting credits include the Aurora Award-winning Rescue Heroes episode “Underwater Nightmare,” the upcoming episode “Bat’s Life”; and six episodes of the international action adventure series , The Boy, for which he is also head writer and story editor. Other projects include a screenplay for a SF/fantasy feature film commissioned by a company out of France and a television series cocreated for an Emmy Award-winning production house. He is an executive producer of the award-winning short film Hoverboy and is a frequent on-air guest on Canadian talk television.

REFERENCE LIBRARIAN: LEVEL 5

Must have current certification from an accredited university. Minimum 3 years experience in data management and presentation in a major corporate and/or research environment. Must be capable of using Class AA search and sort automatics. Preferred applicant will be a self-starter and well-organized, with excellent communication and teamwork skills. Salaried position with performance bonus.

Note: this is a deep space posting, of least 2 years’ duration. Government regulations require applicants take the requisite physical and psychological testing for prolonged ship travel, unless such tests were conducted within the past 6 months.

Send curriculum vitae to Box 5X5Z5Y-00, Intersystems Post Office, New Luna.

Sarah heard the chimes of the starship’s clock, and she pushed back from her desk, raising the headset that let her speak directly to the master library workcon. She stretched her back and rubbed her fingers along her hairline. Palming her ’con, she saved the most recent data that she had retrieved for the mission’s scientists: melting temperatures for various metals, expressed in visual files.

“All right, David,” she called to the wildcatter who hunched over a gamecon on the far side of the library. “It’s dinnertime.”

“Just one more round.”

“You heard the bell—shut off the ’con. You might want the dregs of what passes for food on this ship, but I’m not going to be late to the mess hall.” Jessup Universal Mining might have promised her a substantial bonus for this salvage mission, but there weren’t enough credits in the sector to make her face the mess hall after the wildcat crew had eaten its fill. Besides, she was looking forward to seeing Bernard. He had not visited her all day.

“I’ve almost got it! I simulated the alethium mine shaft, and I’m going to take out those eight-legged alien bastards!”

“David, now!” When the man refused to step back from his ’con, Sarah reached out to the control panel on her own desk. Moving with years of long practice, she flicked an icon. Her panel beeped once in warning, and she confirmed the command.

“Wait!” David cried, as his ’con went blank.

“You’ve got another three weeks before Earthfall. You can win your game by then.”

The wildcatter grumbled and pushed back his chair. He glared at her as he strode out of the library.

Sarah looked around her domain. It was definitely suffering ill effects from the space voyage. Everything had been new and shiny at the beginning of the mission—gamecons had glistened with the newest controls; bookdisks had lined the shelves in orderly rows.

Now, ’disks were missing. Holes gaped along the shelves where borrowers had failed to return items. The edges of the tables had been chipped by angry game players. Three different stains spread across the carpeted floor, baleful reminders of the library’s no-drinks policy.

Sarah had taken to locking the library door in her absence. Any serious researcher who needed information while she was gone could jack into the main computer and pull down data from the net. She must protect her library-cum-entertainment center, keep it safe from the rugged wildcatters who had traveled to Marduran to exploit the alethium mines. For that matter, it took her best librarian strategies to preserve her resources from the government officials who watched over the journey, from the Jessup scientists who calculated the wealth buried beneath Marduran’s surface, to the crew of the starship itself.

Now, with the mission’s scientific data-gathering completed, Sarah spent more and more time babysitting bored employees. The division of labor was completely unfair. Of course, she knew that the wildcatters had earned their keep on Marduran’s surface, digging trial mine shafts, working with the repulsive eight-legged natives to calculate the most efficient ways to exploit alethium. Wildcatters like David had scarcely had time to eat on the planet’s surface; they had managed only a few hours of sleep each day, between long, grueling sessions in the mines.

With their work complete, the miners had no idea what to do with themselves. Their brute strength was no longer required. They lazed about the ship like children on school holidays, trying to fill the long, changeless weeks of transport with boisterous contests and endless games.

Sarah, on the other hand, was now overwhelmed by demands on her time. In addition to stealing precious minutes with Bernard, she needed to meet the scientists’ daily reference demands. Even more importantly, she needed to catalog the resources that Jessup had acquired from the Mardurans. The valuable scrolls must be transmitted into the Universal Catalog by the time the starship returned to port. The catalog records would support Jessup’s claims of salvage and bolster the legal arguments that would be made the instant the ship docked.

The Mardurans’ scrolls would establish the original Earth colony’s attempts to mine alethium. The records would outline the unexpected demise of those settlers, presenting incontrovertible evidence that Jessup Universal Mining was pursuing a risky, noble goal in attempting to reopen the alethium mines. Jessup deserved to proceed under the financial grace of salvage laws, turning twelve times the profit on any ordinary mine.

Sarah had three weeks left—twenty-one days—to complete the catalog. As soon as she arrived Earthside, she could claim her bonus of 500,000 universal credits.

Sighing as she locked the library door behind her, Sarah tried not to think about what she could do with a half million credits. Ten years of pay, free and clear. She would retire, of course. She would catch up on the towering backlog of ’disks that she wanted to hear. She would master the electric harp that she had bought years before. She would learn to cook real meals, combining her own ingredients without the help of food formatter.

And she would spend time with Bernard. The French scientist was the best thing that had happened on this mission— better even than the promised financial bonus. Bernard Flauvier was smart and accomplished; his sense of humor was brilliantly acerbic. He had overseen the Marduran mission with grave concern, collecting and analyzing data so that he could determine the scope of Jessup’s control over the native aliens.

Sarah had first met Bernard when he came to the library asking for information on insectoid aliens, for studies that tracked innate human repulsion to such species. She had pulled the data for him, and she had been impressed by the way he had listened to the research results, by the way he had studied carefully, analyzing her findings before asking for follow-up materials.

She had made a point of delivering those reports directly to his quarters, and he had asked her in to discuss the finer points of collecting research on a starship. One thing had led to another, and…