Scott Cleveland - Pale Boundaries

“She always this emotional?” Vondelis asked.

“Not usually,” Terson replied. “She’s still rattled over that thing with the cargo shuttle.”

“I think flying would make me a little queasy, too, if I were married,” Zarn said. “The idea of dying in a crash doesn’t bother me as much as the thought of leaving somebody behind.”

The passenger across the aisle way cast them an unfriendly glance and Terson decided not to engage the subject further. The boarding tube and gantry disconnected from the commuter shuttle and swung away. The flight attendant appeared, demonstrating the craft’s restraints and pointing out emergency exits. “In a few minutes the captain will rotate the passenger compartment to launch position,” she said happily. “Please ensure all personal items are secured in the locker beneath your seat, as loose objects may injure you or other passengers during launch.”

Terson’s weight shift as the passenger compartment tilted back 90 degrees so the occupants lay on their backs. The countdown appeared on the view screen at the front of the cabin. At ten seconds the pilot brought the orbital engines up to idle; at zero the craft leapt from its cradle as if it had been kicked. Terson relaxed into his seat, letting the force flow through him as the pressure against his chest increased. Within seconds the vibration and crackle eased in the thinning atmosphere.

“There it is,” Zarn said four hours later, drawing Terson’s attention to the cabin viewscreen. Nivia Station was of classic wheel-and-spoke construction from the decades before affordable gravity control technology became available. The architects and engineers overcame the difficulty of docking a ship with a rotating object by splitting the station into two concentric rings connected by maglev rails, allowing the inner habitation ring to spin while the counter-rotating outer ring remained stationary relative to space. Dozens of spacecraft of all sizes sat in dock, sleds and tugs swarming around them. Dozens more lay in parking orbits a few hundred kilometers away.

The station monitored everything that entered or exited Nivia’s atmosphere, the stellar equivalent of a firewall separating the planet from the rest of the system. The Commonwealth required that all planets with native biospheres maintain a significant degree of physical isolation from the outside to prevent biological cross-contamination. The mechanisms developed to accomplish this varied from system to system, but typically included the orbital population on the “secure” side of the theoretical line, allowing spacers and groundhogs to travel freely within the star system without decontamination or quarantine.

Nivian policy drew the line at the atmosphere, with the exception of exempted stations and vessels, to the point of using proprietary docking mechanisms to physically prevent spacer craft from mooring at “secure” facilities. Hence, any spacer visiting Nivia station was restricted to the quarter outfitted with standard couplings, and Nivian vessels designated as “secure” were incapable of docking at spacer facilities or with spacer vessels. The arrangement gave the planetary population enormous political leverage to the dismay and dissatisfaction of the larger space-based population.

Terson and Zarn headed straight for Malone’s dock, located half way around the station’s outer ring from the shuttle terminal, to check in and file their final flight plan then inspect the ship they’d drawn for the evaluation. The T-108 trainers Malone operated were impressively large viewed from the outside, but huge liquid oxygen and hydrogen tanks took up most of the internal volume. Chemical thrust was inefficient compared to the amount of power an equal weight of hydrogen could produce in a modern fusion plant, but the difference in maintenance costs more than made up for the cost of the fuel.

The 108’s tiny flight deck contained a single sleeping bunk only slightly larger than the pilot and navigator stations, shared by both occupants on alternate watches. It connected directly to a primitive zero-G toilet facility. The ship offered no shower; bathing had to wait for a layover or be conducted with moist body wipes. The difficulty in removing a pressure suit in such confined space was prohibitive except in extreme circumstances.

The galley consisted of a storage bin full of space rations.

Terson made no secret of checking Zarn’s work as he performed his own, and once or twice he found Zarn checking up on him. They still had several hours to wait before their scheduled departure, and Zarn suggested they take the opportunity to fill up on real food, since the chances of rescheduling their transit slot were essentially zero.

They crossed over to the main station and headed for a chain restaurant they were both familiar with. Terson permitted himself a single cold beer while they waited for their orders, as did Zarn. “I heard you got an interview with Outbound,” Vondelis said. “How’s that fit in with married life?”

“Not so good,” Terson replied. Especially now. “Virene’s not thrilled with the idea.”

“I wouldn’t think. You pretty much set on deep-haul work?”

“There aren’t that many alternatives,” Terson said. “Sun Cargo gets more applications than openings, and Outbound is the only long-haul shipper based on Nivia. I’ll be damned if I move to the belt.”

“There are options,” Zarn said nonchalantly. “You don’t usually hear about them unless you’ve got an inside track or know somebody who does.”

Terson put his bottle down and regarded his classmate, wondering if what he’d heard was what he thought it was, or if he was about to run smack into another bizarre Nivian social convention. “I’d appreciate the chance to consider any option,” he replied with what he hoped was the appropriate degree of leading ambiguity.

“It’s not a line of work you can talk about,” Zarn cautioned.

“Illegal, you mean?”

“What? No! Not illegal at all, just… unpopular.”

“I’m still listening.”

Zarn lowered his voice. “I assume you have unofficial flight hours, based on how fast you picked up your light aircraft certification.”

“I started back home when I was twelve,” Terson said. “Regulations were pretty loose; we didn’t need formal training in the bush.”

“I thought so,” Zarn nodded. “There is a selective market for pilots with those skills,” he said.

The revelation came as a surprise to Terson. “I looked for that kind of work right off,” he said. “I got the impression it didn’t exist here, as such.”

“It’s that inside track thing,” Zarn explained. “Does that line of work still interest you?”

“Sure,” Terson said, “but tell me why you quit in favor of this.”

“I didn’t quit. The harvest exporter I work for is paying for my orbital certification.” All certified harvesters exported a certain percentage of their quota to the belt, he explained, but his employer was the only one that specialized in the off-planet market. Since most Nivians considered exporting unethical, if not downright immoral, the company did its best to keep out of the public eye, including running a small fleet of shuttles directly from its harvest camps in the bush.

“Lots of people get orbital licenses, but seat-of-the-pants experience is hard to come by. I can guarantee an interview once you graduate, and I’ll lay you ten to one odds they’ll hire you.”

“And this is legit?” Terson pressed. It surprised him that he cared, but having invested so much in getting clear of Nivia’s legal system he wasn’t a bit interested in running afoul of it again.

“Absolutely,” Zarn assured him, “and the profit margin means starting pay is higher than at Sun or Outbound.”