Orbital Decay by Allen Steele Read Free Book Online Page A

windows on its front, multifaceted eyes; the docking adapter on its top perhaps the bee’s jaws. Most insectile were the two long, articulated arms thrusting out from either side of the cockpit, which looked like a bee’s front legs. The pod moved by means of thrusters arranged around the fuselage, and depending upon the skill of the pilot, it tended to behave like a flying insect, with sharp, apparently erratic movements.
    Classed technically as a FFWS—Free-Flier Work Station—its manufacturer had tried to peg the little space vehicle “work bees.” Yet too many of the beamjacks had seen the movie 2001 for the name to stick. As long as there were wags to mumble, upon approaching for a docking, the immortal phrase—“Open the pod bay door, Hal”—the FFWS’s would be known as pods, manufacturers’ metaphors notwithstanding.
    Pod Zulu Tango made its final approach to Olympus’ third airlock in the MTDA at the top of the station, its thrusters flashing as its pilot gently brought it in. While the station’s rim and hub continued to rotate, the pilot’s eyes and the simulation on his navigational computer both told him that the MTDA was stationary, an illusion caused by the backward rotation of the module itself.
    As it closed in on the airlock, Dave Chang, the Chinese-American who served as the whiteroom chief, glanced out a porthole, saw the pod’s hatch in the center of the docking adapter, and knew at once that they were all in big trouble.
    Chang had been given only a brief warning from Anderson down in Traffic Control that a construction pod from Vulcan was making an unexpected rendezvous at Skycan. The instructions had been few: an order from Command that, under no circumstances, would the pilot be allowed to leave the Docks before Security Officer Bigthorn and Doc Felapolous arrived. Anderson had not told Chang who exactly it was inside the pod, negligence which Chang now believed to be the result of his having fleeced Anderson at a blackjack game in their bunkhouse a couple of weeks ago.
    Anderson, obviously, was trying to set him up for a big surprise. But Chang had worked in the whiteroom at Vulcan before being sent over to Olympus, and thus knew all of the beamjacks. He was also aware that many of the workers who were assigned to fly the pods had their own preferences as to which of the machines they operated. Technically, regulations did not allow such preferences, but Luton quietly let them get away with rule-bending the way Wallace wouldn’t allow, so some of the pod pilots were given dibs on the machines with which they were most comfortable.
    These pod pilots sometimes painted things on the hatches, which was also supposedly against regulations. Some of the pods thus had names (“Pod Person”; “Magic Fingers”; “Bertha”; “Smilin’ Ed”) and designs (Scooby Do sitting on a rocket; a buxom blonde winking seductively; a kid running along with a pizza under the slogan “We Deliver!”).
    What Dave Chang saw on Zulu Tango’s hatch, illuminated by the pod’s running lights, was a grinning skull emblazoned with eagle wings. Painted below the skull, in red paint, were the words “Ride To Live, Live To Ride.”
    “Oh, boy,” Chang said, “we are in deep shit now.”
    “What?” asked Harris. The kid was strapped into a chair near Chang’s head; Chang was floating upside down next to the console Harris was attending. The kid was wearing a headset and had not clearly heard what Chang had said.
    Chang looked at Harris. “I said, ‘Why don’t you go up and see if he needs help with his suit?’”
    Harris studied Chang curiously. “I thought you said something else.”
    Chang shook his head. “You misunderstood me. I’ll take over there. Why don’t you go and help the beamjack out of his pod?”
    Bob Harris was new on Skycan, having arrived for his twelvemonth tour only two weeks before. He had grown up in San Francisco and had thus known Chinese-Americans all his life; he