SODIUM:4 Gravity by Stephen Arseneault Read Free Book Online Page A

reply of frustration. The ring tool had slipped in her gloved hand from the plasma activating her suit and was now floating away from the ship. I momentarily pondered what damage a ring tool might do to a stationary object if struck while traveling at 2412 SOL.
    I turned back to the tool chest in search of another ring tool. The box contained none. I then checked the ships manifest and after several searches located one in another supply case. When Shepard returned I handed over our last ring tool with an apprehensive look. She remarked that it would not happen again.
    Shepard continued on her faster-than-light spacewalk and when the last ring went into place 24 minutes had passed. I was dizzy from the combinations of stress and the visual and physical stimuli from the plasma glow. When the door closed and the active skin of the Ghost came back to life I let out a sigh of relief.
    The immediate pitch black of the ship’s interior and the feeling of gravity brought my senses crashing back to reality. Shepard returned to her console and ran test after retest on our new hardware. She then ran a complete physical report on the conditions of our bodies and turned to me with a puzzled look.
    She pointed out structural changes to our DNA. The strands of fiber that defined who we were and what we looked like had tightened and had grown slightly in length. She feverishly worked at running calculations and simulations of what affects the longer tighter DNA might have on our bodies. Every simulation yielded the same result. Our spacewalk in a plasma field at 2412 SOL had probably turned back our biological clocks, adding years to our life spans.
    I flipped the ship back to the forward position and then set the throttle so that we continued on at 2412 SOL. I sat back in my chair and began to ponder what I would do with the extra years that I would possibly have at my disposal.
    I wondered if another 20 minutes of spacewalk through the plasma would again increase that span. Shepard ran repeated tests on the sensor reading from the plasma cloud and could not come up with a solid explanation of its makeup or possible origins. It was unlike anything she had ever seen.
    As we continued on our trek, several days had passed since the plasma spacewalk. Shepard spent her time analyzing the alien language translations, trying repeatedly to fill in holes and better define meanings. As my mind wandered on about my new found health I suddenly became aware of a tiny spider that had somehow managed to stow away aboard our craft.
    I wiped my eyes several times before coming to the realization that my eyesight had somehow gotten much better. I should not have been able to see the spider at all as it was tiny in size and blended in with the black surroundings of the active skin.
    I activated the play-list in my audio implant and was startled at how high the volume was. Then out of curiosity I turned on the holo-screen camera to have a look at my face. I took immediate note of the appearance of a small scar almost missing from my chin where I had crashed my bicycle into my father's car as a child.
    Shrinking too were the freckles that normally adorned my nose. Whatever it was that had happened to us during the spacewalk was having an immediate impact on our bodies. I quickly brought the strange health anomalies to Shepard's attention.
    When she looked up at me from her screen her eyes went wide. As we discussed what was happening she again ran a full health report. Our DNA continued to slowly lengthen.
    I then asked if our computer profiles held the standard IQ test that we had taken when first joining the corps. She said it did. I took the 15 minutes to once again run through it and was again startled by its conclusion.
    I had been repeatedly tested and had consistently scored in the 131 to 134 range. I was above average when it came to intelligence, but it was nothing to boast of. The new score totaled at 144. I was one point shy of being considered a