Research Station Six
Ell closed the message she had just read. Her face was impassive as she looked out through the tiny window in the bulkhead. Empty space was surprisingly colorful. She knew it wasn’t really, the colors that her eyes saw were a by-product of microscopic space debris getting caught in the pull of the magnetized core of this station. It was still pretty, soothing to watch. Almost mesmerizing. Sometimes she found herself watching for hours on end.
She got up from her seat. She walked to a door only steps away that slid open as she neared. In the tiny galley, she pulled from a drawer a packet of tepid water. She sipped it through a straw, hardly noticing what she was doing.
It had come to this, she thought. After eight years together, Enz was leaving. And taking Riss too.
She knew Enz hadn’t been happy on Solar Station, and that Riss hadn’t taken well to low grav. Poor Riss was on the supplements that space-born kids were to help solidify their bones, but still she was sick a lot. Maybe it’s because she was born on earth. She didn’t know how to grow without gravity and sunshine.
The packet of water finished, Ell opened another drawer and placed it inside. She left the galley, which only took a turn and a step. The door slid closed with a whish sound. She walked to the wall opposite the window, about four steps, released the magnets on her shoes, and slid along the ladder to the room below. She had work to do. She couldn’t let something she wouldn’t be able to address in person for another four weeks get in the way of her work.
Touching the floor below, she engaged the shoe magnets. She didn’t really need them. This deep space station had some gravity, not much, but enough that her food wouldn’t float away, but wearing the magnets helped keep her bone density and her muscles toned.
That was part of the reason she’d asked Enz to move to Solar Station. After spending six weeks or more in almost zero gravity, Earth’s gravity made her feel lethargic and achy. When she took this job almost two years ago, they were both excited. Ell was paid a lot of money for spending four weeks out of eight alone on Research Station Six. The money was also salary for the week in transit there and the week back. They knew it would be tough only to have two weeks together eight times a year, but they had big plans for Riss’s education. An expensive education.
After six months of that arrangement, Enz had agreed to move to Solar Station. The permanent city parked in Jupiter’s orbit. By moving there, Ell had four extra days each rotation to spend with them. She had been so happy then, plenty of time with her family and satisfying work.
She stood before a waist-high table staring at nothing. She shook her head and took a measured breath, then a second, and a third. She began flicking through a screen, reading analysis results on the pace debris captured in the net. She noticed a small anomaly in one of the recent scans. She turned to the right to the systems indicators set into the wall. Each 15-centimeter square represented a different testing mechanism.
Ell sat on a low stool. She counted three from the bottom and six in from the left. She pulled out the panel face which became a screen. She flicked through the extended test results on the anomaly.
“Huh,” she said with a puff of stale air. The noise surprised her. It had been awhile since she’d heard her own voice. She cleared her throat and went back to the screen. Something almost a centimeter had been caught in the magnetic field and pulled in. It had an unusual radiation signature. It didn’t match anything in the database. She input the command to bring the specimen up for visual inspection.
She swiveled around on her seat and raised it up a quarter meter. She slid back a panel. Underneath was a thick window that showed only the absence of light behind it. After a few minutes, another panel opened and light poured in as the anomaly was raised before the window. Ell leaned in to look through the thick clear barrier at a tiny piece of dull rock and glinting metal.
She grew excited and stood up again to go back to the main system. She took copious notes on the subject, digitally capturing its features and internal structure. She ran a multitude of tests on it, getting back fascinating data. She had the robotic system place the specimen in the hold for transfer to Solar Station.
Several hours later, she realized she was exhausted. She’d worked well past her usual hour for sleeping. Double checking the systems as she left, she repeated the process from earlier to go up. In her living quarters, she briefly looked out the window to the darkness beyond.
There is just so much out there, she thought as she turned to her left and went into her sleeping chamber, directly across from the galley. The room was a meter wide and three meters deep and high. Her bed was fixed overhead three quarters of a meter from the ceiling, creating a false ceiling underneath which was storage space.
Inside the room, Ell took off her heavy shoes. Then she changed out of what she considered her day wear—thin, flexible pants and long-sleeved shirt. She changed her underwear, tucking away every piece into its assigned drawer. She climbed the narrow ladder and slid herself into the coffin-like bed feet first. Ell was glad for the extra grav in her bed. It made relaxing into sleep that much easier.
Yet sleep didn’t come easy. Enz’s message kept repeating through her head. “We’re going back to Earth, my old job is open and I’m going to take it. You can join us when you’re ready, but, frankly, I don’t think you will.”
Would I, she thought. Am I ready to go back to living on Earth? Her contract was up in less than three months. She could go back. She’d have no problem finding a job. An astrophysicist with extensive experience in deep space could write her own ticket—another reason she’d wanted this job. She didn’t know then how much she would love it. How spending a month at a time in concentrated, undisturbed research could feel so rewarding.
With these thoughts on repeat she eventually went to sleep. When she woke, the station was just finishing its daily sterilization process. The panel that enclosed the sleeping area during the process slid open waking her up. She thought about sleeping more but was anxious to see if anything new had been caught in the station’s magnetic net.
She got dressed, took care of her daily ablutions in the hygiene station in the compartment next to the galley, and had a quick breakfast standing up. Then she was down on the research deck focused on going through the new data collected while she slept.
The system alerted her, after seven hours of consecutive use, that she needed to take a break. When she still hadn’t stopped a half hour later, the system locked her out. She rubbed her eyes. She released the magnets on her shoes and stretched as tall as she could, her finger tips brushing the ceiling.
She went up the ladder to the living quarters and made a proper hot meal, heating up the packets and putting the contents on a plate. She even went so far as to take it to the tiny dining table just outside the galley.
Done eating and cleaning up, she sat on the puffy chair and looked out the window, marveling, once again, at the mixture of colors.
She noticed her e-screen where she had left it the day before, propped up against the wall within arm’s reach. It was only then that she realized that she hadn’t thought about Enz’s message all day. She felt a tiny twinge of guilt for not thinking about her family.
The screen was flickering, indicating she had another message. Ell felt a niggling of hope that it was another message from Enz to say they had decided to stay on Solar Station.
She swiped the screen and opened the message.
It wasn’t from Enz, it was Sanjay, her handler from headquarters. Malia, her co-researcher who was due to leave in five days’ time, had to have an emergency appendectomy. She wouldn’t be able to leave for Research Station Six at the regularly scheduled time. He wanted to know if she, Ell, could stay for another month.
She responded with a simple, “Yes.” Then looked out window, admiring the view.
She got up from her seat. She walked to a door only steps away that slid open as she neared. In the tiny galley, she pulled from a drawer a packet of tepid water. She sipped it through a straw, hardly noticing what she was doing.
It had come to this, she thought. After eight years together, Enz was leaving. And taking Riss too.
She knew Enz hadn’t been happy on Solar Station, and that Riss hadn’t taken well to low grav. Poor Riss was on the supplements that space-born kids were to help solidify their bones, but still she was sick a lot. Maybe it’s because she was born on earth. She didn’t know how to grow without gravity and sunshine.
The packet of water finished, Ell opened another drawer and placed it inside. She left the galley, which only took a turn and a step. The door slid closed with a whish sound. She walked to the wall opposite the window, about four steps, released the magnets on her shoes, and slid along the ladder to the room below. She had work to do. She couldn’t let something she wouldn’t be able to address in person for another four weeks get in the way of her work.
Touching the floor below, she engaged the shoe magnets. She didn’t really need them. This deep space station had some gravity, not much, but enough that her food wouldn’t float away, but wearing the magnets helped keep her bone density and her muscles toned.
That was part of the reason she’d asked Enz to move to Solar Station. After spending six weeks or more in almost zero gravity, Earth’s gravity made her feel lethargic and achy. When she took this job almost two years ago, they were both excited. Ell was paid a lot of money for spending four weeks out of eight alone on Research Station Six. The money was also salary for the week in transit there and the week back. They knew it would be tough only to have two weeks together eight times a year, but they had big plans for Riss’s education. An expensive education.
After six months of that arrangement, Enz had agreed to move to Solar Station. The permanent city parked in Jupiter’s orbit. By moving there, Ell had four extra days each rotation to spend with them. She had been so happy then, plenty of time with her family and satisfying work.
She stood before a waist-high table staring at nothing. She shook her head and took a measured breath, then a second, and a third. She began flicking through a screen, reading analysis results on the pace debris captured in the net. She noticed a small anomaly in one of the recent scans. She turned to the right to the systems indicators set into the wall. Each 15-centimeter square represented a different testing mechanism.
Ell sat on a low stool. She counted three from the bottom and six in from the left. She pulled out the panel face which became a screen. She flicked through the extended test results on the anomaly.
“Huh,” she said with a puff of stale air. The noise surprised her. It had been awhile since she’d heard her own voice. She cleared her throat and went back to the screen. Something almost a centimeter had been caught in the magnetic field and pulled in. It had an unusual radiation signature. It didn’t match anything in the database. She input the command to bring the specimen up for visual inspection.
She swiveled around on her seat and raised it up a quarter meter. She slid back a panel. Underneath was a thick window that showed only the absence of light behind it. After a few minutes, another panel opened and light poured in as the anomaly was raised before the window. Ell leaned in to look through the thick clear barrier at a tiny piece of dull rock and glinting metal.
She grew excited and stood up again to go back to the main system. She took copious notes on the subject, digitally capturing its features and internal structure. She ran a multitude of tests on it, getting back fascinating data. She had the robotic system place the specimen in the hold for transfer to Solar Station.
Several hours later, she realized she was exhausted. She’d worked well past her usual hour for sleeping. Double checking the systems as she left, she repeated the process from earlier to go up. In her living quarters, she briefly looked out the window to the darkness beyond.
There is just so much out there, she thought as she turned to her left and went into her sleeping chamber, directly across from the galley. The room was a meter wide and three meters deep and high. Her bed was fixed overhead three quarters of a meter from the ceiling, creating a false ceiling underneath which was storage space.
Inside the room, Ell took off her heavy shoes. Then she changed out of what she considered her day wear—thin, flexible pants and long-sleeved shirt. She changed her underwear, tucking away every piece into its assigned drawer. She climbed the narrow ladder and slid herself into the coffin-like bed feet first. Ell was glad for the extra grav in her bed. It made relaxing into sleep that much easier.
Yet sleep didn’t come easy. Enz’s message kept repeating through her head. “We’re going back to Earth, my old job is open and I’m going to take it. You can join us when you’re ready, but, frankly, I don’t think you will.”
Would I, she thought. Am I ready to go back to living on Earth? Her contract was up in less than three months. She could go back. She’d have no problem finding a job. An astrophysicist with extensive experience in deep space could write her own ticket—another reason she’d wanted this job. She didn’t know then how much she would love it. How spending a month at a time in concentrated, undisturbed research could feel so rewarding.
With these thoughts on repeat she eventually went to sleep. When she woke, the station was just finishing its daily sterilization process. The panel that enclosed the sleeping area during the process slid open waking her up. She thought about sleeping more but was anxious to see if anything new had been caught in the station’s magnetic net.
She got dressed, took care of her daily ablutions in the hygiene station in the compartment next to the galley, and had a quick breakfast standing up. Then she was down on the research deck focused on going through the new data collected while she slept.
The system alerted her, after seven hours of consecutive use, that she needed to take a break. When she still hadn’t stopped a half hour later, the system locked her out. She rubbed her eyes. She released the magnets on her shoes and stretched as tall as she could, her finger tips brushing the ceiling.
She went up the ladder to the living quarters and made a proper hot meal, heating up the packets and putting the contents on a plate. She even went so far as to take it to the tiny dining table just outside the galley.
Done eating and cleaning up, she sat on the puffy chair and looked out the window, marveling, once again, at the mixture of colors.
She noticed her e-screen where she had left it the day before, propped up against the wall within arm’s reach. It was only then that she realized that she hadn’t thought about Enz’s message all day. She felt a tiny twinge of guilt for not thinking about her family.
The screen was flickering, indicating she had another message. Ell felt a niggling of hope that it was another message from Enz to say they had decided to stay on Solar Station.
She swiped the screen and opened the message.
It wasn’t from Enz, it was Sanjay, her handler from headquarters. Malia, her co-researcher who was due to leave in five days’ time, had to have an emergency appendectomy. She wouldn’t be able to leave for Research Station Six at the regularly scheduled time. He wanted to know if she, Ell, could stay for another month.
She responded with a simple, “Yes.” Then looked out window, admiring the view.