April 6: And What Goes Around

And What
Goes Around...

Mackey
Chandler

Sixth of
the "April" series

Cover
Design Sarah A. Hoyt

Figures © innovari

Figures © mg1708

April
slouched deep down in the oversized Hardoy chair. She bought two in this larger
size thinking they would be more comfortable for Gunny and other big men. It
turned out she preferred them. The back went up high enough for her to lean her
head back and the extra width  spread the heavy ballistic cloth flatter than a
smaller chair with light rip-stop fabric. It supported her legs clear out to
the padded edge under her knees.

In
the half G apparent gravity that her apartment was kept at the chair was as
comfortable as a hammock and almost as hard for her to lever herself from its
depths. It was low enough she could safely sit her coffee mug on the floor
beside her and there was plenty of room on each side to tuck treats or reading
material. She had her comp-pad laying screen down on her stomach at the moment
paused on the newsfeed she was reading while she gazed out her view port.

The
commonest size of apartment on Home wasn't any bigger than a cheap motel room
in North America and every square meter had to do double or triple duty.
Kitchen tables and beds that folded up against the wall when not needed were
common. Home apartments used the same sort of compact appliances and fixtures
common to travel trailers and motor homes on Earth. April had a huge place by
local standards. So big it embarrassed her on occasion when a new visitor would
freeze for an instant with surprise on their face when they stepped inside her
door.

Her
bodyguard Gunny had immediately rated it a four-car apartment upon stepping in the
first time, since he had an annoying habit of comparing every place he saw in
Home to the size of a garage you'd expect on a North American home. He was of
the opinion what he called the half-car model might drive people crazy from
confinement, but he had a skewed view of things having lived most of his life
in North America. April knew that some of the Japanese found the local
accommodations compared very favorably to what they lived in back home.

She'd
been spoiled rotten growing up because her family was relatively well-to-do.
Her grandfather  helped in the construction of Mitsubishi 3 and put all his
money in both spun residential cubic and zero G industrial space. Also her
father was the resident manager for Mitsubishi with a generous housing
allowance.

As
a child she had her own bedroom that was the size of a walk-in closet on Earth.
 Even more of a luxury was her own square meter all-in-one unit bath that
became a shower stall with the door sealed. By orbital standards that was a
palace. So she might have found the very smallest apartment oppressive herself.
They were barely more than shift rental hot slots, but she'd never admit that
to Gunny.

Behind
her there were two sofas facing each other across a table on a rug that defined
a formal living area. In smaller apartments they would be wall hung fold-downs.
The sofas were IKEA super light hide-a-beds in case she needed to put up
guests. She had enough wall space for both a fairly large 32K video monitor and
some big pieces of art. There was also room by the cooking area for a real
table that could seat six which she left set up. It looked sturdy enough but
the legs could be folded inside the drop apron and set to the side if the floor
area was needed.

The
kitchen against the inside bulkhead had a simple two burner stove and a
microwave. April had the luxury of a small refrigerator too. A few folks didn't
bother with even that much, taking all their meals at the cafeteria. It was
decent food too. Mitsubishi saw to that. If you had a stove that meant you
needed dishes, pans, utensils and things like spices and volume to store them.
It easily escalated to the status of a cooking hobby rather than any necessity.
You could keep a few cans of self heating stuff like soup or stew for those
rare times when you were sick or just too tired to trek down to the cafeteria.
The cafeteria also would pack take away and there were cheap courier services
to deliver it.

Further
from the entry, behind the kitchen and dining area, the end of her space was
divided into two small bedrooms with a bath between them. Each had a private
section but a shared shower stall between them with lockout doors so only one
side would open at a time. That was all framed off in temporary wall panels
that jammed in place between overhead and deck with locking vertical seams.

If in
the future she let her body guard Gunny go, it would be easy to remodel by removing
the panels. Neither had brought up the idea of him leaving in some months now.
His one month gig had turned into open ended employment, although less than
full time. His status now was more 'on call', especially since Home was further
from Earth and trouble now. He was welcome to take short security jobs with
April's blessing.  She still took him along when traveling away from Home.

The
reason April pulled her chair over by the port was to enjoy the view. Right now
the moon was in a thin crescent to the right side out the port. From this side of
the moon there was no light reflected off the Earth so it was utterly dark on
the left portion. You were made aware of the moon's dark portion more by the
absence of brighter stars than any illumination of the surface at all.

The
sun was directly visible to the right of the moon and she had the port darkened
until the glare was bearable. Home was at that point in their orbit around the
L2 point where the Earth disappeared behind the moon. In a couple hours the
thin slice of moon would have the sun just barely shining past the edge of it
and the blue marble of the Earth would rise from behind the opposite dark
horizon of the moon to the left. It would display a crescent to the same side
as the moon but a bigger section. They were much too far away to see the lights
of cities in the dark section by the naked eye.

Neither
were there any lights to be seen from here on the dark portion of the moon. All
the large settlements of humankind were on the other face of the moon that
stayed pointed to the Earth. The few places with any people or surface
structures on this side were barely visible with a very good telescope when
they were in sunlight. The headlamps of a rover or flood lights outside a
habitat entry were insignificant.

April
could still call her friend Heather at Central on the other side of the moon or
anywhere on Earth for that matter. There were plenty of satellites in lunar
orbit to relay the call. There were now several such systems so communications
couldn't be cut off easily. Home was further from Earth but still conveniently
close here. Hardly any further than Low Earth Orbit in terms of propellant
cost. Being at L2 only cost about ten percent more in freight costs over
lifting from Earth to LEO. Unless you were in a hurry.  On the other hand it
was just distant enough from Earth to enhance their safety. The Earthies had
never seemed able to resist the occasional pot shot at Home when they had been
in LEO and the added distance was sufficient to give them warning of hostile
approach.

That
was all a background scene however, which slowly turned every few minutes as
the habitat rotated. Their current orientation kept the sun in view although it
looped back and forth from her view. Dominating the close view that stayed
fixed was the nearby strut tapering from the ring in which April's home was located
to the hub above. The same ring extended horizontally across the bottom of her
view with another spoke extending to the far side of it a third of the way
around. The view was dramatic in scale with massive elements one rarely saw in
Earth architecture. The only dynamic aspect of the close view was the slow dance
of shadows back and forth as Home rotated.

The
glass curved from knee level to almost straight overhead, and most of the new
ring being built was visible by looking up. The spokes to the new ring were
positioned at the same angles off the hub. April had wondered briefly if there
was some reason for that but forgot to ask anyone.

There
were only a few small panels missing from the skin of the new ring and some
gaps where ports like her own were not fitted yet. In a few places scaffolding
hung off the outside of the ring and two bright yellow lines and hand rails temporarily
marked the inside area on which suited workers could walk without danger of
sliding down the curved surface. The ring wasn't a perfectly circular cross
section. There were center sections top and bottom that were flat before it
started to curve.

Only
a couple months ago there had been a lot more machinery, materials, and
scooters floating two hundred meters or more distant, which was the closest
safety zone in which material and equipment could be parked that would be used
that shift. Construction was winding down.

Some
items could be brought in by scooter by matching speed with the ring and
side-slipping onto the inside surface. That was fun to watch. Her pilot friend
Easy could do that as slick as catching an egg on  a plate. She sometimes knew
his scooter number for the shift and watched with binoculars. Some items were
too massive and had to be lowered from the hub on a tensioned cable and slowly
nudged up to match rotational speed without over-torquing the hub.

There
was talk of extending the hub and adding a third ring, but she'd read that
would be the last as after that the calculations said a fourth ring would be
unstable in too many situations. It would make moving the habitat, as they had
from LEO, an impractically slow operation to avoid over-stressing a long skinny
hub. Nobody wanted to give up their mobility since it had proved so vital to
their safety.

If
they wanted to build a similar habitat it wouldn't be difficult to park it in a
slightly different halo orbit around L2 such that they both danced around the
same point in space but never crossed over the center at the same time. A
necessity that had made Gunny smile and explain to her the Earth custom of a
figure eight race or demolition derby. She thought he was pulling her leg until
she did a net search.

The
area behind April had headroom to stand but the glass overhead curved down
until it met metal shell about knee high. Her chair was pulled forward close
enough to the glass she had to be careful standing up. That low area helped
make the room feel bigger but was rather limiting in how you could use it. She
had some storage cabinets made to fit up to the edge of the glass. They had
caster below so they could be pulled out of the low overhead. Heather's mom had
a similar lay-out and raised tomatoes and a few herbs in the narrow space along
the port. April intended to do that too... someday. Now she just had a few
green plants that helped keep the air pure. Most people had one or two even if
they didn't have exterior ports and needed to illuminate them.  Beside making
the apartment smell better plants added something that was pleasantly natural for
the eye. A relief from the manmade flat surfaces and straight edges of
everything else in their artificial environment.

There
was a pattern of light in the corner of the port she hadn't noticed before, a
little dappled splash of light from internal reflections in the port maybe...
April squinted at it. But it looked
odd
. It wasn't something her mind
recognized as a familiar pattern. She levered herself out of the chair to
investigate leaning over closer... and jumped back.

"
Gunny!
"
she called out horrified. Gunny appeared from his room looking rattled with a
pistol in hand. He scanned the empty apartment looking hard for something like
a Ninja army hidden behind the sofas.

"Not
there,
here
." She said, pointing at the corner of the port.

He
came over and leaned close as she had, but didn't jump back. Then eased back a
couple steps so he didn't hit his head when he stood straight. He tried to look
neutral but didn't manage to hide his amusement and irritation with her at
alarming him.

"You
want him shot? Most folks just pick a spider up in a tissue and flush him down
the toilet."

"I've
never
seen
a spider on Home before. Aren't they
venomous
?"
April asked.

"A
few. The really bad ones are big hunters and jumpers like tarantulas. Not
little web weavers. None of them are deadly unless you have a sensitivity, but
I have to admit some of the little house spiders can give you a nasty bite if
you roll on them in your sleep. I've had a couple nip me but it didn't even
wake me. Down below nobody makes a house perfectly air tight to keep everything
out. They just aren't a big deal. On the other hand I was very happy leave
mosquitoes behind on Earth.
They
really bother me. The filthy little
things carry disease," Gunny said, making a sour face.

"Just
do the tissue thing would you? It doesn't belong here."

"OK,"
Gunny agreed, but stopped after a few steps and pursed his lips, looking back
thoughtfully.

"What?"
April demanded.

"Nothing,
I'll get rid of him for you. I just have to ask. What has he been living
on?"

That question didn't make April happy at all.

* * *

Once
the unwelcome invader was removed April went back to her paused news feed. The
first week's experiment with allowing automated trucks to make deliveries in
Manhattan between 0200 and 0400 local time was successful for safety. There was
no incident of damage to property by the self guided trucks. The delivery
points had been picked carefully since the usual failure point for such
vehicles wasn't negotiating the streets. There was plenty of high end software
to do that well. Rather it was the close quarters high angle maneuvering in narrow
alleyways and receiving yards that challenged a robotic semi truck getting
backed up to a dock.