Read Habitats (an Ell Donsaii story #7) Online
Authors: Laurence Dahners
Habitats (an Ell Donsaii story #7) (19 page)
“Ryan has been developing ‘neurotrodes’ which can pick
signals up from, and transmit to, transected nerve endings.”
Hanson’s eyebrows rose and she turned to look at the young man, “That’s fascinating. I assume that all motor impulse outflow gets picked up as one unit and all sensory fibers get the sensory signal?”
“Oh, no, each axon grows into its own individual microtube so we can separate the signal for each neuron.”
Suspicion flowed over Hanson, “Well, that’s fascinating… but surely you aren’t thinking that a grad student’s research project is ready for
human implantation are you? Even if it worked there would be terrible problems with transcutaneous infection and besides there aren’t any prostheses available for such control at present.”
The people in her office glanced at one another, the
n Donsaii spoke, “Our company has been using waldoes with mechanical hands for its work in space. We’ve commissioned a modified version of such a hand for John.” She had reached into the bag at her feet and now she pulled out a mechanical hand.
Hanson’s eyebrows rose again. The hand ap
peared to be very sophisticated, with all the joints of a real hand, rather than just a few like most current myoelectric hands. Donsaii held it out to her and Hanson took it, surprised at how light it was. She’d held some myoelectrics and they were quite heavy.
It must not have the motors and batteries installed yet
she thought.
“Run program,” Donsaii said, apparently to her AI.
Hanson’s eyebrows shot up as the hand began flexing and extending its fingers. The thumb abducted, adducted, flexed and extended, then the wrist began flexing and extending as well. Hanson turned it to look up into the socket to see the motors, “How… how is it moving?”
“It has all the joints a hand does and polymer cables for each of the muscles and tendons, all entering through ports
behind the wrist.”
Ports! Of course! This is the woman that invented them!
Carefully she said, “And you want me to…?”
Ryan said, “We think we have enough small animal data to apply for an IRB (Institutional Review Board) protocol to try at least one
neurotrode in a human. We need a clinician on the IRB application and we’re hoping you’d be willing?”
Somewhat beseechingly,
Mr. Parker said, “I’d
really
like to try this. Even if it’s just with one nerve for the first run. If it ruins one of the nerves that used to go to my hand, well I’m not using them anyway. And obviously, it would be great to have the neurotrodes implanted at the same surgery as when the stems are put in.”
Hanson sat back, “How are you going to keep these ‘neurotrodes’ from getting infected where the wires come out of the skin?”
“They won’t go ‘through’ the skin. They’ll go through ports and the part of the wire that’s outside the body can be kept in an antiseptic solution.”
Hanson closed her eyes
,
of course
. She sighed. If this worked it would be incredible. This was the kind of thing that could make the reputation of a young academic surgeon. Or totally destroy that same reputation if things went south. “This sounds exciting but I can’t take any more time to think about it while other patients are waiting. Send me your contact information and the data you have so far… I’ll get back to you.”
***
Carter leaned his waldo back to inspect his last weld. He felt pretty comfortable as a waldo driver nowadays. Last week they’d installed an airlock on the big metal box they’d been welding together. Said airlock could also connect in an airtight fashion to any of the airlocks of the huge inflated habitat which filled much of Carter’s field of view at present.
The weld he’d just finished was to hold one of a number of rocket nozzles on different surfaces of the metal box. When they’d taken the first of the nozzles
out of the modified Learjet, which he thought of as the “little spaceplane,” he’d been confused by the lack of plumbing connections for fuel, etc. Then he’d remembered with some embarrassment that he worked for the company that came up with ports and that, of course fuel would be entering the rocket engine through ports hidden inside of it. “Ben?” he’d asked, “What are the rocket engines for?”
Ben
had laughed, “I’ve been waiting patiently for you to ask me what you and the boys are building out there in space.”
“Well
, I
have
been wondering. What use do you have for a big metal box?”
“
Don’t be afraid to ask,” he’d sai S /font>d, “we want you fully engaged in the project… To be honest, mostly it’s been a test bed for space construction and a learning exercise in using the waldoes. But what you’re making while you’re ‘testing’ is a spaceship.”
Carter’s eyes
had widened as he had looked at the ungainly box in a new light. “Ah, not one intended to enter the atmosphere,” he’d said, realizing that it didn’t have to be gracefully aerodynamic if it stayed in space.
“Exactly, though we only intend
this one to serve as a ‘lifeboat’ for the habitat. Should something happen to the habitat once it’s occupied, we want a place the occupants can move into, that can keep them safe and even change their orbit while awaiting rescue.”
“Ah!
That makes sense.”
“So,
I’ve sent your AI a plan for attaching the nozzles. You should also find a bunch of ports to install inside.”
“And those ports are for?”
“Well a lot of them are just atmosphere ports to let air into the ‘ship’ from down in North Carolina. Some are for water. Some are big ones that could be used to pass food or other objects in an emergency.”
Woolgathering done, Carter pulled off his gloves and leaned back out of the waldo setup. “Ben?
” he said, so that his AI would connect him to Stavos, “Everything’s installed on the…” he suddenly realized he didn’t have a name for it besides “big metal box.” He thought a moment, “On ‘Lifeboat 1,’” he finished.
After a moment Ben came on the line and responded, “Great, I’ll be down in a minute and we can take a ‘waldo tour’ of Lifeboat 1 and of the habitat to see if we think they’re ready to send people up. We’ve hired a few ex-astronauts that we’ll bring in over the next couple of days to
evaluate it too. Then we’ll start trying to send some folks up, mostly research types at first.”
***
Trying to calm herself, Denise Emmerit took a couple of deep breaths.
It’s only an exhibition
, she fiercely told herself. Her gymnastics center put on an exhibition every December, the weekend before the Christmas break from school started. She’d worked so hard to excel and felt proud that, though only thirteen, she’d been chosen to demonstrate the vault.
Denise couldn’t resist glancing over at the “little girls” as she thought of them. They were only a few years younger than she was
, but Denise remembered idolizing the older girls chosen for these demonstrations when she’d been that age. She felt very proud to have been chosen as one of the demonstrators this year, yet terrified that she would blow it. She wondered if the older girls she’d idolized in exhibitions gone by could ever have been as nervous as she felt today.
After that thought passed
, she paused to wonder if her idol Ell Donsaii had ever been nervous before a meet. Thinking back to the Emmerit Christmas dinners where she’d met the famous Donsaii and even spoken to her once Sn t bee, she decided it would be impossible for someone as amazing as Donsaii to ever have been nervous.
Then the PA system announced, “Now Denise Emmerit will demonstrate the
vault.”
Taking another deep breath Denise stood and strode to the vault lane. Trying not to focus on the crowd there for the exhibition
, she found and focused her eyes on her mother as she walked up. Then training took over as she took a couple of dancing steps and stepped up to her starting mark. Focusing on the table she began her run, hit her round-off, planted her hands and… her hand slipped to the side! Panic stormed through her, at first horrified to be blowing her vault in front of the crowd, then as she spun out of control—fear of what was about to happen to her.
Gym owner Alice White was spotting for Denise. With horror she realized that the skidding plant of Denise’s hand had spun her vault off to one side. She was going to land out of Alice’s reach. Worse, as Alice tried to leap forward, she recognized that Denise was going to come down out in the crowd! Picturing injuries to both Denise, and the people Denise crashed into, she began berating herself for letting people sit so close.
But then one of the spectators
rose to her feet, stepped slightly to her left and gracefully caught Denise by the arm, righting her and lowering her to the ground… unharmed. The woman had made this feat look as if it were a simple, easy thing to do—like the rest of us might catch someone who stumbled.
Gawking, Alice realized that somehow Ell Donsaii had come in and seated herself in the audience without anyone really noticing.
She had a ball cap pulled low to cover her signature hair, her HUD was darkened and baggy workout clothes concealed her elegant shape.
Still,
how
could the world’s most famous gymnast have come in and seated herself at a gymnastics event without causing huge excitement?
Astonished to have arrived on the ground unhurt, Denise looked up to see who had caught her and found herself staring into Ell’s twinkling eyes. Agog, she swallowed but found herself unable to speak.
Ell smiled down at her, “At
the Christmas dinner a couple of years ago, I promised you I’d watch you perform some of your gymnastic skills.” She tilted her head and shrugged, “but we got interrupted by a comet. I came by today to make good on my promise.”
Denise
stared almost uncomprehendingly at her for another moment, then shrieked and threw her arms around Ell. Murmurs swept the room as people realized who was among them. Then one of the littler girls began clapping excitedly. Moments later a thunderous round of applause erupted and a crush of young gymnasts swept around Ell and Denise. They began jumping up and down in their excitement. Ell bent down near Denise’s ear and said, “Are you ready to try that vault again?”
Denise nodded, unable to speak.
Ell said, “Focus on where you’re going to put that hand this time, OK?”
Denise nodded again.
Ell stood up and spoke to the crowd. “OK, Denise is ready to try her vault again! Let’s back up and give her some room.”
Despite her goosebumps, Alice joined her staff in shepherding the crowd of excited people back to their seats and cajoling the young gymnasts back to their assigned locations. With some envy she watched Donsaii walk Denise back to the start of the runway, hand on the girl’s shoulder, speaking to her quietly.
Distantly
Alice felt that she should be offended that someone else had taken it upon herself to coach one of her students. Yet how could you resent it when the very, very best gymnast in the world came to your gym and gave advice to someone you truly cared for?
To her surprise, Denise found that the walk back to the start of the runway with Ell speaking gently to her about her vault gradually calmed her jangling nerves. Ell explained what Denise had done wrong in the failed vault as if she had watched a slow motion replay of it, even though Denise had no idea when she would have had time to scroll it through her HUD. She had been speaking serenely to Denise since the moment she caught her. Nonetheless, Ell’s clear understanding of what went wrong, absolute expectation that Denise wouldn’t make the same mistake again and tranquil assumption that Denise would
nail
the next vault left her standing at the beginning of the runway, feeling better about an impending vault than she ever had before in her life. She started running down the runway in what she would later describe as a “dreamlike state.” That led to her execution of the best vault she had so far performed in her life. Not a vault of high technical difficulty, but one flawlessly performed. When she stuck her landing the room erupted in applause once again.
