Interzone 244 Jan - Feb 2013 (8 page)

“
Hey,” I said to Murray,
“come over here for a while and watch how I do it.” She did. I
explained what I was doing and got her to repeat it. She dropped
her wrench again. It was a long day.

Towards the end of the shift, Murray had
mastered catching a dropped wrench. She’d done it often enough for
her reflexes to adjust to microgravity. She was still struggling to
do fine work with her gloves on: I made a mental note to give her a
nut and bolt when we went in so she could practice overnight. She
was getting better at applying torque, and she was really working
at it.

“
Nearly,” I said,
tightening off one of her connections.

“
I’m gonna get this right,
Peggy. Here, try that.”

“
Nearly, again.”

“
That?”

“
Another
nearly.”

I thought she’d lose patience, but she kept
at it. As we moved onto our last step of the day she’d all but got
the knack. Her last-but-one joint was almost good enough to let
through. The rest of us had finished work. Diego and the Gaffer
were watching. There was certainly enough torque for it to hold. I
paused…considered letting her have it…

“
I’ll check it myself if
you don’t hurry up,” said Diego.

I had to call it.

“
Almost, but not quite,” I
said. Murray was already putting on the last nut, handling her
podger neatly.

“
Here,” said the Gaffer,
“let me check that one.” It took a while for him to pull over.
“Hey, nice work, girlie.”

“
Yeah?” said Murray. She
hung nearby, a little too close.

“
This is good for your
first day out.”

“
Good enough?”

The Gaffer gave the nut one last
adjustment.

“
Nearly. You’ll get the
hang of it tomorrow. Should I take that hundred out of your first
week’s pay?”

* *

Murray turned up
early for the next
workshift, carrying her gloves and practice bolt. Construction
Manager Angela Caldwell was talking to the Gaffer while I checked
the lines. Caldwell had her long grey hair tied back and wore a
singlet that showed the scars on her arms.

I greeted Murray as she came in. “Keen to
get outside again, are you?” I asked. I was pleased. Enthusiasm was
natural in a kid her age.

“
Nah, not specially. Wanted
to talk to the Gaffer about today’s build.”

The Gaffer heard and turned, one eyebrow
raised, breaking off his conversation with Caldwell. Although he
and I went through the build guide every day, we didn’t expect
input from the rest of the team. Not that it was banned; it just
wasn’t traditional.

“
Angela, this is our latest
apprentice, Grace Murray,” he said. “Murray, Construction Manager
Caldwell. What did you want to talk about?”

Angela Caldwell gave Murray a level,
assessing look. They were about the same height. Murray didn’t
speak. I hadn’t seen her intimidated before. Diego arrived during
the silence, realised something was going on, and kept his mouth
shut. The Gaffer prompted Murray.

“
Come on girlie, speak up.
You’ve got something to say about the build order?”

Murray could speak nicely when she wanted
to; she’d learnt to smooth out her accent.

“
It’d work better if we did
steps eighteen and nineteen first, then went back to step one,” she
said. “We’d get the biggest section bolted into place early,
meaning we could separate into two teams after that. We could get
five steps ahead of the day’s programme.” She looked away. “Plus
we’d be able to use two lines for the full shift.”

Diego rolled his eyes.

“
Is that what this is
about?” asked the Gaffer. “You’re going to have to get used to
working with one line. It’s perfectly safe.”

“
It wasn’t safe for
Batukhtina.”

They’d shown the same training video back
when I apprenticed. Batukhtina was an early casualty; she’d been
doing a solo repair on ISS-2 when her line snapped.

The video is silent. For the first few
minutes Batukhtina’s visor reflects the space station. Look closely
and there’s a face at the viewport: her
colleague…watching…helpless. Then, Batukhtina stops reaching
towards him, turns away, and relaxes, facing the Earth, arms and
legs spread-eagled.

She had floated gently away with sixty-nine
minutes of oxygen and no way of getting back. It gives all of us
the shivers. Just thinking about it reminded me how much I wanted
to go home. If I found someone I could trust to take over my work
I’d be on the next shuttle back to Earth. Sure, I’d miss the view,
but I could live with that.

“
We have stronger lines
now,” I said, “checked and replaced regularly. Two lines is fine
for tourists, but it slows us down.”

“
My way’d be quicker
though, even with secondary lines.”

Caldwell took over. She didn’t appreciate
the implication her site was dangerous.

“
Interesting idea, Murray,
but you’re thinking like an Earthworm. There’s not enough
manoeuvrability in your spacesuits to be able to work with the main
steelwork in the way. Plus, I designed this order to keep you near
the others. Your inexperience is much more dangerous than working
without a secondary line. You’ll do everything as a full team until
I say otherwise.” Caldwell turned to the Gaffer. “That clear,
Rasmus?”

“
Perfectly, Construction
Manager.”

“
Way to go,
nearly-nineteen,” said Diego once the door hissed closed behind
Caldwell.

* *

Two weeks on,
we finally split the
team. The Gaffer and Diego went off to fit struts at the hotel end
of the truss, while Murray and I checked and tightened nuts along
its bottom chord. It was real monkey work.

I took a brief break to admire the Earth.
Vivid patches of blue showed through heavy cloud cover. Murray
didn’t stop. She was working steadily, using her podger like a pro,
movements well adapted to the lack of gravity. Even Diego no longer
doubted she’d done construction work before. I was beginning to
think she was made of the right stuff.

“
Must have been hard for
you, getting made redundant,” I said, on a suit-to-suit channel for
privacy.

“
Yeah,” she said, not
breaking her rhythm. “Mum’d lost her job too. Granddad looked after
us, but he died last year…” She faded out. I turned to look at her,
giving her the chance to continue if she wanted. She
didn’t.

“
Something’s bugging me,”
she said, full-volume again. “These are Boltefast nuts and bolts.
The construction models spec SureEng.”

“‘
SureEng
OEA
’.
That’s Or Equal and Approved. These are approved.”

“
Who picked Boltefast?
Would it be the Gaffer?”

I didn’t hesitate. I’d faced tougher
questioners than this kid. Plus, I was interested to see if she’d
follow up.

“
Probably. He’s answerable
for costs once a project’s on site. Or it could have been Head
Office.”

“
And who approved
it?”

“
Angela Caldwell, most
likely.”

She nodded and dropped the subject, only to
come back to it the next day.

“
I still don’t get the
equal and approved thing,” she said. I was pleased she was bright
enough to keep asking the right questions, although I was glad we
were talking suit-to-suit again. I hoped I was the only one whose
ear she was bending.

“
Those brands,” she said.
“I looked them up. The Boltefast are lower grade. They’re not equal
to SureEng. Their shear strength is lower.”

“
Lower but high
enough.”

“
Who says?”

“
If Caldwell approved them,
Caldwell says.”

“
It’s your initials on the
change request.”

“
Then I made the suggestion
and Caldwell approved it. It’s pretty routine.”

She stayed quiet for a moment, pulling out a
bolt and looking at it. She was getting pretty good at fine
manipulation wearing gloves.

“
They’re cheaper,” she
said. “Who makes the saving?”

She’s nearly there
, I thought,
willing her to work it out. I didn’t answer. When she spoke again,
she seemed to have changed the subject.

“
There was this guy I
worked with before,” she said. “His wages went further than
everyone else’s. He had the latest tech, ate out a lot, nice
clothes. I liked him. Always got the first round in at the
pub.”

“
Uh-huh?” I
said.

“
His sister-in-law, see,
she ran a galvanising firm. Hot dip and powder coating. We used her
on almost all our contracts. Must have been good.”

I knew then she was the one – my ideal
successor. She confirmed it with her next question:

“
Do you think Boltefast is
good in the same way?”

“
Yes,” I said, looking
straight at her, “I’d say it’s good in exactly that
way.”

She nodded. Time to put my exit strategy
into action.

“
I’m thinking of requesting
retirement,” I said. “I’m too old to be wielding a podger. But, I
need someone up here to take over the paperwork.”

“
Doesn’t the Gaffer deal
with it?”

“
He’s never been
interested. I’d prefer to pass it on to someone else. Someone who’d
keep me in the loop, as it were.”

“
That person would be
taking a risk, wouldn’t they? Perhaps half the risk?”

“
I wouldn’t say half.
Eighty:twenty, perhaps?”

“
Sixty:forty,” she
countered.

“
It takes time to build up
contacts,” I pointed out. “Eighty:twenty for the first three years,
seventy:thirty when you finish your apprenticeship.”

“
Hey!” called the Gaffer,
on the open channel. I looked up and he was coming our way. “You
two are getting behind. Problems, Peggy?”

“
No, nothing,” I
said.

“
Girlie?”

“
Nah.”

“
Get a move on,
then.”

We finished the shift in silence. I was
happy to let her mull it over.

* *

“
Is it true Caldwell
got those scars working on the London Olympic stadium?” asked
Murray.

We’d just come in from a shift, a couple of
days after I made my offer to the kid. I was waiting for her reply,
confident it’d be yes. Who doesn’t want to earn a little extra on
the side?

Construction was a day ahead of schedule,
the Gaffer was whistling happily, and Diego had gone easy on Murray
for a few hours.

“
That’s the rumour,” I
said. “Must be forty years ago. How’d you hear? She doesn’t talk
about it.”

“
One of the tourists.” The
Gaffer stopped whistling and turned to look. We weren’t supposed to
fraternise.

Murray continued. “Old guy. Used to be a
labourer.”

“
What were you doing in the
hotel?” asked the Gaffer.

“
He came over here,” said
Murray. “Wanted to see how we did things.”

“
More to the point, what’s
a labourer doing in the hotel?” asked Diego. “Won the
lottery?”

The Gaffer and I laughed. Murray shook her
head.

“
Nah, he’s been saving all
his life. Always dreamed of going into space, he said.”

“
What’d he know about
Angela Caldwell?” I asked.

“
He worked on the stadium
too. He was off sick when one end of the lower tier collapsed. She
was apprenticing with the steelwork gang. Eight people were killed.
They pulled Caldwell out of the rubble two days later.”

Diego whistled. “No wonder she likes
space.”

Diego and the Gaffer had finished changing.
Murray was going slowly; I guessed she wanted to talk.

“
I need a volunteer to
check the oxygen tanks,” I said.

“
That’ll be you,
nearly-nineteen,” said Diego, suddenly out the door, the Gaffer
right behind him. I sat down and waited to hear what was on
Murray’s mind.

“
He was nice, that old
guy,” she said. “I hadn’t thought about the tourists. What if
there’s an accident?”

“
There won’t
be.”

“
But what if something
fails?”

“
It won’t. Everything’s
checked. I wouldn’t let anything past if I wasn’t completely
confident.” I was lying, but not much. There’s always the
possibility of component failure. My specification changes only
increased the chances a little.

“
He’s probably someone’s
granddad.”

“
He’s perfectly safe,” I
snapped. “Talking to tourists is likely to get you in trouble. So
is gossiping about Caldwell.”

She looked guilty at that. I took pity on
her.

“
You can head off,” I said.
“I’ll do the tanks.”

I should have known better than to be soft
on an apprentice. She knew I’d be occupied for at least half an
hour. She used the time to grass me up to Caldwell.

Of course, Caldwell came straight to me
afterwards.

“
Whistleblowing!” I said,
disappointed. I hardly believed it; Murray had seemed so
promising.

“
How much does she know?”
asked Caldwell. I shrugged.