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THE STARRY MESSENGER Pg 2/5 -- Enhanced text
Date posted: Feb 28/2012
Page Two of Five.
© 2008 Fred Brown
............................................................................................................................................
............................................................................................................................................
❱❱❱❱ NOTA BENE: This copy is in a brighter, better-readable font, and can only be read on CYAN screens.
The Standard text copy that's readable on dark screens is here: THE STARRY MESSENGER -- Standard text
............................................................................................................................................
|
| Page Links: ▪1▪ ▪2▪ ▪3▪ ▪4▪ ▪5▪
|
=============================================================================
"Off." Allendale cut the comm channel. He sagged back into his crash couch,
giving way to total exhaustion. It would take them both an hour or so to recover
from the stress of the drill.
But not too exhausted. Allendale lifted his right paw, then reached over and
plopped it down on top of Rashidkova's left breast (which was substantial;
likewise the right).
"So, was it good for you too, darlin'?" Allendale grinned, turning his head
towards her. Most tired dogs will just let their tongues loll out. No surprise, same
here.
Rashidkova looked down. "Firing a weapon--any weapon--always gets your
blood up, doesn't it, Marine?" she snickered. "Back in basic training, I wonder
what your Gunnery Sergeant made of that."
"Et tu, Bruta? And your paw is precisely where, hmmm?"
In response, now resting gently on the inside of Allendale's right thigh, was
where. Combat--even if only a drill--had a very predictable effect on some
people, albeit an effect that was not very appropriate on the battlefield.
Rashidkova was no different from Allendale as they'd learned on their very first
drill.
There are few flabby Marines, whether a black-furred hound dog or not. Ugly
fox furs just do not exist, of course, the svelte and sleek a natural part of the
[well-packaged] package. Whoever had decided to put them together as a team
probably knew exactly down to the decimal point how they'd get along. Some
matchmakers don't have a lot of work to do.
"I sincerely wish more than your blood was up," Rashidkova said ironically.
"Not that I'm in the habit of writing letters to infidel holiday icons, but if I was
Santa would have to handle mine with asbestos gloves."
"Not before my e-mail set fire to his computer," Allendale chuckled, then
squeezed a bit. "But hey, a Marine can dream, can't he?"
"Dreams are all we get, thank you very much Pfizer, you nekulturny
bastards," Rashidkova scowled, as both their gazes went to each other's
forearms. The whole station was a shirtsleeves environment.
The small lumps implanted under their fur just below the elbow told the
inhibiting story. Working in space meant working in zero-g, which meant bone
loss and other physiological impacts that could disable in a matter of months
without a time-consuming exercise program. Impossible, given the mission. Furs
were vastly better suited to space than humans, but even they suffered.
Medical science to the rescue, ta-da, in the form of the implants that
moderated and managed the metabolism to cope with the lack of gravity. Without
them the whole missile defense program would have been orders of magnitude
more expensive.
Although it was a significant, not-so-subtle side-effect that was perhaps
even more crucial to the manned (ahem: furred) presence in space.
"Whoever it was that called these the perfect contraceptive, boy, would Ah
like to shove one of these up his ass and see how he likes it," Allendale growled.
"Nothin' goes up with this @^#%$&* thing in mah arm. And you c'n play away
till your tail falls off for all the good it does you, your sexual circuit breakers
locked open th' same as mine. Shit, but the day will come when Ah dig this thing
out with a fork, y'know."
"Oh, so you want to end up like the Mars mission, do you?" Rashidkova said
dryly. "What was it? Two murders over sexual rivalry, one suicide over same, and
the rest crippled for life with near-lethal osteoporosis and ruined hearts. That's a
high price to pay for a little fun, Allendale."
Of all the hazards of long-duration spaceflight, it turned out that ordinary
sexuality could be the most hazardous of all in terms of the catastrophic social
chaos it could cause in otherwise highly competent and trained crews.
Submariners were at risk for the same trouble, but they got to return to land and
wives and husbands every so often.
Not so in space. The implants might have been an appallingly humiliating
solution to the problem, but there wasn't any better as of yet.
"Sex in zero-g is a lot of fun. And you'd be worth it. When we get back down
to Earth..."
Allendale hesitated. "When we get back down to Earth it won't be the same,"
Rashidkova said quietly. "You and Laura will promptly go off and destroy a good
bed--they'll hear the howls in orbit--and me and Petrov and Achmed will probably
smash ours into tiny pieces. Although it wouldn't be the first time."
She waved a paw. "Up here, we cuddle together, and sleep together, and no
more. And Laura and Petrov and Achmed know that, which may ease their minds
a bit, I suppose. As much as it drives us nuts."
Eight stressful months in orbit, plus the years of training, had brought them
very close together (obviously). Male-female crews fought better, it seemed. Like
alloys are stronger than the original metals, the differences, and the bonds,
between the sexes complemented each other.
"But I am glad we can at least do that, my buff jarhead puppy," Rashidkova
said fondly, as she returned Allendale's squeeze, and with interest. Her eyes
twinkled. "I am Neo-Moslem, you know. When we get back down I might be
persuaded to take a third husband. You wouldn't have to convert."
History told of how hordes from the North overran the Islamic world in the
12th century. The Moslem peoples in the former Soviet Union hadn't considered
the similarities--urbane, economically powerful, Western in orientation;
not-a-horde--but it was in the North that the Neo-Moslem movement had gotten
started. Then revolutionized the lives of four billion people.
The fanatic fundamentalism of the mullahs and imams of the Middle East
had been swept away like a Russian tractor scything through wheat. And perhaps
just in time.
That said, the radical updating and reformation of Sharia law (it needed it)
had included a flavour of sexual equality lightyears beyond the West. With two
husbands already and legally able to have two more, Rashidkova hadn't been
precisely joking.
"Until the Southern Baptist Convention modernizes its doctrines on multiple
marriage, Ah regret that Ah'll have t' pass," Allendale chuckled. "Deeply regret.
Since Laura would knock mah fool block off for even suggesting it, let's say
there's some Marine self-preservation in there too."
"Oh right. She's a physical fitness instructor," Rashidkova murmured. "She
could probably do it too."
"Strongest fur woman Ah ever met, y'know," Allendale whispered, looking
out at the Earth through the six-inch thick front window of the command module.
"Outran me on the first marathon we did. All that glorious blonde Georgia-peach
hair didn't hurt. Th' rest of her Collie fur th' same. Didn't have a choice. Ah had t'
marry her."
Allendale fell silent for a moment. "Ah love her so much," he murmured. "My
love for you, likewise strong, but she has mah heart. An' here we are coming up
on Christmas and Ah'm stuck in a tin can in orbit. This sucks."
"Yah," Rashidkova whispered. "My heart's taken too. Even though it's not my
holiday, there are two males down there I'm seriously lonely for. Shaitan can
have my soul in exchange for a good two-husband hug right now, Allah forgive
my saying."
Allendale thumped his other paw on the crash couch armrest. "Damn. Just to
send her an e-mail!! That's all Ah wanna do!" he swore angrily.
"Comm blackout, Allendale. Silent running, and with cause. We do our job
right, they don't even know we're up here. Any data that shows we are up here
could be data that gets us killed. Just like the old U-boats being hunted by the
Canadian corvettes. Read once about a sub crew that put a disk on their
hand-cranked record player, the corvette hydrophones picked up the music from
kilometers away, then converged. Then boom."
Allendale just snorted, then took his paw off her breast and pointed out the
window. "Considering th' auroras our beams just left behind, call it a hunch, but
Ah think they know we're up here."
It was a pretty unmistakable show. Both Allendale and Rashidkova stared for
a while as the lambent tracks of ionized air radiated an angry red and green and
purple. High-altitude nuclear tests had done much the same thing, liberating so
much power that the glowing disturbance in the upper atmosphere could be seen
at high noon, and rivaling the Northern Lights in brightness at night.
Not counting all the lively radioactive debris left behind from the blast. Had
the ICBMs been real there would have been plenty of that.
"God. Ah'll say it: that's beautiful," Allendale breathed. "If all of us had t' let
loose at once it'd probably be bright enough on the ground to read a book at
midnight."
"Let's hope we don't have to test that theory," Rashidkova said, not a little
awed herself. "Hey, there's coincidence for you. Looks like a big letter V in the
sky." She raised a finger and traced the shape in the air in front of them.
"V for victory. Today anyway," Allendale said. "Only looks like a letter from
our vantage point. Wouldn't be a V if y' were looking up. Wouldn't look like
anything more than a couple of bars in the sky. But..."
Allendale stopped, a strange expression on his muzzle.
Rashidkova glanced at him. "Hmmm?"
"But if we and Beta had been in the right position, we might have been able
to make a letter in the sky. As seen from the ground," Allendale said slowly. "By
accident, of course, but still..."
Allendale fell silent again, thinking.
The moment stretched out. Rashidkova waited.
Finally: "All right, Allendale. I can hear the military-issue hamster wheel
squeaking inside that Marine brain of yours. What are you cooking up?"
"An idea that ain't fully baked yet," Allendale said absently, his eyes still on
the aurora, or rather the V. "And might never make it out of th' half-baked stage
either, since it's either too dumb for words or straight impossible. Or both."
He shook his head. "And Ah'm gonna put it on the back burner for a while, if
y' don't mind, since you mention cookin' and that reminds me Ah'm freakin'
starving, and we've got to sync up with Delta and get ready to move this tub
before we get to crack open a tasty, nutritious, gourmet MRE."
Food in space actually was tasty, nutritious, and not far from gourmet. For
about the first month. After that, the people nomming the Meals-Ready-to-Eat (cruel
oxymoron there) began to notice that they'd been prepared and packaged in a
factory, freeze-dried, then flown 300 kilometers straight up. Except on the
luxurious American ballistic missile 'boomers,' virtually hotels with ICBMs, every
sub crew that ever sailed had noticed much the same phenomenon the longer the
voyage lasted.
Allendale and Rashidkova had noticed. "And he says it with such a straight
muzzle, too," Rashidkova scowled. "You're called leathernecks because that's
what you enjoy eating, right?"
"Ah'm from the South. If Ah can barbecue it Ah can eat it. Astonishing how
what we've got in our pantry don't fall into that category even if Ah had a magic
grill. Oh well. You get Delta on the blower and get us synced, lemme see about
whompin' up a maneuver plan, then we get everything battened down for a nice,
smooth boost. Ah've had enough of feelin' like a ping-pong ball in a blender for
one day."
Rashidkova looked at her wristwatch, then went to work on the comm
console. "And we're past prayer time too. I'll pray while I work, I guess. Which
way is Mecca right now...?"
The beautiful raven-haired gunner entered a few commands that would
bring Delta Station on line, then tapped on her watch (that was more than one).
She pointed her paw around in the direction of Earth until she heard a series of
beeps. "Okay. Thataway."
Allendale was setting up a preliminary burn sequence for the station's main
maneuvering rockets, then scowled, wiped it, and began work on a better one.
"Y'ever wonder, if that doohickey got outta whack with the navigation comp,
you'd be praying off target?" he said. "Y' think Allah'd be pissed or what?"
Rashidkova chuckled. "So long as you make the effort, Allendale, Allah's cool
with it even if you're upside down. Or so I was taught. And you never know, that
could be Allah trying to tell us our nav comp's out of whack."
She entered a final code and the comm channel opened. "Ho, Delta Station,
Gamma Station here. We have some maneuvering orders, and you get to take
our sector for a while. Stand by for data sync..."
Up to their ears, floppy and tufted, in checklists, technical details, and
consultations with the comps (including the fortunately un-whacked nav system),
it turned out to be another two hours before their dubious meals hit the
microwave.
But by then they were too tired to notice. On autopilot, the huge station
cruised gently towards its new posting as they slept like dead in each other's
arms, tails entwined.
That almost made up for the food.
- - -
Naked, Rashidkova floated, her eyes closed and enjoying the sunlight. Her
white-tipped tail was limp in the air underneath her.
Filtered and weakened sunlight that is, courtesy of the wide, thick,
poly-glass windows in the roof of the module she was in. In space, raw solar
photons could tan you to bacon-bits in under a minute no matter how thick your
red fur.
Here in the station's greenhouse, though, the sunlight was an unadulterated
luxury. All that was required was some sand, a Beirut palm tree, some ocean,
and for Rashidkova life would be complete.
Not that furs tanned--except perhaps inside the ears--but a furlough was a
furlough was a furlough. She was going to get in every second of relaxation
possible. Only a class one alert could get her out of the cavernous life support
module.
Allendale carefully poked his head around the rim of the hatch. He held a
compslate in one paw. He drifted silently through the hatch and ducked
underneath a rack of trays.
Although a palm tree would have had a rough go of it in this greenhouse.
The oxygen that plants breathed out by breathing in carbon dioxide was
absolutely crucial to every ship in space, but plants that did well in space were
rare, all fragilely vulnerable to radiation, and required much complicated tending
as any farmer could testify. Not good.
The botanists and the genetic engineers had jumped with both footpaws
onto the plant DNA for chloroplasts, chlorophyll, and all the rest of the
microbiological hardware necessary, and sliced and diced with abandon. And skill.
What they came up with were varieties of quasi-fungi and symbiotic moss that
could tolerate radiation without mutating wildly. They were simple plants and
nearly maintenance free, so deeply green and stuffed with chlorophyll they were
almost jet black.
They were also oddly beautiful, rising out their wide trays in tall, fan-like
structures with the mindless goal of capturing all the sun they could. Not unlike
Rashidkova at the moment, drifting gently in the warm air currents in the central
aisle of the greenhouse and thinking plant-like thoughts.
One wrist was attached to a thin line that was attached to a ring on a
bulkhead. It was easy to get stuck in mid-air nowheres near anything to push on.
An occupational hazard in zero-g.
I am flower, Rashidkova drowsed to herself. Petals spread, growing in the
sun, catching allll the light... "EEP!!"
=============================================================================
Page 2
<<< PREV Pg 1 First Page Pg 3 NEXT >>>
Date posted: Feb 28/2012
Page Two of Five.
© 2008 Fred Brown
............................................................................................................................................
............................................................................................................................................
❱❱❱❱ NOTA BENE: This copy is in a brighter, better-readable font, and can only be read on CYAN screens.
The Standard text copy that's readable on dark screens is here: THE STARRY MESSENGER -- Standard text
............................................................................................................................................
|
| Page Links: ▪1▪ ▪2▪ ▪3▪ ▪4▪ ▪5▪
|
=============================================================================
"Off." Allendale cut the comm channel. He sagged back into his crash couch,
giving way to total exhaustion. It would take them both an hour or so to recover
from the stress of the drill.
But not too exhausted. Allendale lifted his right paw, then reached over and
plopped it down on top of Rashidkova's left breast (which was substantial;
likewise the right).
"So, was it good for you too, darlin'?" Allendale grinned, turning his head
towards her. Most tired dogs will just let their tongues loll out. No surprise, same
here.
Rashidkova looked down. "Firing a weapon--any weapon--always gets your
blood up, doesn't it, Marine?" she snickered. "Back in basic training, I wonder
what your Gunnery Sergeant made of that."
"Et tu, Bruta? And your paw is precisely where, hmmm?"
In response, now resting gently on the inside of Allendale's right thigh, was
where. Combat--even if only a drill--had a very predictable effect on some
people, albeit an effect that was not very appropriate on the battlefield.
Rashidkova was no different from Allendale as they'd learned on their very first
drill.
There are few flabby Marines, whether a black-furred hound dog or not. Ugly
fox furs just do not exist, of course, the svelte and sleek a natural part of the
[well-packaged] package. Whoever had decided to put them together as a team
probably knew exactly down to the decimal point how they'd get along. Some
matchmakers don't have a lot of work to do.
"I sincerely wish more than your blood was up," Rashidkova said ironically.
"Not that I'm in the habit of writing letters to infidel holiday icons, but if I was
Santa would have to handle mine with asbestos gloves."
"Not before my e-mail set fire to his computer," Allendale chuckled, then
squeezed a bit. "But hey, a Marine can dream, can't he?"
"Dreams are all we get, thank you very much Pfizer, you nekulturny
bastards," Rashidkova scowled, as both their gazes went to each other's
forearms. The whole station was a shirtsleeves environment.
The small lumps implanted under their fur just below the elbow told the
inhibiting story. Working in space meant working in zero-g, which meant bone
loss and other physiological impacts that could disable in a matter of months
without a time-consuming exercise program. Impossible, given the mission. Furs
were vastly better suited to space than humans, but even they suffered.
Medical science to the rescue, ta-da, in the form of the implants that
moderated and managed the metabolism to cope with the lack of gravity. Without
them the whole missile defense program would have been orders of magnitude
more expensive.
Although it was a significant, not-so-subtle side-effect that was perhaps
even more crucial to the manned (ahem: furred) presence in space.
"Whoever it was that called these the perfect contraceptive, boy, would Ah
like to shove one of these up his ass and see how he likes it," Allendale growled.
"Nothin' goes up with this @^#%$&* thing in mah arm. And you c'n play away
till your tail falls off for all the good it does you, your sexual circuit breakers
locked open th' same as mine. Shit, but the day will come when Ah dig this thing
out with a fork, y'know."
"Oh, so you want to end up like the Mars mission, do you?" Rashidkova said
dryly. "What was it? Two murders over sexual rivalry, one suicide over same, and
the rest crippled for life with near-lethal osteoporosis and ruined hearts. That's a
high price to pay for a little fun, Allendale."
Of all the hazards of long-duration spaceflight, it turned out that ordinary
sexuality could be the most hazardous of all in terms of the catastrophic social
chaos it could cause in otherwise highly competent and trained crews.
Submariners were at risk for the same trouble, but they got to return to land and
wives and husbands every so often.
Not so in space. The implants might have been an appallingly humiliating
solution to the problem, but there wasn't any better as of yet.
"Sex in zero-g is a lot of fun. And you'd be worth it. When we get back down
to Earth..."
Allendale hesitated. "When we get back down to Earth it won't be the same,"
Rashidkova said quietly. "You and Laura will promptly go off and destroy a good
bed--they'll hear the howls in orbit--and me and Petrov and Achmed will probably
smash ours into tiny pieces. Although it wouldn't be the first time."
She waved a paw. "Up here, we cuddle together, and sleep together, and no
more. And Laura and Petrov and Achmed know that, which may ease their minds
a bit, I suppose. As much as it drives us nuts."
Eight stressful months in orbit, plus the years of training, had brought them
very close together (obviously). Male-female crews fought better, it seemed. Like
alloys are stronger than the original metals, the differences, and the bonds,
between the sexes complemented each other.
"But I am glad we can at least do that, my buff jarhead puppy," Rashidkova
said fondly, as she returned Allendale's squeeze, and with interest. Her eyes
twinkled. "I am Neo-Moslem, you know. When we get back down I might be
persuaded to take a third husband. You wouldn't have to convert."
History told of how hordes from the North overran the Islamic world in the
12th century. The Moslem peoples in the former Soviet Union hadn't considered
the similarities--urbane, economically powerful, Western in orientation;
not-a-horde--but it was in the North that the Neo-Moslem movement had gotten
started. Then revolutionized the lives of four billion people.
The fanatic fundamentalism of the mullahs and imams of the Middle East
had been swept away like a Russian tractor scything through wheat. And perhaps
just in time.
That said, the radical updating and reformation of Sharia law (it needed it)
had included a flavour of sexual equality lightyears beyond the West. With two
husbands already and legally able to have two more, Rashidkova hadn't been
precisely joking.
"Until the Southern Baptist Convention modernizes its doctrines on multiple
marriage, Ah regret that Ah'll have t' pass," Allendale chuckled. "Deeply regret.
Since Laura would knock mah fool block off for even suggesting it, let's say
there's some Marine self-preservation in there too."
"Oh right. She's a physical fitness instructor," Rashidkova murmured. "She
could probably do it too."
"Strongest fur woman Ah ever met, y'know," Allendale whispered, looking
out at the Earth through the six-inch thick front window of the command module.
"Outran me on the first marathon we did. All that glorious blonde Georgia-peach
hair didn't hurt. Th' rest of her Collie fur th' same. Didn't have a choice. Ah had t'
marry her."
Allendale fell silent for a moment. "Ah love her so much," he murmured. "My
love for you, likewise strong, but she has mah heart. An' here we are coming up
on Christmas and Ah'm stuck in a tin can in orbit. This sucks."
"Yah," Rashidkova whispered. "My heart's taken too. Even though it's not my
holiday, there are two males down there I'm seriously lonely for. Shaitan can
have my soul in exchange for a good two-husband hug right now, Allah forgive
my saying."
Allendale thumped his other paw on the crash couch armrest. "Damn. Just to
send her an e-mail!! That's all Ah wanna do!" he swore angrily.
"Comm blackout, Allendale. Silent running, and with cause. We do our job
right, they don't even know we're up here. Any data that shows we are up here
could be data that gets us killed. Just like the old U-boats being hunted by the
Canadian corvettes. Read once about a sub crew that put a disk on their
hand-cranked record player, the corvette hydrophones picked up the music from
kilometers away, then converged. Then boom."
Allendale just snorted, then took his paw off her breast and pointed out the
window. "Considering th' auroras our beams just left behind, call it a hunch, but
Ah think they know we're up here."
It was a pretty unmistakable show. Both Allendale and Rashidkova stared for
a while as the lambent tracks of ionized air radiated an angry red and green and
purple. High-altitude nuclear tests had done much the same thing, liberating so
much power that the glowing disturbance in the upper atmosphere could be seen
at high noon, and rivaling the Northern Lights in brightness at night.
Not counting all the lively radioactive debris left behind from the blast. Had
the ICBMs been real there would have been plenty of that.
"God. Ah'll say it: that's beautiful," Allendale breathed. "If all of us had t' let
loose at once it'd probably be bright enough on the ground to read a book at
midnight."
"Let's hope we don't have to test that theory," Rashidkova said, not a little
awed herself. "Hey, there's coincidence for you. Looks like a big letter V in the
sky." She raised a finger and traced the shape in the air in front of them.
"V for victory. Today anyway," Allendale said. "Only looks like a letter from
our vantage point. Wouldn't be a V if y' were looking up. Wouldn't look like
anything more than a couple of bars in the sky. But..."
Allendale stopped, a strange expression on his muzzle.
Rashidkova glanced at him. "Hmmm?"
"But if we and Beta had been in the right position, we might have been able
to make a letter in the sky. As seen from the ground," Allendale said slowly. "By
accident, of course, but still..."
Allendale fell silent again, thinking.
The moment stretched out. Rashidkova waited.
Finally: "All right, Allendale. I can hear the military-issue hamster wheel
squeaking inside that Marine brain of yours. What are you cooking up?"
"An idea that ain't fully baked yet," Allendale said absently, his eyes still on
the aurora, or rather the V. "And might never make it out of th' half-baked stage
either, since it's either too dumb for words or straight impossible. Or both."
He shook his head. "And Ah'm gonna put it on the back burner for a while, if
y' don't mind, since you mention cookin' and that reminds me Ah'm freakin'
starving, and we've got to sync up with Delta and get ready to move this tub
before we get to crack open a tasty, nutritious, gourmet MRE."
Food in space actually was tasty, nutritious, and not far from gourmet. For
about the first month. After that, the people nomming the Meals-Ready-to-Eat (cruel
oxymoron there) began to notice that they'd been prepared and packaged in a
factory, freeze-dried, then flown 300 kilometers straight up. Except on the
luxurious American ballistic missile 'boomers,' virtually hotels with ICBMs, every
sub crew that ever sailed had noticed much the same phenomenon the longer the
voyage lasted.
Allendale and Rashidkova had noticed. "And he says it with such a straight
muzzle, too," Rashidkova scowled. "You're called leathernecks because that's
what you enjoy eating, right?"
"Ah'm from the South. If Ah can barbecue it Ah can eat it. Astonishing how
what we've got in our pantry don't fall into that category even if Ah had a magic
grill. Oh well. You get Delta on the blower and get us synced, lemme see about
whompin' up a maneuver plan, then we get everything battened down for a nice,
smooth boost. Ah've had enough of feelin' like a ping-pong ball in a blender for
one day."
Rashidkova looked at her wristwatch, then went to work on the comm
console. "And we're past prayer time too. I'll pray while I work, I guess. Which
way is Mecca right now...?"
The beautiful raven-haired gunner entered a few commands that would
bring Delta Station on line, then tapped on her watch (that was more than one).
She pointed her paw around in the direction of Earth until she heard a series of
beeps. "Okay. Thataway."
Allendale was setting up a preliminary burn sequence for the station's main
maneuvering rockets, then scowled, wiped it, and began work on a better one.
"Y'ever wonder, if that doohickey got outta whack with the navigation comp,
you'd be praying off target?" he said. "Y' think Allah'd be pissed or what?"
Rashidkova chuckled. "So long as you make the effort, Allendale, Allah's cool
with it even if you're upside down. Or so I was taught. And you never know, that
could be Allah trying to tell us our nav comp's out of whack."
She entered a final code and the comm channel opened. "Ho, Delta Station,
Gamma Station here. We have some maneuvering orders, and you get to take
our sector for a while. Stand by for data sync..."
Up to their ears, floppy and tufted, in checklists, technical details, and
consultations with the comps (including the fortunately un-whacked nav system),
it turned out to be another two hours before their dubious meals hit the
microwave.
But by then they were too tired to notice. On autopilot, the huge station
cruised gently towards its new posting as they slept like dead in each other's
arms, tails entwined.
That almost made up for the food.
- - -
Naked, Rashidkova floated, her eyes closed and enjoying the sunlight. Her
white-tipped tail was limp in the air underneath her.
Filtered and weakened sunlight that is, courtesy of the wide, thick,
poly-glass windows in the roof of the module she was in. In space, raw solar
photons could tan you to bacon-bits in under a minute no matter how thick your
red fur.
Here in the station's greenhouse, though, the sunlight was an unadulterated
luxury. All that was required was some sand, a Beirut palm tree, some ocean,
and for Rashidkova life would be complete.
Not that furs tanned--except perhaps inside the ears--but a furlough was a
furlough was a furlough. She was going to get in every second of relaxation
possible. Only a class one alert could get her out of the cavernous life support
module.
Allendale carefully poked his head around the rim of the hatch. He held a
compslate in one paw. He drifted silently through the hatch and ducked
underneath a rack of trays.
Although a palm tree would have had a rough go of it in this greenhouse.
The oxygen that plants breathed out by breathing in carbon dioxide was
absolutely crucial to every ship in space, but plants that did well in space were
rare, all fragilely vulnerable to radiation, and required much complicated tending
as any farmer could testify. Not good.
The botanists and the genetic engineers had jumped with both footpaws
onto the plant DNA for chloroplasts, chlorophyll, and all the rest of the
microbiological hardware necessary, and sliced and diced with abandon. And skill.
What they came up with were varieties of quasi-fungi and symbiotic moss that
could tolerate radiation without mutating wildly. They were simple plants and
nearly maintenance free, so deeply green and stuffed with chlorophyll they were
almost jet black.
They were also oddly beautiful, rising out their wide trays in tall, fan-like
structures with the mindless goal of capturing all the sun they could. Not unlike
Rashidkova at the moment, drifting gently in the warm air currents in the central
aisle of the greenhouse and thinking plant-like thoughts.
One wrist was attached to a thin line that was attached to a ring on a
bulkhead. It was easy to get stuck in mid-air nowheres near anything to push on.
An occupational hazard in zero-g.
I am flower, Rashidkova drowsed to herself. Petals spread, growing in the
sun, catching allll the light... "EEP!!"
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Category Story / General Furry Art
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