Red Eye For Red Eye

Red Eye For Red Eye

by
Alan Michaels
copyright '99
Canoga Park

An electromagnetic pulse rail fired our sleek transport at the sky, ground based lasers triangulated us to the exact swingpoint at the edge of the Earth's atmosphere. As if a spreadsheeted Rube Goldberg device was sending us on a hellish ride, at the same moment our vehicle glanced past the swingpoint, an arm of super tensile strength locked onto and Tarzaned this group from a pivotal point nine hundred kilometers further from our planet to the first stopover; a rotating hotel with massive, though commercially esthetic structure which was a third the way to the moon.

Between the pillow and mattress and on top of the bedspread I was too weak to uncover, my fingers grew into the space which became a Morpheus abyss as I slipped into a long delayed sleep, fully dressed, not knowing if my knees were bent or if my oxfords were still on, I did not care.

Fuel efficency and conservation had become the turning point for the success of space travel, and that was why the post midnight wakeup call and sunrise flight turned into a launch failure that would send patience spiralling for twelve hours as the reservation system checked for swing credits available to be applied to our flight, since the computer lost critical accounting data. We aren't talking about Platinum card type credit. If one was a billionaire on that shuttle, and offered bonus dollars to facilitate our release, it wouldn't happen, because a tit for tat trade had to be in terms of kinetics, not dollars.

The pilot's registered vehicle didn't owe a push yesterday, but today it was woefully negligent and unable to use the space swings at all. So, with sinking resolve and the backing of an endowed corporation, I offered my credits, but as total force it wasn't much, and I wasn't quickly rescued by my fellow travellers as they turned from the pleading captain in the aisle. Twelve hours passed before any of them loaned some of their credits -- With the strictness of the Agency's policy on balancing the kinetics, we could've spent everyone's vacation on that rail.

I awoke four hours later, got up, put my pajamas on and fell into the bed, this time on my back and not drooling. I lay there for half an hour and got up to leave the room, knowing I no longer craved sleep.

Somehow I knew that since the credit foul-up happened I didn't need to know the re-scheduled flight profile, since they would give me a reasonable stop over length, then I'd press on to the heart of my occupation - Europa, and the hotel management would let me in on the details in the morning; that is, my morning.

The inner hallway outside my room ran perpendicular into the lobby, carpetted in pale blue as was the entire floor. On the left was this section's receptionist behind a towering sculpted desk and to the right was a continuous bay window of the spacious arching walkway. I started thinking about the chance of meeting my clients on the station and if I should begin work at that time or wait until I got to the 'field', which I was told was not a place of conveyance, a place where starting conversations about feelings was not easily done without a master's degree.

The white-laced blue Earth shot down the length of the window, causing me to collapse in midstride.

"Really sorry, sir," the kid receptionist said as he looked up from his online newspaper. "I didn't see you." His apology came from speakers spaced twenty meters apart. He lowered the flat screen that had a live, though stationary, view of the planet, and was indistinguishable from the window's.

And yet I do have a master's degree in sociology, I thought as I acknowledged the young man and scanned the architectural design lines of the structure. Further down the way was actually above our heads, where people would've been upside down and standing in the artificial gravity far above our ceiling. The unseen complex two down was really on the wall where those guests stood jutting out and slept standing up. and...

Across the way was a Ho-Jo's open twenty four hours and was where I was already heading. I stopped at the entryway and waited to be seated.

A bubbly waitress named Boo came over and I followed her to a corner table, and as she whipped out a lamenated breakfast menu, I did ask her if the other guests, within their time frame, have eaten there, and she told of how for a few days a group of explorers from my company had bivouacked in the hotel and never came out for anything - they just ordered pizza, which was great business for the pizza place, judging by the constant flitting of delivery people.

I settled down with a cup of coffee and a short stack and huevos rancheros on the way; the pop-up table terminal allowed access to my local morning paper, even though it was yesterday's. I was trying to humor myself. I noticed the waitress resting an elbow on the cashier's counter and as our eyes met, she nodded towards the hallway at a ponytail, sneakered girl darting up the arch to the rooms with a pizza from next door. I turned, smiling, to my paper, the silhouette logo focusing distance from my face.

Simple Simon met a pieman.
Going to the fair.
Said Simple Simon to the pieman
"Let me taste your ware."

Said the pieman unto Simon,
"Show me first your penny."
Said Simple Simon to the pieman,
"Indeed I have not any."

C'mon, Spaceboy, I thought, pushing away and sprinting out from the dining room and up the hall, and when I caught up with her an out of place little frown greeted me.

"Young lady, this is a business thing that 'never happened'," I panted at her, out of breath. Behind the pizza, in the heat pouch was one bag of grass and another bag of what visually seemed to be crystal meth. I confiscated both.

"Just play stupid, without overdoing it - deliver the pizza and get outta there. I'm their counselor and not a cop, so I didn't see nothing illegal and you don't know jack."

I had to push her to continue the delivery and went back to my table.

I winked at Boo as I passed her, hoping for some discretion, and she commented how it'd be a busy day considering I was still in my pajamas. She went to her station and I went to my java.

These guys I was dogging were the best geophysicists a mineral exploration company could have. They were hard working and were more intelligent and productive than myself, and since we're talking about a distance to the fifth planet, I'd put them as the best in the universe. My job was to keep them from imploding on self-medication using street drugs ferried up by florists and pizza parlors and whoever else had distribution from the seedier parts of the home planet.

Just then a red-haired calloused hand grabbed my shoulder.

"Hey, pard, I think we're having a catering problem."

A man in his late thirties in faded jeans and worn to dust Red Wings kicked free a nearby chair and came face to face with me.

Three of his fellow travellers took the next table over.

"You're from the home office. You're the head bean counters' latest jerkass consultant." He paused and backed away, certainly beyond the 't' word discomfort zone. "Am I right?"

I nodded and even took a sip from my cup, without shaking, cause I'm well trained, even got my master's.

"You know of course where we are all going on tomorro's launch. To Europa. Ever been there? I've been there five times with these guys. We set up the A-frame, and have submerged many times already into a crevasse on that moon."

He asked me my name and I told him as if that was all that was on my mind. Can I tell ye my name?

"Well, William, do you know what the most tortured bastard is any where?"

I did my homework and knew the security force for this space station was worth their salt and so weren't playing Old Maid while this was coming across their monitors.

I shook my head.

While he was just jawing at me nothing would happen, and yet if one of them got a smidgeon rattled, on the way to violence, those jumpsuits would bound from their closet and tackle those guys like they cared.

Right now all looked cozy.

"I believe its gotta be the submersible's titanium observation sphere," he said. "Think about it, Bill. The black of space touches the surface of that ice ridged bad boy, Antarctica from Hell. We go from...the vacuum of space into the inner regions of a planet in one vehicle. Picture ice fishing in Wisconsin, except there is no air pressure ... No gar today, Bill."