Habitats (an Ell Donsaii story #7) (6 page)

“Sure,” they said, then watched her walk away.
Ben turned to Rob, “Dammit, it just seems so obvious after she pointed it out!”

Rob
sighed, “Yeah, yeah, it’s always obvious after someone points it out. I suppose we should start thinking about selling LNG here on earth?”

Ben grinned, “How can you make that sound like bad news? Though I suppose first we better find out how clean these ‘methane lakes’ are.”

“I don’t know… I guess I was hoping to do something cooler out there in space than mining natural gas.”

“Just think of it as the way you’re financing your space
‘habitat habit.’”

Roger looked up as Ell walked into the Quantum area. He felt a twinge of sadness. Wearing cutoff jeans and running shoes; looking like she was dancing though she was only walking, she, as always, took his breath away. Her beauty made him wistful for the time he’d loved her and had hoped she might love him in return. He glanced down the table at Emma, animatedly talking to Manuel, smiling, her curls bouncing. Roger truly loved Emma, and she loved him back. Life was good. Still, working around Ell created moments of nostalgia for the “might have beens.”

Ell saw him and came his way, “What’s up?” he asked.

“Are the AI implants ready for our folks yet?”

“Yeah, we’ve got them made and can have a session to install them in the inner circle using single ended ports this weekend.
One of the ENT residents from the University hospital has gotten permission to ‘moonlight,’ surgically implanting the others in any of the Portal Tech or ET personnel that want them.”

“Surgically implanting? Sounds like a big procedure?”

“No, just a tiny incision, slide it in and put a drop of skin glue over it. The trick is to know where to put it and doing it with good sterile technique.”

“Sounds good. Any new developments?”

Roger grinned, “This resident that’s going to do the implants for us?”

“Yeah?”

“This is kinda embarrassing, but he pointed out that the reason the sound from the implants is so bad is because of preferential absorption of some frequencies by the fat and other tissues between the implant and the ear. Compensating for loss of some frequencies is something that they do for hearing aids all the time. He’s adjusted the frequency response of mine until it sounds pretty much normal. Actually, all he had to do was tell my AI how to adjust the frequency response. The AI already had software to do the adjusting.”

“Oh. D
uh. I feel pretty stupid.”

“You’re going to feel worse. We should be able to
place a very small port inside your ear canal that can transmit sound right next to your eardrum. He expects nearly normal sound from that. No ear plugs hanging off your head band.”

Ell
put her palm to her forehead in dismay.

“Another one glued to the back of a front tooth can be the microphone.”

Ell closed her eyes and chuckled, “So I didn’t need this implant I’ve had stuck in my head?”

“Well, as a kidnapping risk, I think you should keep it
as backup and for the GPS that no one knows is in your neck. If they don’t know it’s there, they can’t find it.”

Ell tilted her head considering, “OK, I don’t feel
quite so dumb then.”

“And I think we should st fowe shouill do implants for the inner circle and their families
. Also, realize that we could go into the business of providing the audio part of what people’s AI headbands provide them. Then they could wear smaller devices, kind of like the ‘glasses’ people used to wear to correct their vision, just to provide the video part of their AI to them.”

Ell grinned at him, “What, you aren’t proposing to implant a port in
to peoples’ eyeballs to record and playback video?”

Roger squirmed squeamishly, “That seems a little scary, even to me. But the glasses can be really light
weight because the camera can be back home with your AI, just peeking through a tiny port on the glasses. All the projector equipment can also be back with the AI, just sending the beam through a focal point to reflect off your HUD screens. I know modern projectors and cameras are surprisingly tiny, but this would be way smaller and lighter than even they are.”

“Wow Roger, that’s some cool stuff. You need your own division of D5R to work on this stuff.”

He shrugged, “Yeah, Emma and I,” he glanced down the table at his girlfriend, “have been talking about setting up a biomedical arm of D5R.”

As they both looked at Emma, Manuel got up from his conversation with her and headed off. She got up and came down to them, “What are you two conniving over?”

Ell said, “Roger tells me you want to take him away from me and form Quantum Biomed? I’m going to be here all by myself!”

Emma mock glared at Roger, “I’d never leave my girlfriend! Roger might go haring off
, but the most I’d do is go to occasional meetings with the drones we’d hire to build the stuff we invented here.” She turned to Ell, “Did he tell you about the Biomed student with the idea for nerve reception?”

Bemusedly, Ell shook her head.

“So this grad student, Ryan Keller, called here wanting to talk to you or ‘whoever did our biomed stuff.’ He got shunted to Roger, but ol’ Rog’ here, was,” Emma tilted her nose up aristocratically, “‘too busy.’ So this student wound up talking to me. Turns out he has a nanoscale system that can be attached to a nerve to pick up impulses from, and transmit impulses to, the axon fibers in the nerve. His problem has been that the wires going through the skin keep getting infected. Obviously that would be a disaster in a patient. So he wants to hook them up through a port.”

Ell frowned, “Why would you want to
pick up nerve signals electronically?”

Emma grinned, “Sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf, restoring spinal cord function. Minor things like that.”

Ell’s eyes widened, “Holy crap! That’s great! Can we hire him?”

“
He’s pretty close to finishing his degree. I’ll ask.” Emma grinned, “By the way, he says he’s friends with someone who works here.”

“Who?”

“Raquel Blandon,” Emma said, eyes twinkling.

“Oh, crap,
that
Ryan>ize="+0an?” Ell asked weakly.

***

Carter drove home from his second visit to ET Resources. They’d called him and told him that they wanted to offer him a job but that he’d have to come in “to discuss” the exact nature of his employment. Driving out, he’d wondered what he’d do if they really
were
offering him a job in space. It seemed too crazy to believe, even though the test run he’d done with them suggested it.

When he’d arrived, they’d had nondisclosure documents for him to read and
sign before they’d even tell him what the job actually was.

Finally he’d met with a guy who’d
started with, “Hey, I’m John Parker.” Carter introduced himself and then John said, “What do you think you were doing when we had you in last time?”

“You mean, with the wrench and
the nut and the welder?”

The man nodded.

Carter wondered if he should forward his ridiculous hypothesis but decided he didn’t have anything better, “Seemed like you were wondering if I could work on things in a weightless environment.”

John grinned, “Exactly! And you did much better than our other applicants, picking up on the challenges and adapting to them much more rapidly. Do you think you could do work like that?”

Carter swallowed, thinking about the danger and privation of working in space. He didn’t want to appear afraid, “I thought a lot of people got sick up in space. Don’t you need to test me for that kind of stuff before you offer me a job out there?”

John’s smile grew even wider. “The job would be exactly like what you did here. Do you know what a ‘waldo’ is?”

Carter said, “Something my daughter searches for in a book?”

John laughed,
“Actually, it’s something from a 1942 story by a science fiction author named Robert Heinlein. He proposed having mechanical devices controlled at a distance by movements of an operator. Essentially, the same thing you did in the test. You moved your hand down here, and a mechanical hand out in space made the same motions, allowing you to move the nut from one threaded rod to another and weld a bead. Such tech is called a ‘waldo’ after Heinlein’s story.”

“Well, it was hard but doable in the videogame test. However, if I were you I’d be worried that the fact I could do it in the test might not mean I could really do it when you actually have a set of mechanical arms out there in space.”

“We actually do have a set of mechanical arms out in space.”

Carter rocked his head back in surprise, “Do you want me to try doing something with them?”

“You already did.”

A moment passed for him to process,
“No shit?” Carter breathed. “I already welded a bead in space?”

John nodded, “Obviously, wt aObviouse’d have a lot more and varied tasks than those two. We’re building a space station. But if our little test is any indication
, you handle the waldo better than anyone else…” his eyes got a little vacant, “well, barring one.”

“You?”

“Oh no, you’re way better than I am.”

“Oh. W
ill I be working with this other guy?”

“Gal, and, no…
not really.”

When Carter opened the door to their apartment Jenny flew across the room and tackled him, throwing her arms around his waist hugging tight. After a moment she leaned back, “Mom said you went to talk to people about the job?” she asked tentatively.

Carter looked down at her, seeing her desperate need to know. He nodded.

“Did you get the job?”

He nodded again.

“Mom!” she shrieked, “He got the job!”

Carter looked up
to see relief blossom over Abby’s face.

He smiled at her,
“How about if we go out for pizza and celebrate?”

“Carter,” Abby said, a furrow appearing between her brows. “You know I don’t think we should be splurging when we have all this debt.”

He shrugged, “And I agree, but pizza for dinner isn’t much more expensive than eating at home.”

She stared at him a moment longer, then looked down at her daughter’s pleading eyes. “Oh, OK. Just this once though.”

Jenny began bouncing joyously up and down, clapping her hands together.

Carter reflected that their parsimonious lifestyle made even a little celebration very sweet.

***

Fay
Kinrais heard the front door open, “Shan? Is that you?”

“Hey Mama,” he said as he came around the corner into the great room, striding over and giving her a hug. “How are things on the home front?”

“Good…” his mother paused as she saw a young brunette come hesitantly around the corner. Slender and pretty, taller than average she seemed very… elegant. Fay wasn’t sure just why? The girl had on very ordinary jeans and a t-shirt after all. There was just something about the way she moved… that seemed graceful and classy. “You brought a girl home, Shan?” She was pretty sure that Shan dated quite a few young women, but he’d never brought one home before! Did this mean what she hoped?

“Yes Mom
ma,” he said putting an arm around his mother’s shoulders.  “I brought a girl home with me. This is my ‘girlfriend’ Raquel Blandon.”

Fay
stepped out from under Shan’s arm and approached Ell smiling, “Hello Ra>
< “Helquel. I’m so glad to meet you. Shan’s dad should be home soon.” She glanced back and forth between the two young people, “Will you have dinner with us?”