This is another one of those “scenes without a story”. The
idea came to me, and I thought I would write it down. I don’t know what “the
plot” is supposed to be. I think this would be an opening for a story. It creates
all sorts of possibilities. The “back-story” is just that. Not part of the
story, but the ideas I have in the background.
Watch Changeover
John stretched and glanced at the clock. It was coming up to
change-over time. Usually he wasn’t too bothered whether it was early or a
little late, but today he had something to say, and that made it all see a
little more important. He poured himself a mug of coffee, scratched behind his
ear and waited.
He was sitting in the communal area. The crew of every ship
developed their own traditions as to how they did things. Traditions evolved as
new members joined and old members left. Eventually it felt as if the tradition
belonged to the ship itself, rather than the crew members. Of course, there
were procedures, but traditions mattered too. On the “Scarab”, the tradition
was that changeover took place in the communal area. They had other traditions
too; like dressing formally for meals. They even wore pretend paper neck-ties,
anything to vary the monotony.
Peter came in. He poured himself a mug of coffee, pulled
back a chair, sat down and yawned.
“Morning. Anything exciting happen overnight?”
It struck John that talking about morning and overnight was
another one of those traditions. This ship operated according to a variation of
Earth Zulu time, even though that was completely irrelevant out here.
John took a sip and answered “Yes. For a change something
has happened. Do you remember those spikes of static, we were wondering about?”
Peter nodded. “Well I think I may have found an explanation but there’s
something even better first”.
John paused for effect and watched as Peter leaned forward.
“Well?” He drawled. “What is it? We could do with something interesting around
here.”
“Here it is.” Said John, pointing at a diagram on his
notepad, “You can see here,” he indicated on the screen, “that we have an
incoming object. On its current trajectory it will cross our path during your
shift.”
“Oh! I shall look forward to that,” yawned Peter. “Have you
told Head Office? And I don’t suppose there is any risk to us, is there?”
“Yes, No and No” smiled John. “Yes, I sent an alert as soon
as the systems spotted it, no, there is risk to the ship. It should be visible
as it passes, and no, there is no risk to the Earth either, and there is a
little more.” He was enjoying this.
Peter took a leisurely sip from his mug and looked at his
colleague. “Well. Do go on.”
Back Story
I imagine this story set some time in the future. This is
not the super-hi-tech world of Star Trek. There is no faster-than-light drive.
Communications are at the speed of light (and over long distances that means
slow).
Mankind has made it to the planets if not the stars. One of
the things that has happened is that we mine the asteroid belt. Most of the
actual mining is automated. Robot machines mine an asteroid and process the
material into convenient lumps of metal, which are then boosted into a long
elliptical orbit back towards Earth. It’s a convenient way of getting around
pollution problems but does present problems with energy (sunlight is a bit
diffuse out there).
One of “the jobs” is that there are people who make long
slow trips around the asteroid belt inspecting how the robots are getting on
and picking up the products and sending them Earthward (or sunward) if you
prefer. The habitable parts of the ships are fairly small. People do it for
various reasons, mostly money, some to break drug habits and “forget” and some
unpaid as a variation on Community Service or a prison sentence. Most of what
these people do could really be done by automated systems but there is a desire
to have someone on the spot to make decisions, so the systems have been
adjusted to give the people something to do.
Of course, this story is partly ripping off “Rendezvous with
Rama”!
Note: I found this file on 31st December 2016 while doing some end-of-year tidying up. I'm posting it here, but not including it in my exercises for today.
(655 Words. Originally
created: 22nd December 2015)