Post Flight (short story)
20 Dec 2023Robert Blackwolf
POST FLIGHTWith a metallic clunk the landing gear of the Krait touched the docking pad and it descended into the belly of the docking module. Air condensed on the cooled metal and started to drip down, while the engines whined and fell quiet, like a discontent toddler finally going to sleep.
A man disembarked and giving his ship a quick glance over he made his way to the Lobby, his gait the sure steps of an experienced spacer. With a yawn he kicked a discarded drinking cup, and watched it bounce of the wall, ceiling, another wall, losing energy and slowing down before touching the floor again and laying still. The floor... he thought. Even in a zero-g environment the human mind worked best with concepts like the floor, the ground, the walls. Even trash was now engineered to "fall down" to the floor. It made sense. Any Environmental Services team could easier pick up things from one surface than have the stuff float around. Or get sucked into a mechanical device to break it. Safety first, he thought, even if it's just the trash.
He took the lift to the concourse.
It was dimly lit, a few occupants asleep on the benches. Same principle, he guessed. Humans want a normal environment so instead of just floating around while sleeping or just lounging they anchor themselves to furniture. Some even had inner ear implants that gave the brain the illusion of being in a 1g place. And clothing with tactile sensors that reinforced that.
He went to the mission terminal and reported in his success. A simple retrieval task. Go fetch, boy! Good boy! Whose a good boy?! Anything to report? No, normal. Killed a few scav's who were lounging around the crashed ship. Some old, same old. He wondered briefly if he had killed them before. Because in space, you don't really die anymore. But with trillions of people living in a bubble that was thousands of lightyears across, he doubted that he had met them before, and he was more of a nomad now, moving from place to place.
As he picked up his reward, a small component for his weapon, he looked around. Two dozen people in the concourse. All relatively slender. All adults, nobody pregnant. He can't remember when he last saw someone pregnant or a child or teenager, but then, just like death, you can't be pregnant in space. Well, you could, but on your own risk. Just like death, new life was a persona non grata in space. For the same reason even: The Remlok suit. Connected via quantum entanglement to a Remlok hub, it measured everything from mental state, to upset stomach and memory. Should you die, your body either gets retrieved, repaired and resuscitated or you get a new one with your memories and consciousness (as they claim at least) restored. Can't do that with a pregnancy involved. Either go on maternity leave and have your child, or sign a waiver. But anybody who endangered an unborn child in that way was rather shunned in most societies, even most pirate groups. That also made life in space rather cheap. You could be killed on sight for blocking the entry of a station or a pad. Doesn't really matter, you get a new body. Death was now a matter of lost money.
Of course, not everyone agreed with that. Some claimed that once you die, you are, indeed, dead and it's just a clone with your memory. Others claim that the bodies are artificial and the real self is stored somewhere else. A few even say it's not real at all, just a simulation. And then the One Lifers. He didn't knew if they had an official term, but that's what he called them: If you take away the death from your life, you take away the spice of life. One Life! Trillions of people give birth to millions of theories. He himself wasn't much of a philosopher. If he was just a clone with the memories and the personality of the original, who knew? He certainly didn't. And Remlok certainly wouldn't admit to it.
For a moment he contemplated getting a drink from the bartender, but decided against it. He was getting tired.