Friday 24 December 2010

The Space Station - Chapter 2 - Page 6

Clearing the security checks and shown to his quarters, Functionary had little time to shower and change into his smartest official garb before he had to present himself to the Administrator-in-Chief of the space station. It had been emphasised to him by the person checking his security that the Station Administrator expected appointments to be kept punctually and did not tolerate being kept waiting. Having presented himself to Secretary of the Administrator-in-Chief, he quickly found himself standing in front of a diminutive man seated behind a large desk. The man was reading something displayed upon the surface of his massive desk and did not look up. He made no gesture of welcome or sound of acknowledgement. He made no indication that Functionary could sit or otherwise make himself at ease. The Administrator continued to peruse the file displayed before him, periodically making flicking gestures to move back and forth between the electronic pages. Evidently, whatever was recorded there was not entirely to his liking as he could be heard to occasionally tut and breathe hard. Functionary stood marooned, looking down at the bald, greasy top of this man's head, feeling singularly conscious of himself and his diminished stature in life. Functionary felt an increasing uneasy uncertainty as to whether the man was aware of his presence. But then, suddenly, it crossed his mind what the man was reviewing and causing him so much displeasure: the man was scrutinising Functionary's personnel file. This undermined what little self-assurance Functionary had remaining at that moment.

Thursday 16 December 2010

The Space Station - Chapter 2 - Page 5

The long, tedious wait for his turn at one of the counters gave Functionary an opportunity to acquaint himself visually with his new planetary home from the ground level. He stared out of the transparent shell of the dome at the planet, its surface and its dark sky. The planet's jagged, rocky crust shone bright white, stark against the blackness of the infinite and starry space above. The light was, at that particular moment, coming at an acute angle, directly and primarily, from the star around which the planet revolved and also, more feebly, from the reflective surface of a distant moon whose large off-white sphere visually rested upon the distant surface of the planet, off to the right as Functionary looked out at the scene. This meant an image in sharp contrast, where some surfaces were so saturated in light that their detail was almost bleached into a universal whiteness, while many areas in shadow were completely black. The weak secondary light reflected by the moon meant that a limited number of surfaces turned towards the lunar presence showed a sharply etched detail of rock formation filled with a limited grey tonality. Here, was a picture of antiseptic beauty, of sharp crystalline rocks brilliantly glinting in the light. Outside the transparent balloon of the space station, nothing moved and there was no sight of any vegetation. It was an image of utter stillness and absence of life. The few plants in line of sight were within the safe harbour of the climate-controlled environment of the station. All visible life forms existed within this thin bubble which enabled the apparently precarious existence of the artificial environment of the space station. By the grace of its thin and seemingly brittle transparent wall, the station provided a comfortable and supportive atmosphere that protected life from what was usually the harsh chill of the planet’s surface. Then, as the planet slowly rotated so that part of the planet upon which the station seemed to feebly perch, faced directly at the Planet’s star, these same walls and the station’s powerful climatic machinery would be all that prevented its contents from being cremated. Functionary, knew that in practice the outer walls separating the life inside from the hostile environment of the planet and its solar system outside, would be strong, many layered and capable of withstanding much in terms of storm, wind, dust, debris or meteor strike; nevertheless, the largely transparent oval shaped blob in which he sat, together with the many other attached sectors which comprised the space station, gave the impression of having an a insecure and weak grip upon the surface of this unforgiving planet, ready to be instantly removed by some random meteoric prick or puff of solar wind.

The Space Station - Chapter 2 - Page 4

Disembarking, Functionary walked from the shuttle through the temporary tunnel which had extended from the station to provide safe and convenient passage from the vessel. Functionary entered a cavernous waiting area and immediately became aware that he and the rest his fellow travellers were to be subject to lengthy security checks. He bought a drink and took a seat. Casting his gaze around the large transparent structure he saw that, at one end of the room, people were slowly being called to several counters to have their documents examined and their luggage searched. Clearly, security was seen as paramount importance here. He became increasingly aware of the number of security personnel present and also of the extent to which some of them were armed. Some of them carried not only the usual side arms carried by security personnel throughout the System but also a variety of much larger arms as well. Similarly, people appeared deeply ill-at-ease and displayed a considerable suspicion of the newcomers. Of course, Functionary had witnessed high levels of security activity before, but there was an intense feeling of insecurity here, which he had not experienced before.

Wednesday 15 December 2010

The Space Station - Chapter 2 - Page 3

Life clung precariously to this distant planet because the bright white sparkling rock was an ore rich in a mineral so valuable that it was economically and strategically worthwhile for the Service to maintain a station on its hostile, bare surface. Similarly, the miners and their families who constituted most of the population of Pristine were well rewarded for their relatively monotonous and potentially dangerous lifestyle. Again, for them, a spell in this rock could be justified as individually economically viable and as financing henceforth a new life which would otherwise be inconceivable without this initial sacrifice. Functionary reflected ruefully that he was on the standard Service pay scale for his rank. There was no hope of an afterlife rewarding sacrifice upon this planet.

The Space Station - Chapter 2 - Page 2


The nature of Pristine was not a surprise to Functionary. He had read his briefs and the additional information he had been able to download into his personal book from the public and Service data sources. Clicking through this officially sanctioned information during his long voyage, had told Functionary that Pristine was a barren planet with no recorded indigenous life of any sort, animal or vegetable. It was a dead planet and had always been so. It was a barren planet which was usually bitterly cold save when its flat, elliptic orbit brought it relatively close to its star, in which instance the side exposed to the star's radiation could slowly build-up profoundly dangerous levels of heat and radioactivity. This heating and cooling process was probably primarily responsible for the lack of life forms of the planet. It was also the sole process by which, through the stresses of rapid heating and cooling and the drastic contrasts in temperature experienced across the planets core, that a slow change in the stony landscape and internal geology was driven. In summary: there was virtually no atmosphere, no air and little by way of shelter, no natural sources of food and water and periods of extreme temperatures. The only way to survive on this forsaken planet for more than a few hours in a space suit or planetary vehicle was by existing within hermetically sealed space domes, with supplies shipped in from Service supply stations located in distant solar systems.

The Space Station - Chapter 2 - Page 1

Chapter 2 – Arrival

The thrusters on the shuttle worked at full power, giving out a deafening roar as they sought to cushion the craft's final decent onto the landing platform. Functionary had finally arrived at his destination. Miles above the planet, the passengers had transferred from the space ship which had been their home for nearly half-a-year, into the small silver shuttle capable of withstanding the forces of planetary gravity and the frictions of atmosphere.

While waiting to disembark, Functionary had been able to scrutinise the planet that was to be his new home for many years. From miles up, Pristine shone brightly, brilliantly reflecting the light from the star around which it orbited. Pristine was a picture in white and clearly delineated shades of light grey. It was beautiful to behold and suggested pristine qualities which reflected its name: clean, unsullied, new. But in its shades of grey, Functionary fretted that this was a planet devoid of vegetation, animal life and even any significant flow of liquids or gases and that, as such, its beauty came only from craters and rock formations and, the changing illumination from its distant sun. It would be a simple, static landscape changing little with place and the effects of nature or with time and the impact of season or climatic conditions. Functionary doubted that the beauty of Pristine would be long interesting on the eye. This was a place to come to, to visit and to view: but it was not a place to tarry.

Thursday 9 December 2010

The Space Station - Chapter 1 - Page 10


Waking from his reveries, Functionary turned and walked across the across the observation deck and looked forward to where the ship was heading. There, dimly, he could see a small star, around which orbited his new home. There would be several months yet, while the spaceship oozed its slow way through the apparent treacle of space, before Functionary arrived at this outlying planet. This was plenty of time for him to contemplate his past, his present and his future.

The Space Station - Chapter 1 - Page 9

Functionary remained a fairly senior middle-ranking official likely to be given postings of significant responsibility with accompanying pay and status. In the scheme of things, Functionary appreciated that there were many reasons why he should be thankful for his lot and optimistic about his prospects. Both his present and his likely future were both a good deal better than that most others in the System experienced or could expect. Nevertheless, whatever he could logically understand, Functionary just could not embrace his present or his future in a positive or optimistic light. There were some good objective reasons for this pessimism. Comparatively and dynamically, his life was changing for the worse. While, if compared to many others in the known universe his life could be seen as both better in terms of his material conditions of existence and in terms of the opportunities still open to him, it was the case that his own prospects had now moved from a promising fast tracked career to a more pedestrian and grinding vocation which hinted at the possibility of limited promotion and a rare movement between posts. Thus he had some status and seniority and a little opportunity for betterment. But, in comparison with what he had known, it was not enough. He would have some freedoms and control over his life that others did not possess. He would have enough rank to have some command over others and to have control over his day-to-day work. He would have enough income and status to ensure that he would have reasonable accommodation and be able to procure a reasonable standard of life. Nevertheless, he would not escape the stress, responsibility and vexation of having to account regularly to an immediate superior. Ultimately, he had not enough status to avoid being at someone's beck and call. He would have to watch-on from the side-lines while others around him came and went, fast-tracked onwards to bigger and better things. Clenching his teeth, bitterly he reflected he had not enough status and prospects to "get the girl". Not enough status to avoid being sent to some dim and distant planet, to some lonely space station with little chance of retrieval for many years. Again, "she" had been right her analysis of his condition. Self-deprecatingly, he considered that she had probably been right-minded to desert him, to abandon him to his future lifestyle as an administrative eunuch serving others, more empowered, better paid and, undoubtedly better sexed.