Orbital

Forty-Five Tour

While a day lasts about ninety minutes onboard the Sagan as it orbits the Earth at 17,000 miles an hour, passing from dayside to nightside sixteen times every 24 hours, the researchers tend to follow a schedule that generally mimics Eastern time in the United States.

Although the different experiments and projects taking place onboard can mean that people are usually up at all hours, plus the tendency of “science types” to have vampire-like sleep schedules, there’s definitely a quiet period of about five hours after midnight when you’re not as likely to run into anyone else.

This seems like the ideal time to do a little after hours inspection of the station.

Tamara’s tour hit the high points and showed me what I needed to know in case of an emergency; where we go when there’s a solar flare or a meteorite causes damage. There are still entire sections I haven’t explored.

The virtual simulation of the station I looked at on Earth showed the general layout, but it didn’t have the specifics of the station — like the Tiki bar or the storage section Ling mentioned.

After things quiet down, I slip out of my lab and head down the main section to the access way that leads to the hotel and the corridor on the other side.

The station is kind of like a skinny “H” with the hotel rotating around the bar in the middle.

But sections like the docking spire and the observation module stick out above and below at either end.

There’s also modules that jut out from a few different places, including a cluster of them at the opposite side of the station at the far end of a narrow tunnel.

According to the station directory, these modules are pressurized, but not climate controlled.

In order to maintain the comfortable 72º of the station, there’s insulation that balances the plus or minus 250º extremes the station goes through as it travels from direct sunlight to total darkness. There’s also an air handling system that precisely controls the climate.

The storage modules are insulated, but in order to save power, they only have passive temperature control activated.

In the main section of the space station all the computers and equipment contribute to the ambient temperature, requiring waste heat to be expelled via radiators.

Meanwhile, in the inactive section, the thermal insulation does a really good job of reflecting all that solar radiation, making the storage section very, very cold.

Ideally I’d wear a space suit to go into this section, but if I get spotted lurking around in one, that would probably raise more questions than I care to answer right now.

At the end of the other corridor, past the entrances to the other labs, there’s a hatch in the floor marked “Access Conduit B.”

According to the plans, Conduit A leads to the battery room and other equipment you want to keep as far away from humans as possible.

In the not too distant future, this will probably include nuclear reactors, and perhaps further out, fusion plants.

I raise the hatch and slip inside, closing it behind me. While the private labs on the station are locked, little else is. Even though we’re all working for different employers, we’re also all technically “crew” and expected to help out in the event of an emergency. Hunting down the key to a module while someone is suffocating from fumes on the other side would be a bad situation.

This section is extremely narrow, maybe a meter wide at most. Sparse light panels illuminate the passage leading fifty feet directly down.

As I float towards the end, the air gets progressively colder. This part of the station is closer to Earth and rotating infinitesimally slower, causing the denser cold air molecules to collect here — or so that’s my theory.

All I know is that I’m getting more of a chill the further down I go.

At the bottom, I was expecting to see a hatch leading to a storage module, instead there’s another conduit. This one runs parallel to the main one overhead where the labs are attached.

I have to go through two more airlocks to get into the next section.

Each one seems to lead to an even colder area than the last. I see my own breath as I pass over one of the light fixtures.

A parka would have been a good idea instead of the track suit I’m wearing. Next time.

There’s three hatches on either side leading to modules. All of them say “Storage” on signs above them.

None of the doors are locked. The first one contains boxes of emergency rations in the event our supply shuttle can’t bring us the freshly freeze-dried meals we’ve been consuming.

The next one is filled with cylinders of water, also in the event of an emergency.

The second hatch leads to another long conduit. I follow this all the way to the end and come to a T-junction with rows of sealed hatches with small windows.

At the end I find one module marked, “Storage module 6.”

I peer through the window and spot rows of boxes fastened to the hull with straps. Several of them have “DARPA-LAB” written on them.

I think this is the place. I pull myself through the hatch and seal it behind me.

There are boxes with raw chemicals for the 3D printers, parts for Attwell’s experiments and various other materials, including 100 rolls of the tape Samantha used to seal up my leaking shoe.

I slide between the hull and a large crate and spot a shelf with a rack of containers like the one Ling showed me.

Finally, at the ass end of the station, here they are.

There are nine of them.

Ling said he’d used a dozen, which should leave another thirteen. Including the one in the lab, there should be eleven here, but I only count nine.

Although he’s a precise man, he could be capable of a mistake. I check the storage module anyway.

I find more tape, some small oxygen cylinders, various sheets of plastic, but no more cylinders.

Curious.