April 6: And What Goes Around by Mackey Chandler

while cleaning, and they
watched what they said about the captain and XO of the Yuki-onna much
closer since then. Barak had a richer vocabulary in helmet talk because April's
grandfather had taught him the finer nuances if it. It was a kind of sign
language but all facial gestures because it grew from construction workers
needing to talk privately when their suit transmissions were monitored. Deloris
already knew some and Barak expanded it for her. Alice knew none of it but
learned quickly. She also brought finger spelling to the mix for those
difficult words for which they had no facial signs.
    "When we get
back I'm going to just pig-out on a huge cheeseburger and fries,"
Alice started. She had a bunch of variations on this theme. One of them always
spoke when the others helmet talked so the silence itself was not
incriminating. If there was more than the one bug the command crew probably got
really sick of hearing the same monologue about cheeseburgers or other 'when we
get home' themes. They were pretty sure there weren't any cameras. They all
looked very thoroughly for any lens or pinhole. But a microphone could be stuck
on the other side of a bulkhead totally invisible.
    Deloris signed to
him with feeling: "If you think our Captain and XO do their twelve hour
shifts with no private time in the overlap you are nuts. They are too busy
finding extra time for each other to trust them to double check us. No more
than Captain Jaabir watched you guys working outside enough to see Harold
wasn't following procedure or abusing the equipment." She had to finger
spell some of it.
    Barak nodded in
agreement, and helmet spoke: "Point well taken. He absolutely screwed up
there and he may lose his ticket when we get back home."
    "Not however
if he can find a way to blame it on you or raise a bigger issue like recording
us and after artistic editing make our complaints into actual mutiny!"
Deloris finished with a flourish.
    Barak nodded again
that she was right, but went back to voice.
    "Alice, what
exactly happens if we get the gas ratios get messed up too bad?"
    "The trouble
is our CO² process is not continuous," Alice said. She was cute when she
went into lecture mode, because it was like a different person speaking. Even
her voice changed. "If we were a big habitat with all the room and power
to spare we would have a steady state system. What we have for the Yuki-onna are two batch systems that extract CO² and then have to be switched over
and be regenerated. They remove it more effectively after regenerating so you
reduce the flow when fresh and then increase it as the absorbent is saturated.
    "You have an
emergency canister that can strip the whole ship – once. And you have one extra
sealed filter for the batch systems in case one stops working. They can be polluted or physically damaged. So you have to watch when one is started
that it is working. If it isn't you only have so much time to swap filters or
cycle back to the other unit before it is fully recharged. You can switch back
and forth faster if need be until you can slowly stretch the cycle out to
normal duration."
    "So what
would we do if we had a huge problem and lost a lot of our nitrogen? Say we had
a hole or a blowout that dumped a big section?" Barak asked Alice.
    "In theory we
can run any nitrogen/oxygen ratio, right down to pure oxygen as long as the
partial pressure is acceptable. In reality I'd be scared spitless to run pure
oxy. There are too many minor components that were not designed for that. Even
just our personal things would be a danger. You don't want to wear cotton in
straight oxygen, it's a fire hazard.  You don't want to pop a can of
self-heating food in pure oxygen either. Not even at reduced pressure. It's
toxic for long periods too. You'd be showing signs of damage by the time we got
home if it was more than a couple weeks. And the drugs for zero G make it worse
instead of better. We don't have any source of noble gasses to substitute for
the