civilian staff, including a janitor and a front desk that was manned from 6:00 a.m., base time (which was also Greenwich Earth time) to midnight. Hey, this was the twenty-first-century Martian Navy, not the British Navy of the Napoleonic Wars. We all have to serve, and we all vote, and we all like our comforts.
“Hello, Lieutenant,” said the night porter, and glanced down at his desk display. “My name is William, and I guess you’d be Lieutenant Patricia Kelly Elizabeth—”
“Just Podkayne,” I said. “Do we use ranks around here?”
“Not unless you insist. Junior officers only here in the Swamp. Your neighbors will be about the same rank, though of course they’re all senior to you at the moment.”
“Swamp?”
“It’s better than Barrack 35, and Animal House was already taken. I think it’s from a movie about something called the Korean War.”
“Whatever. I just need a cot.”
“First order of business, however, is to issue you a kayak.”
Well, that’s what it sounded like.
“Do a lot of white-water rafting on Europa, do you?”
He looked blank for a moment, then smiled.
“Kay-ag. KYAG. Short for—”
“Kiss Your Ass Good-bye. I forgot about that.”
“Also known as the one-way ticket to the Big Bang, the mortician’s best friend, and other epithets you’ll learn when you’ve been at an outer-planet posting for a while.” He opened a drawer in his desk with his thumbprint and took out a small box with a security seal on it, broke the seal, and unwrapped a package inside the box. And there was the KYAG.
It was a flat plastic box, two inches on a side, half an inch deep. There was a red button on one side. Also inside the package was a wrist strap and a chain.
“Put your thumb on the button,” he said.
I did. A little light flashed red, then green.
“Now it will only work for you. In the last extremity, press and hold that button with your thumb for five seconds. If your thumb won’t function, use any finger, or hold it to your eye; it has downloaded all your personal ID by now. If your eyes aren’t working, you can put it in your blood and it will analyze your DNA. If you need it, you will very likely be bleeding.”
Gruesome, gruesome. What he meant was “if your thumb has been blown off or if your eyes have been put out.” The real name of the scary little device was PSU, for Personal Suspension Unit. They’d only been around about four years, and so far were only issued to people residing beyond the asteroid belt, where danger was highest. There were people who wanted to issue them to all Martians—hell, all humans—but there was still a lot of resistance. Heartlanders called them the Devil’s work, but they said the same about birth-control implants.
The KYAG contained a tiny black bubble generator. This was strictly a last-resort measure, to be employed only when death was clearly imminent and unavoidable. A spurting jugular, zero pressure, falling toward a lake of liquid nitrogen … these were the sorts of circumstances in which the Navy allowed the use of the PSU.
So far they’d only been actually used a few times, once after an explosion in the oxygen tanks of a ship orbiting Neptune, a few times in fires in planetary habitats. That way, in the aftermath, rescue crews could go in and find the bubbles, bring them back to a hospital, and save lives. Most of the time it worked. Some of the time when the bubble was opened, the person inside was too far gone to save.
“I have to tell you some legal stuff,” William said, with a sigh. “The penalty for using a PSU without demonstrable need is five years at hard labor. These are not toys. ‘Demonstrable need’ is usually understood to be the certainty of death within a few minutes. The example I use: If your hand has been cut off, don’t use the PSU. Find a tourniquet. If your arm is off at the shoulder … use it.
“Misplacing your unit will cost you thirty days in the brig, loss of rank, and loss of
“Hello, Lieutenant,” said the night porter, and glanced down at his desk display. “My name is William, and I guess you’d be Lieutenant Patricia Kelly Elizabeth—”
“Just Podkayne,” I said. “Do we use ranks around here?”
“Not unless you insist. Junior officers only here in the Swamp. Your neighbors will be about the same rank, though of course they’re all senior to you at the moment.”
“Swamp?”
“It’s better than Barrack 35, and Animal House was already taken. I think it’s from a movie about something called the Korean War.”
“Whatever. I just need a cot.”
“First order of business, however, is to issue you a kayak.”
Well, that’s what it sounded like.
“Do a lot of white-water rafting on Europa, do you?”
He looked blank for a moment, then smiled.
“Kay-ag. KYAG. Short for—”
“Kiss Your Ass Good-bye. I forgot about that.”
“Also known as the one-way ticket to the Big Bang, the mortician’s best friend, and other epithets you’ll learn when you’ve been at an outer-planet posting for a while.” He opened a drawer in his desk with his thumbprint and took out a small box with a security seal on it, broke the seal, and unwrapped a package inside the box. And there was the KYAG.
It was a flat plastic box, two inches on a side, half an inch deep. There was a red button on one side. Also inside the package was a wrist strap and a chain.
“Put your thumb on the button,” he said.
I did. A little light flashed red, then green.
“Now it will only work for you. In the last extremity, press and hold that button with your thumb for five seconds. If your thumb won’t function, use any finger, or hold it to your eye; it has downloaded all your personal ID by now. If your eyes aren’t working, you can put it in your blood and it will analyze your DNA. If you need it, you will very likely be bleeding.”
Gruesome, gruesome. What he meant was “if your thumb has been blown off or if your eyes have been put out.” The real name of the scary little device was PSU, for Personal Suspension Unit. They’d only been around about four years, and so far were only issued to people residing beyond the asteroid belt, where danger was highest. There were people who wanted to issue them to all Martians—hell, all humans—but there was still a lot of resistance. Heartlanders called them the Devil’s work, but they said the same about birth-control implants.
The KYAG contained a tiny black bubble generator. This was strictly a last-resort measure, to be employed only when death was clearly imminent and unavoidable. A spurting jugular, zero pressure, falling toward a lake of liquid nitrogen … these were the sorts of circumstances in which the Navy allowed the use of the PSU.
So far they’d only been actually used a few times, once after an explosion in the oxygen tanks of a ship orbiting Neptune, a few times in fires in planetary habitats. That way, in the aftermath, rescue crews could go in and find the bubbles, bring them back to a hospital, and save lives. Most of the time it worked. Some of the time when the bubble was opened, the person inside was too far gone to save.
“I have to tell you some legal stuff,” William said, with a sigh. “The penalty for using a PSU without demonstrable need is five years at hard labor. These are not toys. ‘Demonstrable need’ is usually understood to be the certainty of death within a few minutes. The example I use: If your hand has been cut off, don’t use the PSU. Find a tourniquet. If your arm is off at the shoulder … use it.
“Misplacing your unit will cost you thirty days in the brig, loss of rank, and loss of
Similar Books
