Titan's Plague: The Trial - Tom Briggs (top 10 best books of all time .txt) 📗
- Author: Tom Briggs
- Performer: -
Book online «Titan's Plague: The Trial - Tom Briggs (top 10 best books of all time .txt) 📗». Author Tom Briggs
“Good morning,” the lady at the desk said.
“Good morning,” Pati responded. “I have an appointment for 8 a.m.”
The lady looked at the monitor on her desk. “Ms. Lynch, is it?”
“Yes.”
“Very good, please have a seat.”
Pati took a seat along the wall in the yellow receptionist area. There were two video displays on the adjacent wall, both showing a news broadcast originating here at Karakorum. Pati didn’t watch these shows, however, she did find some entertainment value as they strove to make the problems of a small city newsworthy.
At the moment, it talked about events on Earth and in the satellite system. Some state governments were mad at others and threatening trade restrictions, blockades, and maybe even wars. Had she never lived on Earth, she’d believe such a place was too violent for anyone to live peacefully. Having lived most of her life there, she knew the reports were wrong or trying to turn insignificant into critical for entertainment value. Most people on Titan didn’t know that, so besides their physical limitations, most had no intention of ever traveling to Earth. Which was one reason this gravity clinic was so empty.
“Ready for you now in room ‘C,’ Ms. Lynch,” the receptionist said.
“Thanks,” Pati replied. She stood up and walked through the door to the left of the receptionist. She entered a hallway with many doors. The doors to her left and right were B and A, so she walked to her right and found C. Inside was a tree for holding clothes, and a light-blue table with a hole in the wall at its head.
She knew the drill and stripped naked before plopping onto the cold, plastic table with her head next to the hole. Looking up, she watched the white ceiling as the table slid her through the hole, and into the tank.
The tank had lighting embedded in the steel walls to prevent claustrophobia, which Pati was thankful for. There were also hundreds of needles at the end of metal arms, which she was less thankful for, but realized that’s just how the job was done. The needles above her extended and inserted into different parts of her anatomy.
She had to marvel at the precision because, like the technique of an acupuncturist, she barely felt the insertion. While this happened, warm water filled the tank and allowed her to float. The table retracted and more needles entered her body from below. It would soon be time.
The manufacturers of the apparatus claimed it was painless. They must have never used it themselves because the electric current running through and around her body didn’t feel good. She could say out loud if the pain was too much, but the first time she did that, she was told the treatment was useless if she couldn’t take more current. She gritted her teeth, and a minute after the current began, she gritted harder.
It felt like every cubic centimeter of her body vibrated millions of times every second. Except the vibrations wouldn’t go in the same direction. She tried not to scream. It was pain she had to have, and she would see it through.
The counter displayed on the top of the tank said 15 seconds were left. She gritted her teeth hard again. Would she need to see the dentist after this? Fourteen seconds.
She did this for her family. She’d been on Titan for almost three years and had no reason to stay. She had to keep thinking about why she put up with the pain. Eleven seconds.
She tried to divorce her mind from her body. The pain was there, and getting worse, so she tried not to pay attention to it. Pretend you’re watching the torture happen to another person. A deep breath through her nose and hold. Eight seconds.
“Ehhhhh,” she grunted. She could even feel the vibrations in her teeth. Like every tooth had a toothache to match the headache she felt, and the fire throughout her torso, and the feeling her legs were ready to burn off. If only they would burn off and stop hurting. Four seconds left.
She tried to rip the needles out of her body, but her body failed her. Her muscles would not obey her commands. She tried begging, which didn’t work either. Then she just stopped, too exhausted to do anything except suffer. Two seconds, one second, and she was finished.
Her breathing was heavy and fast. Like every gravity clinic treatment, the minutes after the treatment were an elation that poured over her like the water that receded. She knew her body would react to the torture by increasing muscle mass and bone density, everything she’d need to live in a single gravity. This would allow her to walk those docks in Dingle with her family. Maybe the people here on Titan didn’t believe it was worth it. She wouldn’t waste her time trying to explain what she couldn’t explain.
The needles left her body and the table retracted back into the changing room. She took a few minutes to compose herself before sitting up on the table. She almost laughed, thinking about how she’ll worry about sagging breasts back on Earth. Oh well, there were medical procedures for that, too, and she would be happy to cross that bridge when the time came.
She stood up from the table and used the towel hanging on the wall. Once dried, she put her clothes back on and used her brush to straighten her wet hair in the mirror. Once completed, she walked back into the hallway and out the door to the receptionist’s office. Her first action would be to schedule an appointment for the next week.
Pati didn’t need to meet with Nancy until the afternoon, which gave her a chance to attend the training for her new job. It also meant she couldn’t sleep in, and she rose when the alarm buzzed.
Kerry McLear had decided he wouldn’t subsidize her lifestyle once she’d finished her sentence. The unusual way she finished didn’t seem to make a difference in that attitude, and she had very little money at the moment. All she could rely on was the basics: housing, food, and clothes from social services. If she wanted any money, she had to get out and work, and social services gave her a list of jobs needing workers.
Most of the drilling companies would take her in a heartbeat, except it would mean a long time of training, and she’d have to work full time every day. She didn’t need that and also needed her time for the trial. Most of those companies would probably reject her anyway since her intentions to return to Earth were a public record.
Instead, she worked for the government, picking a job that involved keeping Karakorum maintained. The particular job she chose involved exterior maintenance, a nice benefit in that few people would see her outside the city, and none would recognize her in an excursion suit and helmet.
Fortunately, excursions were a regular part of her previous ice-mining job. Unfortunately, her earlier excursions had taken place in a vacuum. Titan, on the other hand, had an atmosphere, which meant the breathing equipment would be radically different. It also meant she would be placed at the level of a secondary school graduate.
Pati had already picked out the button-down white shirt with tan pants and brown boots the night before, and they were waiting for her as soon as she cleaned up. A simple breakfast, and she was on her way to the trolley station. Heading north on Main Street, she rode through a quick two stops and disembarked with a large crowd going in the same direction. The North Maintenance Hall was on the right of the trolley route, and with the crowd she walked through the large opening.
The crowd was mostly men, although there were a few women, and nobody seemed to notice Pati as out of the ordinary. She was also shorter than most, which meant most of the workers were Titan-born. Like her gender, her height and place of birth were not out of the ordinary for this crowd, and she worried less about the problems of being recognized.
A security desk sat in the middle of the entrance like an island in the middle of a river of people walking by. A male and female guard sat there, apparently not worried about the crowd entering. Pati noticed a small sign on the desk and followed the instructions for those attending orientation to enter the classroom on her right. The door was transparent, and she could see two people in there already. It slid open as she approached, and she took a front seat. The two people didn’t take notice of her, or of each other, and sat to the back of the twenty-seat room. Up front was a lady, maybe in her forties, who worked on some sort of equipment that sat on a desk. When Pati took her seat, the lady looked up at the students and stopped work.
“Okay, I think that’s everyone,” the lady at the desk said. She was taller than Pati and had her dark hair pulled back, which highlighted a few gray streaks. Like most everyone on Titan, she had no wrinkles, and her complexion was a perfect light brown. “You’re here this morning because we need to educate you on the equipment you’ll use to survive outside. My name is Dr. Melanie Smith, and I’m considered the expert on Karakorum for extraterrestrial survival equipment. Any questions?”
Pati didn’t have any, and the other two students made no noise.
“Fine, then I have a few questions. Has anyone here ever worked outside an Earth-like atmosphere?”
Pati raised her hand.
“Great, tell us what that entailed, Ms. Lynch, is it?”
Pati nodded. “I had to do extravehicular work on a water-mining ship,” she said.
“Anyone else?” Dr. Smith asked. After a moment of silence, she continued. “What you did, Ms. Lynch, is related to the work here on Titan,
Comments (0)