Titanic Post

I called into work dead that morning, but they asked me to come in anyway. When I hesitated they started asking me questions.”Is it contagious?” Was the first one.

“I don’t think so?” I replied, still a little irritated by their request. “I mean no one else around me seems to be dead?”

“Do you have a high temperature?”

“No, actually I don’t have a temperature at all. The doctor says that’s one of the symptoms of being dead.”

The doctor said a lot of other things too. I didn’t have a pulse, which of course meant no heartbeat. I was cold to the touch and the only time I drew a breath was to talk. I had all the symptoms of being recently deceased, except that I was moving around, awake and alert. The doctor couldn’t explain it and kept telling me it defied all the laws of science. He said I couldn’t be dead and still walking around because it was simply impossible. Of course, they use to think it was impossible to fly, so what the do those eggheads know?

The doctor thought it might have had something to do with the strange electrical field my transport ship passed through. It happened while I was on my way to my new ship, this ship - The Space Gull. To me, the energy field was just a bolt of light that winked in and out of existence so fast it was barely even noticeable, but when I looked at my time gauge, an hour of my life had been lost. I thought it was a fairly unsettling experience and the doctors concurred.

“We really need you,” the voice on the other end of the com line persisted. “We need you to work today. Do you think you could manage to come in?”

I hesitated.

“We need to work together. It’s all part of being a team and you’re part of our team.”

I hesitated some more.

“You don’t have any sick days left.” That decided it. Dead or not I couldn’t afford to be docked. “Yeah, I guess I could come in,” I finally answered. “Part of our team”, I thought I as I walked to the cockpit. That was their new company slogan for employees. When I started with Stellar Spaceways it was: “We’re like family.” The employee recruitment advertisement for Steller sounded so good. I guess that should have been my first clue that there was something wrong with them. The new truth in employee recruitment laws stated the employers had to be completely honest about wages, working condition and such, but there were always ways around that law. Stellar used a dual frequency commercial. Part of it was in a range anyone could hear, part of it was in high frequency only audible to dogs. Unfortunately my dog was outside, so he couldn’t tell me what the message actually said.

“Come work for Stellar! We have state of the art ships,” was what I heard. “…for when they were built 20 years ago,” was the part I didn’t hear.

“We treat you like family,” was heard. “We hate our family,” wasn’t heard. I really shouldn’t have been surprised at how bad Stellar was (and is).

That’s just how the corporate galaxy is these days.

It was a long walk from the infirmary to the cock pit. The Space Gull was a big ship, made for lengthy, slow voyages. The ship had four lounges, two theaters, five restaurants. It had dozens of corridors leading to hundreds of places that were designed to entertain the passengers. Each hallway had posters to remind everyone what a great time they were having on a “Stellar Interstellar Flight.” The posters had pictures of faces that smiled back at you. Through their smiles, the faces spoke with bright colored words that read, “Stellar, the only way through the Milkyway,” and that sort of stuff. As big as the ship was, the company only assigned two pilots working in 12 hour shifts. They were, and still are, cheap, not even providing a relief pilot so a person could have a day off… or for emergencies like this.

“You look dead on your feet!” Scanlin, the other pilot was laughing so hard at his own dumb joke he could hardly get it out. He’d heard about my condition the very first day, and the very first day he started making jokes. I was getting sick of it. I didn’t bother to acknowledge him and just took the log and sat in the captain’s chair as he stood up. Unfortunately my lack of interest didn’t turn him off.

“Don’t work yourself to death,” he said, on his way out. He was still laughing a scoffing laugh.

“So, what do the doctors say?” Bolles, the navigator, asked once we were alone.

“They say I seem fine except for… well … you know.”

“What do they say about you not sleeping or eating for the past…how many days has it been?”

“They said they can’t explain it,” I answered. “And it’s been three days.”

Three days of not even wanting to taste a melting steak in my mouth. Three days of not having that comforting, drifting feeling of the world fading as you drop-off to sleep. It was the not being able to sleep that made me go to the doctor originally, that very first day on the ship. Stellar always liked their pilots well rested, so tranquilizers were free and easy to get. But instead of a pill I found out I was DOA. I thought it was just a little new ship insomnia, I had no idea how serious my condition was.

“And that’s it, all they say is They don’t know what it is?” I think Bolles asked that question twice before I finally heard him.

I nodded. I didn’t mention the energy field. I had been told it was classified, which meant I would loose my job if anyone found out.

“Hmm,” was all Bolles said,then went back to his work. I was glad he didn’t want to discuss it further. Since I had arrived on the Space Gull that’s all I’d been talking about. I didn’t sleep at the end of shift, so I would just go to the infirmary for company required tests, after that it was back to work… then back to the infirmary….then… well, you get the idea. I was a zombie caught in a cycle, not even thinking, just acting on orders.

The infirmary was dull. It’s funny that no matter where you go, all hospitals are exactly alike. The rooms have big machines with tiny screens, the people wear rubber shoes that squeak, and everything they put next to your body is ice cold, even the sheets they give you to keep you warm.

Yes, the infirmary was dull and beyond. So was work. Time ran together. With no nights to break them up, all the hours became one, very long, work shift.

Then, on the seventh day, something happened. That day, suddenly, unexpectedly, I found I really loved work. I loved flying. It was poetry. I hadn’t felt like that since I was kid, just starting out in the business. After all the years of flying for the corporations the joy of it had been lost. It had disappeared somewhere between the bureaucratic paper work garbage and the monotony of familiar flight paths. On the seventh day of my death, however, the exhilaration of space travel came back to me.

It started right after Skanlin left the cockpit, chuckling over some inane joke I don’t even remember now. Bolles sat, like he usually did, hunched in the corner, quietly working on his charts and graphs. The gauges on the flight panel gave off a soft blue green glow that warmed my cold skin like a campfire. Outside it was dark, except for the stars surrounding us and inside it was quite, except for the hum of the life support engines. As I touched the controls I began floating through space and time. Flying put memories to sleep and erased the past. The only thing that existed was the ship and the stars, and I was part of them both. It was a wonderful kind of insanity.

When I told the doctors what happened they just chalked it up to one of the side effects of the energy field. I wasn’t sure what I chalked it up to, but I was glad that it happened.

For the next two days I went to the infirmary and I worked. I hated the infirmary, I loved work, except for Skanlin’s jokes. I still didn’t sleep or eat. On the tenth day I got a bit of good news. Skanlin was being transferred to another ship, immediately. He was to leave that day to go back to home base.

“I’m supposed to take that new route back,” he said, scowling over the flight instructions. “The same path you took here, they say it’s shorter,” he said, looking up at me, then back down at his notes.

“Through the energy field,” I thought. I didn’t know what to say, so I didn’t say anything at all.

Skanlin mumbled aloud the headings, “95 degrees for 45 min 68 degrees for 2.5 hours….” his voice trailed off. “Is this way really shorter?” he asked turning to me. I guess maybe I should have told him, but my curiosity got the best of me. I just had to know if he would be making the same dumb jokes once it happened to him.

“Yeah, it’s shorter,” I said. That wasn’t a lie, it actually was shorter.

********************

Stellar Spaceways put me on a new assignment one day after the Space Gull docked. I was glad, I hate it when I’m not flying. They told me I would be working doubles for a while and that was fine with me too. The way I feel now, the more time in the Captain’s chair the better.

There was another pilot at the space port who was as anxious as I was to get back in the saddle. He didn’t say it in words, but his actions told me he may have had a run in with the energy field too. I suspect that soon, many Stellar Spaceway pilots will have experienced the energy field. I guess I could try to warn people, but that would just get me fired and the corporate bigwigs would go ahead and do it anyway. So I figure, why bother.

Besides, I had heard a rumor that they were thinking of making stock available to employees. They want to be able to say they are “Employee Vested.” Not owned, of course, they would see to it that the hours worked per share was too high for that. It would be just a few employees owning a few shares of stock. But the catch phrase “Employee Vested” sure makes for a good PR statement.

Like I said the cost of shares would be high, it would be something like one share per one thousand hours, but with me working double shifts and with no time off, I’ll bet that one thousand hours would come and go by fast. In fact, I bet it would be that way for all of us pilots.

I guess the gist of all this is that now I can now honestly recommend Stellar. The ships are still pieces of junks, but you never have to worry about the pilot falling asleep at the wheel, or spilling dinner on the control board. And in a few months, I think I’ll safely be able to say, that Stellar pilots have more flight time logged than any of the other space transports in the galaxy. And, if the rumors are true, it will soon be “Employee Vested!”

I wonder how much stock all those CEO’s own?

[Rights Reserved under Creative Commons License as Posted]

A science-fiction short story

I called into work dead that morning, but they asked me to come in anyway. When I hesitated they started asking me questions.”Is it contagious?” Was the first one.

“I don’t think so?” I replied, still a little irritated by their request. “I mean no one else around me seems to be dead?”

“Do you have a high temperature?”

“No, actually I don’t have a temperature at all. The doctor says that’s one of the symptoms of being dead.”

The doctor said a lot of other things too. I didn’t have a pulse, which of course meant no heartbeat. I was cold to the touch and the only time I drew a breath was to talk. I had all the symptoms of being recently deceased, except that I was moving around, awake and alert. The doctor couldn’t explain it and kept telling me it defied all the laws of science. He said I couldn’t be dead and still walking around because it was simply impossible. Of course, they use to think it was impossible to fly, so what the do those eggheads know?

The doctor thought it might have had something to do with the strange electrical field my transport ship passed through. It happened while I was on my way to my new ship, this ship - The Space Gull. To me, the energy field was just a bolt of light that winked in and out of existence so fast it was barely even noticeable, but when I looked at my time gauge, an hour of my life had been lost. I thought it was a fairly unsettling experience and the doctors concurred.

“We really need you,” the voice on the other end of the com line persisted. “We need you to work today. Do you think you could manage to come in?”

I hesitated.

“We need to work together. It’s all part of being a team and you’re part of our team.”

I hesitated some more.

“You don’t have any sick days left.”

That decided it. Dead or not I couldn’t afford to be docked. “Yeah, I guess I could come in,” I finally answered.

“Part of our team”, I thought I as I walked to the cockpit. That was their new company slogan for employees. When I started with Stellar Spaceways it was: “We’re like family.” The employee recruitment advertisement for Steller sounded so good. I guess that should have been my first clue that there was something wrong with them. The new truth in employee recruitment laws stated the employers had to be completely honest about wages, working condition and such, but there were always ways around that law. Stellar used a dual frequency commercial. Part of it was in a range anyone could hear, part of it was in high frequency only audible to dogs. Unfortunately my dog was outside, so he couldn’t tell me what the message actually said.

“Come work for Stellar! We have state of the art ships,” was what I heard. “…for when they were built 20 years ago,” was the part I didn’t hear.

“We treat you like family,” was heard. “We hate our family,” wasn’t heard. I really shouldn’t have been surprised at how bad Stellar was (and is).

That’s just how the corporate galaxy is these days.

It was a long walk from the infirmary to the cock pit. The Space Gull was a big ship, made for lengthy, slow voyages. The ship had four lounges, two theaters, five restaurants. It had dozens of corridors leading to hundreds of places that were designed to entertain the passengers. Each hallway had posters to remind everyone what a great time they were having on a “Stellar Interstellar Flight.” The posters had pictures of faces that smiled back at you. Through their smiles, the faces spoke with bright colored words that read, “Stellar, the only way through the Milkyway,” and that sort of stuff. As big as the ship was, the company only assigned two pilots working in 12 hour shifts. They were, and still are, cheap, not even providing a relief pilot so a person could have a day off… or for emergencies like this.

“You look dead on your feet!” Scanlin, the other pilot was laughing so hard at his own dumb joke he could hardly get it out. He’d heard about my condition the very first day, and the very first day he started making jokes. I was getting sick of it. I didn’t bother to acknowledge him and just took the log and sat in the captain’s chair as he stood up. Unfortunately my lack of interest didn’t turn him off.

“Don’t work yourself to death,” he said, on his way out. He was still laughing a scoffing laugh.

“So, what do the doctors say?” Bolles, the navigator, asked once we were alone.

“They say I seem fine except for… well … you know.”

“What do they say about you not sleeping or eating for the past…how many days has it been?”

“They said they can’t explain it,” I answered. “And it’s been three days.”

Three days of not even wanting to taste a melting steak in my mouth. Three days of not having that comforting, drifting feeling of the world fading as you drop-off to sleep. It was the not being able to sleep that made me go to the doctor originally, that very first day on the ship. Stellar always liked their pilots well rested, so tranquilizers were free and easy to get. But instead of a pill I found out I was DOA. I thought it was just a little new ship insomnia, I had no idea how serious my condition was.

“And that’s it, all they say is They don’t know what it is?” I think Bolles asked that question twice before I finally heard him.

I nodded. I didn’t mention the energy field. I had been told it was classified, which meant I would loose my job if anyone found out.

“Hmm,” was all Bolles said,then went back to his work. I was glad he didn’t want to discuss it further. Since I had arrived on the Space Gull that’s all I’d been talking about. I didn’t sleep at the end of shift, so I would just go to the infirmary for company required tests, after that it was back to work… then back to the infirmary….then… well, you get the idea. I was a zombie caught in a cycle, not even thinking, just acting on orders.

The infirmary was dull. It’s funny that no matter where you go, all hospitals are exactly alike. The rooms have big machines with tiny screens, the people wear rubber shoes that squeak, and everything they put next to your body is ice cold, even the sheets they give you to keep you warm.

Yes, the infirmary was dull and beyond. So was work. Time ran together. With no nights to break them up, all the hours became one, very long, work shift.

Then, on the seventh day, something happened. That day, suddenly, unexpectedly, I found I really loved work. I loved flying. It was poetry. I hadn’t felt like that since I was kid, just starting out in the business. After all the years of flying for the corporations the joy of it had been lost. It had disappeared somewhere between the bureaucratic paper work garbage and the monotony of familiar flight paths. On the seventh day of my death, however, the exhilaration of space travel came back to me.

It started right after Skanlin left the cockpit, chuckling over some inane joke I don’t even remember now. Bolles sat, like he usually did, hunched in the corner, quietly working on his charts and graphs. The gauges on the flight panel gave off a soft blue green glow that warmed my cold skin like a campfire. Outside it was dark, except for the stars surrounding us and inside it was quite, except for the hum of the life support engines. As I touched the controls I began floating through space and time. Flying put memories to sleep and erased the past. The only thing that existed was the ship and the stars, and I was part of them both. It was a wonderful kind of insanity.

When I told the doctors what happened they just chalked it up to one of the side effects of the energy field. I wasn’t sure what I chalked it up to, but I was glad that it happened.

For the next two days I went to the infirmary and I worked. I hated the infirmary, I loved work, except for Skanlin’s jokes. I still didn’t sleep or eat. On the tenth day I got a bit of good news. Skanlin was being transferred to another ship, immediately. He was to leave that day to go back to home base.

“I’m supposed to take that new route back,” he said, scowling over the flight instructions. “The same path you took here, they say it’s shorter,” he said, looking up at me, then back down at his notes.

“Through the energy field,” I thought. I didn’t know what to say, so I didn’t say anything at all.

Skanlin mumbled aloud the headings, “95 degrees for 45 min 68 degrees for 2.5 hours….” his voice trailed off. “Is this way really shorter?” he asked turning to me. I guess maybe I should have told him, but my curiosity got the best of me. I just had to know if he would be making the same dumb jokes once it happened to him.

“Yeah, it’s shorter,” I said. That wasn’t a lie, it actually was shorter.

********************

Stellar Spaceways put me on a new assignment one day after the Space Gull docked. I was glad, I hate it when I’m not flying. They told me I would be working doubles for a while and that was fine with me too. The way I feel now, the more time in the Captain’s chair the better.

There was another pilot at the space port who was as anxious as I was to get back in the saddle. He didn’t say it in words, but his actions told me he may have had a run in with the energy field too. I suspect that soon, many Stellar Spaceway pilots will have experienced the energy field. I guess I could try to warn people, but that would just get me fired and the corporate bigwigs would go ahead and do it anyway. So I figure, why bother.

Besides, I had heard a rumor that they were thinking of making stock available to employees. They want to be able to say they are “Employee Vested.” Not owned, of course, they would see to it that the hours worked per share was too high for that. It would be just a few employees owning a few shares of stock. But the catch phrase “Employee Vested” sure makes for a good PR statement.

Like I said the cost of shares would be high, it would be something like one share per one thousand hours, but with me working double shifts and with no time off, I’ll bet that one thousand hours would come and go by fast. In fact, I bet it would be that way for all of us pilots.

I guess the gist of all this is that now I can now honestly recommend Stellar. The ships are still pieces of junks, but you never have to worry about the pilot falling asleep at the wheel, or spilling dinner on the control board. And in a few months, I think I’ll safely be able to say, that Stellar pilots have more flight time logged than any of the other space transports in the galaxy. And, if the rumors are true, it will soon be “Employee Vested!”

I wonder how much stock all those CEO’s own?

---

Kim’s Blog: Our Blue Island
Kim’s Website
Copyright restrictions of High Desert Views apply.

There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarrely inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened.
~ Douglas Adams

New US Move to Spoil Climate Accord

Mark Townsend in New York
Sunday June 19, 2005
The Observer

Extraordinary efforts by the White House to scupper* Britain’s attempts to tackle global warming have been revealed in leaked US government documents obtained by The Observer.

These papers - part of the Bush administration’s submission to the G8 action plan for Gleneagles next month - show how the United States, over the past two months, has been secretly undermining Tony Blair’s proposals to tackle climate change.

The documents obtained by The Observer represent an attempt by the Bush administration to undermine completely the science of climate change and show that the US position has hardened during the G8 negotiations. They also reveal that the White House has withdrawn from a crucial United Nations commitment to stabilise greenhouse gas emissions.

The documents show that Washington officials:

• Removed all reference to the fact that climate change is a ’serious threat to human health and to ecosystems’;
• Deleted any suggestion that global warming has already started;
• Expunged any suggestion that human activity was to blame for climate change.

Among the sentences removed was the following: ‘Unless urgent action is taken, there will be a growing risk of adverse effects on economic development, human health and the natural environment, and of irreversible long-term changes to our climate and oceans.’

Another section erased by the White House adds: ‘Our world is warming. Climate change is a serious threat that has the potential to affect every part of the globe. And we know that … mankind’s activities are contributing to this warming. This is an issue we must address urgently.’ The government’s chief scientific adviser, Sir David King, has dismissed the leaking of draft communiques on the grounds that ‘there is everything to play for at Gleneagles.’ However, there is no doubt that many UK officials have become exasperated by the Bush administration’s refusal to accept the basic principle that climate change is happening now and is due to man’s activities.

Earlier this month, the senior science academies of the G8 nations, including the US National Academy of Science, issued a statement saying that evidence of climate change was clear enough to compel their leaders to take action. ‘There is now strong evidence that significant global warming is occurring,’ they said.

It is now clear that this advice has been completely ignored by Bush and his advisers. ‘Every year, it (local air pollution) causes millions of premature deaths, and suffering to millions more through respiratory disease,’ reads another statement removed by Washington.

Washington also appears to be unsympathetic towards the plight of Africa, the other priority singled out by Blair for the G8 Summit in Gleneagles.

The documents reveal how the Bush administration has pulled out of financial pledges to fund a network of regional climate centres throughout Africa which were designed to monitor the unfolding impact of global warming.

‘Africa, Asia-Pacific and the Arctic are particularly vulnerable to climate variability and are starting to experience the impacts,’ reads another excerpt rejected by the US.

Other crucial schemes ditched by the US include the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) set up to help developing states develop economically while controlling greenhouse gas emissions.

According to the documents, the American government has reneged on plans to ‘ensure that the CDM executive board is adequately funded by the end of 2005.’

*scup·per
tr.v. scup·pered, scup·per·ing, scup·pers
1. Chiefly British To overwhelm or massacre.
2. To ruin or destroy

If antimatter had prevailed over matter after the big bang, would anything be different in our universe?

Living in a universe where antimatter predominates would be akin to living in our mirror image. We wouldn’t actually notice anything different. All the positive charges would be negative and vice versa, but to someone studying physics in an antimatter universe the idea of positrons orbiting negatively charged nuclei would be as natural as electrons orbiting positively charged nuclei is in ours.

Mike Follows, Willenhall, West Midlands, UK

Until the early 1960s the answer would have been: “As far as we can tell, there is no reason it should.” Since then certain subtle differences between matter and antimatter have emerged and the answer is: “Probably, but it is too early to say how and why.” We don’t even know yet why matter prevailed in our universe. It is most plausibly because of some random asymmetry, but it is also possible that antimatter was unstable in the circumstances that reigned at that point.

So has an antimatter counterpart to our universe existed, with life and so on? We don’t even know that for sure. The fact that stellar and biological evolution are so slow in our matter universe does not mean that no faster universe is possible. Even today, some people suggest that in the super-fast reactions in the quark soup of neutron stars, living structures with the complexity of civilisations might arise and pass in what to us would be the blink of an eye. Maybe by the time antimatter had vanished, it had generated worlds of life as complex as our own. Or, because antimatter in some ways is seen as moving backwards in time, perhaps it has not yet started.

Jon Richfield, Somerset West, South Africa

What makes your correspondent so sure antimatter didn’t prevail?

Vilnis Vesma, Newent, Gloucestershire, UK