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A new design began.
1989
WINGS
At 13:05, on September 3, 2152, two things happened.
Spec. Amir Jefferson watched the plastic cup drop in the rec hall dispenser and cant sideways, after which the beer he'd punched should have frothed over it and down the drain. Instead it righted itself, filled, the door lifted and the cup waltzed out in thin air—
And the third time this shift duringthe Federation audit, withthat sleek fancy Federation ship in dock and a squad of federal inspectors snooping through records and making copious notes on their slates, the red alert went off in station control, screens lit up and station chief Isadora Babbs took another antacid and ordered a stand-down from red to green.
God.
"Find that bug," she told the Maintenance chief, personally, on the comm. Please God, no bananas today; and please God the auditors didn't look in core-sec 18, where they had stowed the fruit that didn't show on the supply manifests, a zero- geecore-sec where apples and limes and mangoes drifted in the dark, little orange planetoids and apple moonlets performing their slow revolutions and occasionally nudging one another.
"Chief Babbs?" the comm said. "Code 15 in the rec hall." Babbs had her hand on the pill bottle before she remembered she'd just taken a dose. "What's it doing? Where is it?"
"Beer machine," the report came back, "autobar, beers and whiskeys flying like—"
"Anybody in there?"
"Whole shift'sin there, chief, word's got around—"
"Clear the section! Shut down the power! Call Maintenance! Get the crew out of there and get it stopped! Hear?"
After which, down in Maintenance 4, two junior techs looked at each other and one said:
"Suppose we ought to call the super?"
"He's with the auditors," the other said, and called up the Procedures Manual. "There we go . . . red safety button, right there, top row."
Tech One turned the key on the button, hesitated.
Punched it.
Whereafter the lights went out and the fans went off in rec hall, and the party died. More accurately—with sirens sounding, most of the party went staggering out the doors and down the corridor, down the emergency slides and wherever inspiration and panic took three hundred twenty-eight techs, service perso
If one squinted his eyes just so—one could see a shadowy shape or two, now that the lights were down. That was truly remarkable.
"Hey, who's that?" somebody said, and it did occur to Amir Jefferson that it was very peculiar that so many people had run out and so many were left, all drinking and laughing and ignoring the alarm—
Only reasonable, he thought. Systems-problems third alert this shift, damn right. Probably the spooks again, same spooks that had gotten into the vendors and sailed drinks around. First time he'd ever seen a thing like that, he'd panicked.
But a guy got used to it. Things turned up. Oranges. Wrenches and such. Assorted antiques. You spaced 'em or you ate 'em.
"New guy," somebody said, and put a drink into his hand.
Amir looked him up and down—odd type, fu
Aristocratic type in uniform, too—sipping his drink, talking to a couple or three in blue fatigues with patches Amir didn't recognize.
A gal with bobbed hair, white scarf and leather jacket, talking to a guy in plaid knee-pants, for God's sake.
Spec. Amir stared at them, looked a little suspiciously at the drink, realized he was on his feet and looked back at the guy in the chair in the corner.
Then he panicked.
"Get Security on it!" the chief yelled at her aide. "Cut that damn alarm!" Some fool had tripped a security door.
"Number two," the comm said. "Chief, it's Udale. He says he's got one of the auditors on his hands—seems he—was propositioned and terrorized by a hallful of drunken dockers."
"God."
"What does Udale do with the auditor?"
Babbs thought of several things. Most of them were felonious. She gritted her teeth and said, "I'll see him. Assure him we apologize."
"I—" the aide said. Then: "Oh, my God."
" What?"
"They're saying the fire alarm went. The whole section just blew out." Being dead was a considerable shock, even fortified as Amir was. He peered at his body, which sat there quite placidly behind a stack of glasses.
Someone clapped him on the shoulder. He was relieved he could feel that. He looked around at a white-haired officer type, who said, "Son, you just joined the squadron." The officer took him 'round, him, a lowly spec, and named him names—Byrd and Rogers, Smith and Earhart, name after name right out of the history books, faces too long-ago for holos, uniforms and insignia from atoms to airplanes—
And Spec. 2nd Class Amir Jefferson, who had mostly, in the first moments of knowing he was dead, thought about how his friends were going to take it and what in hell was he going to do about his date with Marcy Todd on Saturday night—began to feel a good deal more cold and lost and scared.
What'm I doing here? was what he kept thinking, having his hand shaken by one after another of the crowd—important people, names— God, legends, all out of ancient history, fliers and astronauts, pioneers and explorers—
He was embarrassed, terribly embarrassed, having gotten himself killed in the middle of these people's private party, and them trying to make the best of it and treat him as if he belonged there.
"I'm really sorry," he said. "I didn't mean to be here." People laughed. If a dead guy could blush, he was blushing, and he looked at the floor. "Excuse me," he said, and headed for the door; but Rogers grabbed his arm and said,
"Hey, no offense . . ."
"No offense," he said, and the others crowded 'round, one offering him a drink.
"Here's to the new guy!" somebody said, and glasses clinked all over the room, after which a cheer, and Amir gulped and mumbled, "Thank you. . . ." He took a large gulp—somehow, dead, the alcohol seemed to have worn off, and looking around at all these great people looking at him as if he was somebody, he suffered another crisis of wondering what he was going to do about Marcy Todd and what they were going to do about his shift. "Excuse me, I got all this stuff—" That sounded sort of stupid. It really began to come to him that he was not going to meet those schedules. "What'm I going to do?"
"About what?" Smith asked.
"I mean, there's people I—there's a job—there's these auditors I was supposed to guide around—"
Smith shook his head definitively. "Won't do that."
"What do ghosts do?"
There was a long silence. Finally somebody he hadn't been introduced to said, solemnly, "Things. Whatever. Some just can't deal with it. Some just sort of hang around."
"Doing what? Haunting places?"
"Them that can't turn loose, yes, some do."
"Well—" Amir thought about all these oranges and old engine parts. "Why here? Why did all you guys come here?"
"Ships."