CHAPTER 7
Their trip to the Terra Vista Hotel construction site was delayed by a wonderful breakthrough: Brains got his artificial gravity system working at last.
"I..I've installed it in Thunderbird Three," Brains said that morning at breakfast. "With Alan ah..and John's help. Now we'll be testing it for to be sure it's stable under actual conditions. Mister Tracy, do you think that Scott, Virgil and Gordon could go on ahead to the hotel with the others to join them later?"
Jeff sipped his coffee and eyed the anxious expressions on John and Alan's faces, then smiled. "I don't see why not. Hank and Bob will be there to train the rest of the boys in free-fall. Scott, are you okay with this?"
Scott grinned back over his own breakfast. "We'll be fine, Father. Besides, I know how anxious they've been about having the artificial gravity up and running. I don't have any issue with it."
"All right then," Jeff said. "It's settled. They'll join you after the testing is complete. Who knows, we may be able to send a unit ready for installation in Thunderbird Five along with them."
TERRA VISTA SPACE HOTEL—CONSTRUCTION SITE
The three Tracy sons, with the new last name of Thomas, watched the new Terra Vista Hotel draw near the shuttle windows.
"Wow! She's huge!" Virgil said. "She's on a par with the International Space Station."
"She's supposed to be designed to give a, what was it, 'grand hotel experience in space'," Gordon smiled and winked as the shuttle docked. They were met at the airlock by a tall, burly man with graying hair in a jumpsuit.
"You must be Gordon, Virgil and Scott," said the man. "I'm Hank Barrows, the General Contractor for this job. You come highly recommended," he said and winked.
Scott moved forward. "Hi, Hank, we were told we'd be under your supervision. I'm Scott. This is my brother Virgil, and my other brother Gordon," he said gesturing. "We've had a little free-fall training but I'm sure we need much more. I hope that's okay."
"We're used to ground-hogs up here. Don't worry, we'll bring you up to speed. But, I'd understood there were supposed to be two more of you, John and Alan?" Hank asked, eyebrows raised.
"They had some important things they had to do at home," Scott said smoothly. "They'll be joining us later."
"All right, then," Hank said. "Come on, let's go to the control deck, which we also use for the head office." He led them up a long passageway and through two airlocks to a large room filled with half-finished electronics. Glancing around, shut the airlock door behind them. "All right, we can speak freely here, boys. Jeff told me about your adventures in that rental shuttle. I just want you to know that I'm glad to have you here on the project."
"We're glad to be here, Hank," Scott replied for them. "Brains has a working model of his artificial gravity system and has installed it in Thunderbird Three. John and Alan are doing the testing before bringing a unit here for installation."
Hank grinned broadly. "I might have known. Well, that'll make it homier up here, for sure. I did wonder why we were bothering with directional up here; putting in a floor, for example, when you don't need one in free-fall. That explains a lot." He gestured toward the far corner of the room. "In any case, this is command central for the general contractors. If you have any questions, come here. My partner, Bill, will be supervising you for the most part. Now, you have your duffels? I'll give you a tour and show you your quarters." He led the way through an airlock at the end of the room and into a large room, empty of people. "This is in the plan as a deluxe suite, but I understand you're going to use it as a sickbay. The medical equipment still needs to be installed, another project for you. How are your electronics skills?"
"Well practiced," Gordon replied with a grin. "Who do you think wired Thunderbird Three? The parts may be modular but somebody has to hook 'em together."
"Good, that's largely what you'll be doing. Now you'll be working with two crews of workers," Hank said, leading them through another airlock.
"This looks awfully familiar," said Virgil. "Alternate control center?"
"Yep. If the primary control center gets holed or damaged, this one will be up and running. It has a separate power supply and operates independently." Hank opened a hatch on the wall, showing a Jeffries tube going down. "Let's go to the lower level."
"The crews are sleeping in the hotel 'bedrooms'," Hank said. "It's cramped but livable. There are six bedrooms down here and you make up the third crew." He led them down the hallway and stopped at the door at the end. "This one's yours. Standard sleep-sacks. No-frills, but then you're on a construction site."
The three Tracys floated into the room and looked around. "Nice view," said Virgil. His brothers followed to cluster around him.
"John will love it up here," Scott said. "Look at the stars!"
"I'd hate to have to clean the windows," Gordon commented.
"Oh, you'll be doing that too," Hank said. "A space station takes regular maintenance, including checking the exterior windows for pits and cracks. Don't want to lose air pressure."
Gordon and Scott exchanged glances; the memory was much too fresh to laugh about that possibility.
"So, tell us about these other crews," Virgil said, reaching for a piece of ginger and munching at it.
Hank noticed. "So, you're the one who gets space sick? Be sure to let me know if you have problems. I've got some older drugs that might work better than the Thoramin if you do have problems, although ginger's not a bad solution."
"Seems to be working so far," said Virgil, finishing his piece.
"Well, tell me if you have problems. You know the danger if you throw up in your suit? Okay, enough about that. You wanted to know about the crews. We have one group of Bereznikis, they're very quiet and do a good job. Send money back to their families back home, I understand. The other group are all Americans. They tend to be rowdy but they get the job done. Word of advice, stay on their good side. The leader of the bunch, Griff, holds grudges."
"We don't want any trouble, for obvious reasons," Scott said. "We'll keep a low profile."
"All right," said Hank. "Now, let me show you the lounge." He led them around the perimeter of the space station into the largest room they'd seen yet. Windows set into the exterior walls showed a view of a glowing earth shimmering in space. All three Tracys gravitated to the window and hovered there for several minutes.
"Wow," breathed Gordon. "That's incredible."
"I'd love to paint that," whispered Virgil. Scott didn't say anything, he just looked.
"Needless to say this is will be the main dining room and lounge for the hotel when it opens," Hank said. "For now, we're using this as the primary cafeteria and break room. As you can see, there are several workers from Griff's team having coffee." He gestured toward two men in coveralls sipping from covered thermal mugs.
Virgil laughed, "And we didn't even see them when we came in. Sorry about that, the view is…"
"Yeah," said one of them good-naturedly. "We get that a lot. Don't worry, you'll get to see the view just about every day. You'll get tired of it pretty fast." He took another sip. "So, Hank, another bunch of college kids?"
"Something like that," said Hank. "They want to learn about space construction and have some electronics skills. These are the Thompsons, Scott, Virgil and Gordon…They'll be working as a separate team since they still need some training."
"Welcome to the Terra Vista Hotel," said the worker, raising his mug in salute. "I'm Jim and this is Paul. We'll be seeing each other; it's a small station up here. How long's your rotation?"
"I'm not sure," said Scott. "A month at least, isn't that the maximum?"
"Pretty much," said Hank. "You don't want to lose your ability to live in gravity. Your muscles atrophy and your bones start to demineralize if you're up here too long." He turned back to the boys. "So anyway, you've got your schedule posted in your room. At mealtimes, just pick a frozen meal out of the freezer and put it into a microwave. Fresh fruit and drinks are in the 'fridge. No alcohol up here, company rules. And no smoking anything. Oxygen's at a premium. Coffee's available 24 by 7 in the urn over here and the person who takes the last cup makes a new pot. Clean up after yourself or you'll have the rest of the station after you. Clear?"
All three Tracys nodded. "Okay, you go back to your room and settle in. I'll be by in about an hour to orient you to your first work shift." Hanson nodded, then floated out of the lounge, leaving the Tracys behind.
"I guess we'd better go unpack," said Scott and turned to head for the door. "Nice meeting you, Jim…Paul…"
"Hey, Thompson," said Jim. "Now that Hank's out of the room, word of caution," he said looking over toward the door. "Be careful. There have been a lot of accidents lately. Two guys had to go home because of injuries last week and it wasn't because they were careless."
Scott stopped in his tracks. "What do you mean?" he asked quietly.
"I mean that you picked a bad time to come here to learn the business," said Jim. "I thought we should clue you in because you're green. One of us might get injured, but one of you might just get dead."
"We'll remember that," said Scott. "Thanks for the warning. Anything in particular we should watch out for?"
"Those Bereznikis…they're quiet but they're…off…and it ain't because they're foreign," said Jim, shaking his head. "Just..keep an eye on them if they work with you. Double-check things. Do your own safety checks, don't rely on somebody else's."
Scott's frown grew deeper. "We will. Thanks again for the heads-up," he said and motioned his brothers to follow him. They used the handholds to float back down the hallway to their room and shut the door.
"Gordon, stay by the door and listen for anyone outside," Scott said. "Can't tell if this room is bugged…Okay…we'll try this," he pulled his mini-player out of his duffle and put some loud music on.
Gordon winced. "Come on, Scott. Death-metal?"
Scott grinned. "You know I always liked the classics. And nobody's gonna hear our conversation."
"So what do we do? Call Dad?" Gordon folded his arms and floated in place.
Scott looked worried and thoughtful. "No…" he said finally. "Not yet. We only have rumor to go by. It might just be rumor."
"From what Jim was saying, our own agent Hank might be a problem," said Virgil. "I don't think we should mention any of this to him."
"I don't like to distrust our own agent," agreed Scott. "But I think you're right. Let's find out more first. And don't trust anyone else's safety checks." He sighed, wishing that John or Alan were there. If this were a ground operation, he'd feel fine in command but he just didn't know enough about space to feel comfortable trying to keep his brothers safe.
They finished putting their duffels away when Virgil pulled the taped schedule sheet off the wall. "It looks like we're third shift, not that there's a day or night up here. According to this we're on duty in about an hour, shifts are eight hours long for a 24 hour day. Makes sense."
Gordon was hanging from the ceiling by his toes. "When did Dad say he was sending the laser communication system?"
"I wish you wouldn't do that, it's making me nauseous," Virgil said, stuffing a piece of ginger into his mouth.
"What? Hanging upside-down?" Gordon grinned and turned a slow cartwheel.
"No," Scott said absently, looking at Gordon's feet. "It's the toes. Put some socks on…Besides, do you think John wants to look at your footprints when he goes to bed at night?...Anyway, Dad sent the primary fittings with us but the power supply is coming in the next shipment. See," he said, pointing to the schedule. "Tonight we're going to be wiring in the base couplings and testing the connections."
"Oh yeah, that makes sense," Virgil said, nibbling on another piece of candied ginger. "Well, I brought the extra toolkit. Hopefully we'll have some real progress by the time Al and John get here. I wonder how they're doing?"
EARTH—SORT OF
"John, turn the damned thing off, I said!" Alan gritted through clenched teeth from his position flat on the floor of Thunderbird Three's lounge.
"I'm working on it, Alan," John's voice floated down the elevator shaft. "I thought Brains said he'd calibrated this thing!"
"Not well enough!" Alan shouted back. "I. Can't . Move. So shut the damned thing DOWN. …Please." Suddenly he was weightless again and let himself float to the ceiling in relief.
"You okay, Alan?" John's voice floated down the shaft. "You aren't shouting anymore? I didn't squash you like a bug, did I?"
"You wish," Alan muttered. "No, John, I'm okay. I'm usually quiet when I'm okay. Mostly," Alan shouted back. "I'm coming up. I want to see what setting he had that thing set for! I swear, it was at least three G's." He swam to the elevator and made his way upstairs to the cockpit where John was surrounded by wire and a control box.
John looked up as Alan swam in his direction. "Well, at least we know it produces something like gravity. Now we just have to get it to set to one gravity."
"I suppose that's progress," Alan said. "But you get to be guinea pig next time." He pulled himself in closer to the control box. "What setting was it on?"
"Would you believe, it was on '1', said John. "And ours goes all the way to '11'."
"But not lower? I can't believe that," said Alan pulling the control box out of John's hand. "Damn, we've got to recalibrate this thing too? We should have brought Brains up with us."
"No can do, Alan," John said. "The components for Thunderbirds One and Two came in early. Dad needed Brains to test them and make sure they are in spec. We can do this by communicator."
"Wish all I was doing was wiring a communications system. Something easy. Something straight forward and safe," Alan complained in the tone of voice his brothers called 'whiny'.
John quietly wished he were on the space station too. All by himself.
