Joe Haldeman - The Pilot

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2024-11-18 4 0 93.71KB 3 页 5.9玖币

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THE PILOT

The set is out of adjustment: a green streak slashes diagonally through the viewing cube,

impales the smiling host.

She tries to adjust it by softly licking a molar, remembers, curses economically, turns a

knob until the streak disappears, another knob to sharpen the image. Host smiling goodbye

to someone. Feel of cold metal sticks to her thumb and finger until she rubs it away on her

thigh, disgusted, nose wrinkling. How many filthy traveling salesmen and conventioneers

and hotel maids have touched these knobs since they were last sterilized? Have they ever

been sterilized?

"Our next guest is a woman with a marvelously rare occupation." Occupation! He smiles

offcube and the picture scale diminishes to include her as well, not smiling, trying not to

fidget on the filthy leather chair. "She is a spaceship pilot"—I am a spaceship—"but no

ordinary rocket jock. She pilots a slowboat between the Earth and the outer solar system—

the asteroids, even as far as Saturn. Her name is Lydia Meinenger and she's a fellow New

Yorker." New Yorker. "Lydia, would you tell us something about slowboats: how they—"

"In the first place," she interrupts, "they aren't slow. They go much faster than anything

you use in the Earth-Moon system. The name is a hangover from the old robot tugs that

crawled along on Hohmann transfer orbits, to minimize fuel use. A Hohmann tug took six

years to get to Saturn; I can make it in thirteen months. Nine months, with a Jupiter flyby.

But I can't do that with passengers."

"Because of the radiation?"

"That's right." Warm like summer sunshine. “They can't wrap everyone up in lead, the

way I am."

"That's probably the most fascinating aspect of your job, Lydia. The way you're wired up

to the ship, you're actually part of it." I am the ship, you actual fool.

“’Wired up' is a little extreme. They don't use surgical implants anymore; just induction

plates pasted over various organs. There are a few small wires associated with the somatic

feedback system"—O slow ecstasy—"but they enter through natural body openings and you

hardly feel them once they're in place."

"This feedback thing, this is how you control the ship?"

"That's right. There's an initial calibration that, well, as long as I feel good"—Good!—

"then every system in the ship is working properly. If any system varies from its expected

performance, I feel it as an illness or slight pain. The nature and intensity of the wrongness

tells me which system is involved and gives me an idea as to the severity of the malfunction.

For instance, a hydrogen ullage problem, where the fuel flow is momentarily uneven, I feel

as a hot spasm of"—screen goes white, low chime—"tum."

Host smirking behind filthy hand. "Afraid the censor won't let that slip by, Lydia." They

live in shit so can't talk about it? Chuckles. "It doesn't seem very precise."

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THEPILOTThesetisoutofadjustment:agreenstreakslashesdiagonallythroughtheviewingcube,impalesthesmiling...

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Joe Haldeman - The Pilot

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