John Barnes by The Duke of Uranium

Author:The Duke of Uranium [Uranium, The Duke of]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Published: 2011-12-11T23:53:06+00:00

“So,” she said, “since tomorrow afternoon is when the ship starts prepping for the cargo switch at Mercury, we probably won’t have another time like this till after that—probably a couple of days afterward, allowing for recovery time. I have a feeling that this is best when you’re well rested and in a good mood.”

“Your feeling is singing-on. Everyone seems to be ei-ther anticipating or dreading the cargo switch—why? I mean, if it’s so awful, why do ships do it, or if it’s such a great thing, why all the bitching?”

She sighed. “About a week from now you won’t have to ask at all; you’ll dak it as well as you dak anything. The great thing and the terrible thing about the cargo switch at Mercury is that it’s a short time of unbelievably intense work and the whole future of the ship rides on it. I had a literature teacher who said it’s kind of Like how groundside farmers used to feel about harvest, or retail-ers feel about Christmas—either it works or it doesn’t, and if it doesn’t, you’re scrogged. Mercury is the thing that keeps most of the sunclippers flying and making what little profit we do; they’re really the heavy-metals industrial center of the solar system, so they need everything biological, informational, pretty much anything you don’t make out of metal, and they export stuff that everyone else needs—pretty much everything you make out of metal.

“Plus they’re located way down the solar gravity well but also where there’s the most sunlight and solar wind to catch in the sails and scoops. So no matter what you picked up in the upper system, if you can just drop in for a fast swing around Mercury, you can sell the whole cargo and get a whole new one that will be in demand, and usually pick up enough momentum to have a fast, straight shot to your next destination. That’s why there’s the old saying among crewies that ‘There’s always gold in Mercury.’

“But on the other side of things—well, first of all, unloading almost all of the cargo and replacing it with another cargo is quite a job. The stuff comes aboard in mixed lot containers and then goes into containers routed to everywhere on Mercury, so we have to get it from all its various storage places, repack it for Mercury, loop launch it, get it onto Mercury’s loop—which means that everyone who can fly a longshore capsule gets to play a frantic game of tag in space for hours— and fit all that into the window of a brief pass at the planet.

“And then, too, it’s dangerous. That much cargo handling always is, and the sails are more dangerous when there’s a loop deployed, and around Mercury you’re al-ways coping with substorms.”

“What’s a substorm?”

“Mercury has a pretty strong magnetic field for its size—not like Earth or Jupiter, but plenty more than most other planets—and particles from solar storms get trapped and sometimes pile up in one place

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