The World Walker Series Box Set by Ian W. Sainsbury

Author:Ian W. Sainsbury [Sainsbury, Ian W.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2018-05-26T22:00:00+00:00

40

International Space Station

Massimo Paolini looked back at the International Space Station from his precarious viewpoint, tethered to the far edge of one of the solar arrays. He couldn’t see Columbus laboratory from his vantage point, which cheered him up considerably. He’d been sharing the tiny lab on the ISS with Petr, a humorless Czech engineer. Five long weeks had passed without the man even smiling. And Massimo liked a good joke. He could be the life and soul of the party. He had dedicated a great deal of time to trying to break through to his grim-featured colleague. Every kind of joke had been used in the attempt. Even physics jokes, which were universally acknowledged as poor, but often made physicists laugh in an attempt to appear normal. Nothing had worked. The gregarious Italian had finally given up, and consequently, was delighted to take his turn on a little light maintenance outside of the station.

Naturally, Massimo wasn’t alone out there, but Vlad, his space-walk buddy, was currently out of sight on the opposite array. Protocol demanded they stick together, but Massimo had found in Vlad a kindred spirit, in his flexible and pragmatic approach to rules.

“I have to smell everybody’s balls for half a year in this floating toilet,” the Russian had commented drily. “The least we can do is have a little private time while we look at our planet, da?”

Massimo had agreed wholeheartedly. He turned and looked at the planet now. Earth. Beneath him, well, not beneath him, there being no up or down in space, but he had to think in words that made some kind of sense, so beneath would just have to do, the planet rolled. A gigantic blue ball. Massimo was no poet, but his soul leaped within him every time he got outside the ISS and saw the vast blueness of his home unfolding in front of him. It was so blue. Nothing could prepare you for that. Clouds danced across the scene, their shadows trailing across oceans and land masses.

“Big blue ball of hugeness,” thought Massimo. “No. Enormous slow-mo football made of blue stuff. No. Spinny big thing. Shit.”

Kramer—the American—had told him the English language was best for true poetry, but Massimo was starting to wonder if Kramer had only said that because she couldn’t speak any other languages herself. If Kramer hadn’t been female, blonde and kind of cute, he might have argued in favor of the beauty of the Italian language, but since he was hoping for a celebratory dinner with Kramer once they were home, he’d conceded the point. A celebratory dinner followed by some traditional Italian disrobing ceremonies, he hoped. So, English it was.

Azure was another word for blue, right?

“Azure, as you’re turning beneath me—”. Now, that was clever. A play on words. In a second language. Massimo felt a flush of pride. He might try that one on Kramer later. He knew there was no chance of serious flirting while they were onboard, but he could do some preliminary work and—

“Che cazzo?!” he said, crossing himself involuntarily.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.