Thousand+ Words for Nov. 26, 2025

In the Main Hangar of Mimas Station, Clay Savid, Dean Harrison, and Peggy Gibson Were....

In the main hanger on Mimas Station, Clay Savid, Dean Harrison, and Peggy Gibson were getting the ship ready for launch. Each had specific responsibilities, and each attended to his or her own area: Peggy was pilot and navigator, although for the most part, the computers did the latter for her; Clay was the ‘fuge man for the mission; Dean handled consumables management. They had run scooper missions many times before, both together and with other crew members. Clay was inside the ship, testing the centrifuges that would spin the recovered gas up to four percent helium on the fly, for collection in the ship’s four-million-cubic-centimeter recovery tank.

“How are they looking in there, Clay?” Peggy asked, her head poked into the open entry hatch of CKR-Nixon. The scooper ships were all named for US presidents; the practice had something to do with getting the operation funded back in the 70s. There was a Hoover, a Grant, an Eisenhower, a Clinton, and a Madison, but no Bush; there was a Quincy Adams, a Carter, a Van Buren, and a Buchanan. There was a Ford but no Lincoln. There was even, bizarrely, a Fillmore. All the ships had their own idiosyncrasies; Nixon was famous for electrical problems, and Quincy Adams was getting so notorious for centrifuge leaks that Clay wouldn’t fly on that one anymore. But the Mimas crews managed to keep most of the ships in working order, and at any one time, four or five were actively missioning while the rest of the fleet received maintenance, servicing, and upgrades.

“The ‘fuges are good,” Clay said from underneath a bulkhead inside the ship. “Main tank’s not been cleaned from last mission, dammit. Who took this one out last?”

“It was Larry Abrams and those clowns that usually take Clinton,” Dean said, also from inside the ship. Dean was back in the ship’s stores, inventorying and sealing the air, water, and fuel the ship and her crew would use during the 38-hour scooper mission. “They need to keep their damn hands off my ship. I’m going to go down there and pee in their air tanks.” He didn’t sound like he was kidding.

Peggy snorted. “All right, we’re L-minus four hours twenty. Weather looks okay, and the flux is low this cycle, so we should have a smooth ride,” she said.

“Yeah, right,” Clay said. “That’s what you always say.”

“Hey, I don’t see any kaybars in here,” Dean said. “Peg!” No response. “Peggy!” he said louder—loud enough to rattle the clipboards hanging from the mounts in the stores room.

“Pipe down, Sailor, she’s gone already,” Clay said.

“I’m going to get some kaybars,” Dean said. He moved a couple of boxes that he had been unloading into the stores and stepped over Clay’s lower body, which extended horizontally across the passageway, his upper body still inside the bulkhead. “Get me the lemon ones,” Clay said.

“You get your own damn kaybars,” Dead said.

“Dammit, Clay! Get me some bars.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Dean said—and then he stepped through the hatch and was outside the ship. He climbed down the winglet and let himself drop down to the mascrete pad. Most of the station was constructed of mascrete—a concrete-like material made primarily from dry Mimantean soil and cement made on site. One of the first orders of business when the station had been constructed in the 2220s was to set up the 244-megawatt-hour fusion reactor, fueled first by three pounds of pressurized, highly concentrated helium-3 brought from Earth and after that by helium collected in the first few scooper missions. The reactor made electricity, and then with that, the soil of Mimas provided the raw materials to do the rest. Even water could be made—the silicone in the soil was dissociated and the hydrogen burned against oxygen for the water. The carbon was burned against oxygen to make methane. It was an expensive way to get water and fuel, but when your electricity is free and you’ve got a whole moon’s worth of source material, there’s no reason not to do it the hard way.

The first capsule that arrived on Mimas, after a sixty-two month long mission in which two men shared a fifty-eight square foot space, served as the main living quarters for the couple of months or so it took to make the first mascrete structure. That structure had been added on to by subsequent crews, until now, in its fifty-eighth year, the entire station boasted men’s and women’s dormitories, a hydroponics nursery, a dining facility, a rather complete gymnasium, even a small pool— indoor, of course.

The business end of the operation boasted a series of hangars, one for every four scooper ships plus two heavy maintenance bays, a scooper launch and recovery pad on which the scooper could arise and alight. There was also a simple but adequate gas processing plant to concentrate the scooper product, and then a railtrack launch facility to shoot the canisters filled with pressurized helium-3 on their long way to Earth.

Clay finished his work under the bulkhead and crawled out. He buttoned the panel together again and stood to run diagnostic on the system from the panel. He heard the high whine of the system’s eight centrifuges spinning up—the diagnostic required that they go to fifteen percent, then a stream of doped gas would be fed into them, and after three minutes, they should produce a measurable concentration in the contaminate, which happened to be vapor of heavy water. He watched the readings and then heard someone clunking into the ship behind and above him. “Dean? You back with my kaybars?”

“No, it’s me,” Peg said. She climbed down from the hatch and then was beside Clay, studying the readings on the panel as he was. “You diagnosing?”

“Yeah,” he said.

“How long have they been spinning?”

“Only a minute.” The two of them stood there side by side for a moment. “Was there something you wanted?” Clay asked.

Peg suddenly realized that she was intruding on his territory. As mission captain, she had overall responsibility for the mission, and overall authority—at least in principle. In practice, she well knew that it was much better to let the people who knew their jobs do them. “No,” she said. “I’ll see you outside, okay?”

“Mmm-hmm” Clay said, and Peg started back for the hatch.

“Hey, is Dean coming back with some kaybars for us?” she asked as she started up the hatch ladder.

“He said no,” Clay said. “But he better.”

“I’ll make sure some are on board. You want lemon ones, right?”

“Yep.” Clay said. “Hey, the tubes are up to speed now, and the first bleed looks good.”

“Okay,” Peg said, and Clay heard her climb out and step across the winglet and drop to the floor.

Inside the hangar control room, Clay sat at a chair in front of a dark station—beside him, the shift controller was preparing for recovery of Buchanan, which was full of gas and on the final two hours of its mission. Eisenhower was ten hours behind him, as Clay could see on the screen in front of the controller. “You bringing both of them in?” he asked.

“Are you kidding?” Robbie Cannon asked. “I’ve been here two hours already. Ike’s a problem for those swing shift slugs.”

Over their heads, a speaker crackled with a feminine voice. “Station, Buchanan,”

The controller looked over at Clay and rolled his eyes. “That damn Violet Scruggs, I can’t get her to stay off the radio,” Robbie said.

Clay was about to say she talked too much, but that she was all right, when the speaker cracked again, this time more insistent. “Station, Buchanan.”

The way she said it, slowly, with emphasis on each syllable, communicated her annoyance with Robbie’s slowness in answering. Robbie casually rolled his chair to his station’s counter and flipped a switch on the panel to activate the microphone on his headset. “Buchanan, Station, go ahead,” he said precisely, mimicking the way she had said it.

“You got somebody in there that knows about ‘fuges? We’re seeing a small leak out of two and three.”

“Who do they have on the ‘fuges?” Clay asked. Robbie shrugged in response and keyed him microphone again. “Buchanan, Station, say who you have on the ‘fuges.”

“We’ve got Pete Kendall, he wants to talk to a ‘fuge man.”

Robbie didn’t say anything—but he looked as Clay as if to say You want to talk to Pete? Clay nodded. “Buchanan, we’ve got Clay Savid up here. He’s putting together Nixon.”

“Yeah, I’ll put Pete on,” Scruggs said. There were a few clicks, then an older man’s voice on the speaker. “Clay, you there? It’s Pete.”

Robbie flipped another switch on his panel, and the speakerphone circuit was activated. “Yeah,” Robbie said. “Clay’s here, go ahead.”

“Clay, I’ve got a weird leak in two and three. They’re stopped, but they’re still leaking,” he said.

“What are they leaking?”

“Hydrogen.”

There was a moment of static that walked on the last bit of Pete’s transmission. “Hydrogen?” Clay repeated. “Hydrogen what?”

“Just hydrogen,” Pete said.

“Can’t be,” Clay said. What’s your helium rate right now?”

“It’s at 76 in the main tank,” Pete said. “But there’s hydrogen from two and three leaking into it, diluting it.”

“Can’t be, Pete,” Clay said. “Your outer doors are closed, and even if they weren’t you’d be leaking gas out, not in. There’s no place for hydrogen to come from.”

“Yeah, I know,” Pete said.

“How much?” Clay asked.

“A couple of liters every minute,” Pete responded. “Not much, but I need to know where the hell it’s coming from.”

Clay shrugged. “It’s instrumentation, Pete,” he said. “I wouldn’t worry about it, you’ll be in here shortly, and we’ll look at it.”

“You want I should go cold on the wiring up there?” Pete asked. It was a reasonable precaution—there almost certainly was no hydrogen leaking anywhere, but it was possible to shut off the electricity to the main tanks and reduce the explosion danger that some source of hydrogen would represent—explosion danger á la Hindenberg.

“I would,” Clay said. “Does no harm.”

“Roger that, Station,” Pete said. “Here’s the captain again.”

“Okay, Pete,” Clay said.

There was another pause, and then Scruggs was back on the wire. “Station, Buchanan, we’ll go cold on the main tanks.”

“Roger, Buchanan, cold on the mains at your discretion.”

“Cold on the mains in three...two...one...and we’re cold on the main tanks.”

“Roger, Buchanan.” Clay pushed his chair back and stood up. “There’s no hydrogen leak, Robbie,” he said.

“Yeah, I know it,” he responded. “We’re going to have to warm up all that gas when she gets here."

“Yeah,” Clay said. “Pain in the ass. I’ll see you.”

Robbie put his hand up as Clay stepped away from him and pushed through the door and stepped back into the hangar.