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"Worked? No, that's not the word," I interrupted her. "I struggled. I fought. The toughest job I've ever done in my entire life was done in zero gravity, but not as an engineer."
"In this ship here?" she asked. "At level zero?"
I nodded. "My involvement resulted from a vendetta," I said. "Have you ever done anything at zero gravity? If you lift a heavy object off the floor, it's almost as hard to get it off the floor as in normal gravity. But once the thing is moving, it is very hard to stop it unless you're anchored to the floor. It's more likely that it hits one on the head. Have you ever done anything in zero gravity?"
She shook her head. "Have you at forty percent?" she added.
I said that I hadn't. "If I could accompany you..."
She blushed almost instantly.
"I have been in training for six weeks," she said as we entered the station. The elevator opened to the station. My surprise caused her to grin. She looked at me to judge my response, and evidently found it amusing. "I'm replacing a person that was needed at the biology lab," she said as if to hide her grin. "It wasn't easy to quality. In order to qualify for this job, I had to take a crash course in bacteriology, plant growth biology, micro virology...."
"My God, all of this to become a sewer worker?" I interrupted her in a serious tone.
She still grinned.
Well, she didn't have to say more about herself. The complexity of the station was amazing. This wasn't just a sewer station. This was a science station, and by all that I could see she was a full-fledged, top-notch scientist. She showed me the lab area first and introduced me to her coworker. Her own workstation was the most complex in the lab, in terms of strange looking instruments, none of which were familiar to me.
Outside of the lab, lay the vast multistage purification system. That's what she called it. In real terms it was a sweet smelling garden, immersed in a soft pink light. Inside the laboratory that was of a considerable size, the lighting was subdued. Her coworker barely looked up as we entered. My newfound friend explained that her coworker was occupied with a Circular Intensity Differential Scattering device, which she said was the latest in biophysical spectroscopy.
It was easy to see by the way she spoke that she was proud to be a part of a team of that stature and was working in this atmosphere that truly matched her fine clothing. I felt proud of her myself. I also felt proud to know someone like her, and to be a part of the kind of world in which this was possible. The advanced technology that she worked with, which filled the lab, didn't come from the moon. It was an extension of the depth of mankind, and I was a part of it. We all were, and so was the science that motivated her, which in turn made it possible for this ship to function. All of that had become a part of her life and my life, which altogether added a wonderful hue to our existence now.
She offered me a place to sit outside in the garden, then took a rather large sample from the pond and placed it on an induction heater on a nearby counter.
"I take it that you do like coffee," she said with a smile.
I would have choked and said no, had she not mentioned her courses in bacteriology and micro virology before. I knew I could rely on her judgment that the water was pure.
"Yes, I'd love some," I replied.
"Oh, you do have great courage!" she said and smiled.
"No, but I trust you," I replied.
We took a stroll through the 'garden' moments later, as she called the pond area, while the water was heating. The garden appeared to be a vast array of hundreds of ponds. She also pointed out that there were three more sub-levels below us with numerous tanks for "bacteriological preprocessing." She told me that collecting and analyzing samples from the final stages of the purification process was on the shift-roster of duties to be performed that evening. She performed the task with the same care with which her coworker had studied whatever it was she had under investigation. Her coworker hadn't even looked up when she had greeted her. She had merely moved a hand and said, "Hi-there, Jill!" Also, there appeared to be no one else on duty at the sewer station as far as I could tell.
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