In THE LESSON Paul Dvorak describes:


MY DAYS IN SPACE


In this era more than one hundred and fifty thousand people live in space, fifty thousand or more on the moon, the rest on scientific and industrial platforms in the orbits of the moon or earth or Mars or the other planets, thousands on Mars or on other planets moons, and thousands more in transit. The population of space is truly earth surface international. Hundreds of countries and regions are represented with cooperative efforts and flag stations and bases. Many ventures mix any combination of groups generally formed around lines of economic interest. Thousands travel between earth and all every day. Recreational travel in space is widespread as regular citizens with the means buy or build their own craft and fly to orbit and back.

This is my third research investigation involving extensive travel in space; easy for me as my home of choice is the cratered estates of Luna. The last two jobs were long term interview based criminal event studies. They are why the Senior Senior Researchers allowed me to assign myself this puzzle.
I’ve experienced the space adaptation syndrome, the sinus problems, the bones softening, the stature shortens, bouts of nausea, disorientation, sleep pattern disruption, zero gravity vertigo, the low gravity moon stagger gait, which I sometimes blame on the Marstini’s. These are just some of the reasons some people refuse space travel. Many say it is worth it once just to see what it is like and then they decline all other offers to come back up. I endure all the discomforts in order to savor the slim freedoms I enjoy in space. While surface duty at my professional Senior Researcher rating holds a wide range of possibilities for investigation, an open attitude towards travel worldwide or interplanetary sometimes gets me away from the pesky monitoring nets. Inevitably the Senior Senior Researchers have me hooked into a physical and occupational system to keep a record of my alcohol and drug intake, general health, location and activities. Space travel voids some of those signals. Sometimes in space my shuttle suit can’t communicate with my desk at the office. It can talk to my wallet lami or my wrist lami's but not the main office or my tube compartment on Luna. Though while I’m in space my tube can talk to the office but my Vertizontal car can only check in with my tube or my suit which is on me sometimes in the vehicle. My Vertizontal can communicate with my office by calling my suit or the tube or Demarists liaison office which could then call Rudy Moody at the main office but only in the vicinity of a wide bandwidth net. On some spacecraft the powerful fields generated by their systems jam my suits beacons; elsewhere it gets purposefully shut down, like in a theater. Though sometimes on some orbital stations in certain orbits with time and space available on the lami's I can get them all talking at once. And much of the time they are all talking together whether I know it not. Regular phone calls are their own situation of course.

“Thanks suit.” I think my pants like it when I say thanks. “Boop”.

Sometimes it is very comforting that all this electronic jabbering is going on, my wallet lami discussing finances with my suit and my car and my tube. And at least in a reverse moon orbit half of the office is kept out of the digi-com cacophony. At those times when I can’t get a word in edgewise I look longingly forward towards retirement when all my time would be my own. There will be a medical monitoring channel naturally, just in case, but that’s all.

My other comfort in space is Space my loyal hound, though of terrier stature. He’s boarded many a spacecraft smuggled in flight bags to be hidden in closets bins and lockers. And he has boldly proudly trotted down the red carpet beside me in the presence of all sorts of detained subpoenaed dignitaries. He’s been discovered in the wrong place at the wrong time more than once. Little Space has this endearing way of getting into mischief by just being there. It has been a thorn to all who plan the business of life in space that I arrive accompanied by Space. He has wet the deck at the boot of the scariest General.

Space has managed to cope with no-g environments by pushing off of anything including faces and controls and dog paddling leisurely to the next impact with twists and turn attempts to steer. Zero g doggie food dispensers do not slow down his ability to devour his food. Space has his own shuttle suit with brain wave controlled weapons systems, electro-stun defensive capability and 160db amplified bark, water dispenser tube, telemetry and communications links. He eats most anything edible and many things that are not. Space can use the vac u-potties in no-g; it’s quite comical how he squats on the seats and still tries to lift a leg, and how his tail hairs flutter in the gusts of suction and how he strains to keep his tail straight up out of the tube and how he turns and sniffs around afterward. The canine intelligence boost gene I bought him pays off here.

Often and frequently I’m informed that dogs and other pets are not allowed in Space despite the cat station and because of the infamous tragic bunny rabbit fiasco on the ISS Oregon. I’ve been threatened, banned, locked out. Often I threaten back. But I always prevail via the unlimited non-accountability that goes with my job. Government facilities are very unprepared to accept any but humans and specimens. I love busting their bubbles of power and so Space goes everywhere with me. Sometimes they buy the alien sniffer friend foe detector lines. If they complain too loudly I just turn up the suit music and ignore them, none has thrown me off a spaceship yet. No other personal companion dogs have made it so far into space except maybe on the cloud hoppers or the occasional converted shuttle space yachts to the spa satellites.