Dirty Starling, we have your crew corners ready to go, in it you’ll find your uniforms and a detailed docket for your next twenty four hours. So I understand you’ve signed on as part of our Half-Three crew contingent. You guys are nuts, but I hear you rake in the dough though!” The stout woman gesticulates wildly as she talks animatedly at me, not seeing the puzzled look on my dour face. “Did you just say crew corners? Don’t you mean my quarters?” I weakly interject mid sentence. “Huh? Oh, right, you’re not from around here. It’s sort of a colloquialism to these larger ships and kind of a dig at folks on your work detail. Your ghost like work mates hate the term quarter, since that’s the standard shift on these ships, four six hour shifts for every twenty four hours. But you guys work six four hour shifts per day, and coined it corners, because, well… you guys work anywhere and everywhere three out of every four hours and just kind of crash in corners, under chairs or tables, in bundles of coiled rope or what have you, then miraculously turn up at your next shift – to do it all over again. It sounds ghastly, but that’s why you lot get paid those big bucks right!” She hasn’t stopped pointing at things or taken more than half a breath the entire time we’ve been walking. “This is you. Set yourself up, read your crew details thoroughly and get some sleep. I don’t imagine I’ll see you again for quite some time Mark, so be well”. A wide arc of a wave passes within millimeters of my nose, and with a crisp twist, she loping down the hallway of the crew corners.
Standing in the grim grey hallway, my bisected metal door grinds open as I touch my palm to it. Biometric readers are every where on board this massive ship. No need to try to remember any codes, it’s all linked to my DNA/RNA and several other key markers I’m not aware of. A dim orange light is the only illumination inside the wide but narrow room. Spacious by Navy standards on earth, pretty big for a single individual in space. About four meters long, two meters wide. The door and open pathway along one wall, a closet sized bathroom/’shower’ outlet type cubicle on one end, a raised bed with desk underneath, with cupboards over top, and a full length closet on the opposite end. Clean, cozy and entirely unadorned with ornamentation. The lone object in the room is my crew information packet with my first six work details, and a voucher for my first meal aboard the vessel. Upon closer inspection the room is plastered with various warnings and guidelines for the optimal use of my crew uniform while on board. Lots of black, yellow, red and white labels. Very ominous and kind of foreboding. Nothing I haven’t seen before back at the Mars technical institute where I trained to be a ship board generalist. I can do just about anything in a modest, read mediocre fashion. Just enough to keep the cogs grinding along for a three hour session, until the real deals make their way to your location.
A loud chime signals the standard crew change, and I grab my voucher and head off to the mess hall to eat, and nose around the ship while still in a coherent state of mind. Along the way I pass several hundred people bustling from one thing to another. Each dressed in colour coded uniforms talking in jargon heavy bursts. No one looks up from their desks, bunks or conversations. The crew corner portion has a real college dorm vibe, with people talking through open doors, sprawling in the halls or hanging around in small cliques. I continue to walk on until I can smell the mixture of food, b.o and mild disinfectants and sanitizers.
The mess hall is enormous, with a massive bank of windows that look out over the bulk of the aft section of the vessel. Lots of curving grey domes, and twinkling blue lights. The neon lights glow in reflection on the concrete like glass. I walk under a huge set of hoods which contain some high pressure vents. In the centre of the room is a massive semi circle of vending machines, buttons, slots and glass drawers. Not quite replicators, but close enough to be science fiction. I slide my voucher into an available slot and choose a sixteen ounce prime rib, garlic mashed potatoes, grilled asparagus and a thick rich brown gravy, along with a Heineken branded pilsner. Turning to my right to see my name appear on a glass drawer I pull out my steaming hot plate and head to an empty table. As I step over the back of my seat I hear a soft voice say “Beige uniform eh? You a Half-Three then huh? That’s a nice dinner you got there. I always thought you guys were a myth, but here we are.” A large androgynous person in blue medical uniform half waves at me sheepishly. “Um, well yes. I transferred in today. Will rotate in at 03:00.” My answer is short, concise and as non committal as I can make it while I smell real food mere centimeters from my face. I plunk down onto the seat, it whistles under the newly acquired weight. A soft pfft as air escapes from the foam padded seat cushion. “I didn’t mean to interrupt your meal, I just haven’t seen many of you guys around. I did my residency on earth and I marvel at your ability to work six four hour shift blocks per day while you are on rotation. It both scares and amazes me!” A plump cherubic face peers out from under longish dark black hair, with a off kilter toothy smile. “Don’t be too impressed, they pushed some sort of synaptic device into my head at the technical institute on Mars so that we can function under high stress for brief periods of time, many times per day. It also allows us to ‘learn’ a great deal of surface level instructions on hundreds of jobs. I can even, in the most dire of circumstances work as a medic or a nurse during a level one, two or three medical procedure in any standard zero g operating room. But I’d warn against that, just between you and me. I’m a puker. Involuntary, I assure you. But detrimental to the sanctity of any given surgical endeavor.” I flash the briefest of warm smiles. “I’m Mark. Nice to meet you…?” I wave a fork lazily in the med tech’s direction. “Oh, uh it’s Alex. I’m Alex. Nice to meet you Mark, the fully fledged Half-Three! Man oh man, nobody’s going to believe that I met you!” Alex is flushed pink in the cheeks. “What do you mean? I’m sitting right here, out in the open, with you. The whole ship can see us with their own eyes. The cameras can all see us”. A befuddled look is crawling it’s way across my face, slowly. I am losing my good will and social cheer rapidly. “Uh dude no. You guys have biometrics that allow you every where and anywhere, and can seemingly travel at will across the ship. No cameras or software can track you lot at all. Hence the nickname ghosts”. Alex thinks better of sitting down at the table and backs away quickly. “That’s why you guys don’t have any photo ID, you don’t show up on camera!” And like that Alex is gone, melted into the crowd in the mess hall as I tuck into my prime rib.
Sixteen days later a well worn yellow side by side drops me off at my crew corners door. All that can be seen as the mono tracked vehicle passes is a pile of filthy clothes and dirty brown hair piled up in the vehicle bed. With the pull of a lever the bed tilts up and the limp body slides out the back like an animal still birth. With great effort I stagger to my feet and I place my palm against the cool metal triggering the bisected doors to split apart. I fall face first into bed and the whole world fades to black.
Part One: Ghost of the Dirty Starling.
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