Wednesday, March 14, 2012

Coffee


My hands shook as I tried to lift the coffee cup from the saucer.  It wasn’t just because I’d probably had too much caffeine already.  The cup was heavy and I was exhausted.

This planet was big compared with earth.  Its gravity was greater.  A long shift on the planet’s surface had worn me down.  I was starting to feel the weight of my own hair on my head.

While we had been able to develop machinery that can work in the planet’s high gravity and shuttlecraft capable of landing and taking off again, escaping the planet’s gravity well, the one machine that limited our experience here most was the human machine. 

The first people here had not been physically prepared for the duration of time they spent on the surface.  Several members of the initial landing crew had suffered the effects of exhaustion.  A few had even died of cerebral hypoxia: a condition where the brain doesn’t receive enough oxygen, in this case, because their hearts just couldn’t pump enough blood against gravity to their brains. 

The rules for those who were allowed on subsequent missions to the planet became more refined.  Initially, only the fittest people were allowed on the missions.  However, the fit people chosen were not the muscle-bound athletes you’d expect.  Those people would eventually be worn down just by carrying the weight of their own muscle mass.  Instead it was only the thinnest, most wiry people.  It was the scrawny vegan and vegetarian physique that was most effective working on the planet’s surface.

Many of us who weren’t vegans starved ourselves down to size because we needed the money.  Despite the dangers there was plenty of money to be made on the planet.  The planet was resource rich: minerals, fuel, you name it.  It was here and abundant.  While every effort was made to have these mining operations autonomous, there was still a need to have people on the surface.  So we worked shifts: less than a full workday on the surface followed by several days off on a zero-G orbiting station. 

Despite the strict dietary restrictions, exercise regimen, and training there were still issues of cerebral hypoxia among the landing crews.  Many people attempted to use stimulants to counteract the gravity, but self-medication by tired amatures led to heart attacks.  To work on the planet’s surface you had to balance the razor’s edge between cerebral hypoxia and myocardial infarction.

Eventually, it was found that coffee contained about the right amount of caffeine needed to keep you going during your shifts.  You had to remain within that narrow region where you can feel the effects of the caffeine on your body, but not quite feel like you’ve had too much caffeine.  There was no relief if you drank too much coffee on the surface.  You’d die on your shift and your final paycheck would get mailed to whomever you’d listed as “next of kin” on your application documents.

We started out with one hundred seventy-two surface workers and were down to one hundred fifty-three.  The missing workers left slots open for others to pick up extra shifts.  I had taken every extra shift I could because I needed the cash, despite the precautions of the company’s medical staff.

I touched the coffee cup to my lips, tilted just enough that I could feel the hot coffee against my lips and tongue, but I didn’t drink anymore.  I’d had enough; more than enough.  I could feel it in my stomach and in the back of my throat.  I was sitting on a stool in a well-air conditioned concourse wet with my own perspiration.  I was both hot and cold at the same time.  I could feel the bile rising in my throat.  Had I had too much this shift?

An announcement came over the loudspeaker signaling that my flight was ready, snapping me out of my mental morass.  Back in reality I heaved a heavy sigh.  I slowly lifted myself from the stool and dragged my wheeled carry-on toward the gate.  Funny to think of my bag as a carry-on; no one carried anything at the end of a shift.  Everything was either wheeled or floated.

Head down, I continued on toward the shuttle.  Sure, I knew that there was a staff of medics on the flight crew who were well trained in assisting surface workers but it gave me no comfort.  I thought about the number of Gs I’d have to endure to rise from the planet’s surface and just hoped that my heart wouldn’t give out during the ascent.  I did not want to end up as nothing more than an OSHA statistic. 

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