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Request clearance and a tug please.’
     
    ‘LA1164, your flight plan is
acknowledged and you are cleared. Tug standing by.’
     
    A touch of AG was created, so
anything loose on board was grounded, as the final umbilical automatically
disconnected. A small tug — a glorified reaction engine surrounded by
thrusters, a series of soft contact plates and a small one-person cockpit —
then pushed the spherical, twenty-metre-wide shuttle up and away from the
Orbital, sufficiently clear that free-flight protocols could be enabled. The
captain fired the engines and they started the journey across to the moon.
Officially, there was no hurry to get there, although every member wanted to burn
maximum fuel, get there and then back — pronto — so they could continue the fun
back at base. But they had two days’ flight time so they relaxed and dropped
into the eternal military pastime of waiting for something to happen.
     
    ~ * ~
     
    Three
     
     
     
     
    Almost
every service member had a hobby they could enjoy while waiting out the hours
between events. The Administration actively encouraged hobbies and ran numerous
competitions, devoting a few specialist channels on the Games Board broadcasts
to highlight achievements of Administration personnel.
     
    In the small common room of the
ship Marko watched Jan place a medium-sized carved wooden chest on the table
which, when activated, folded out into a little work station with all the tools
in drawers. ‘What are you doing, Jan?’
     
    ‘Carving the handles of a pair of
long-range pistols. Pinched some of those interesting pictographs that we found
as the basis for the idea. So you’re a life-former, Marko? Not a lot of your
skill base around. Fact is I have only ever seen a few AV presentations about
your discipline and the ACEs. They say that you guys spend lifetimes
accumulating the knowledge to make them. Still controversial, though.’
     
    Marko had been designing an
Artificially Created Entity for himself for years. He had realised that
designing a large cat-like creature would be useful to him and his fellow
section members. Eventually it would be a companion in his travels when he left
the service.
     
    ‘Yeah, it’s a tough business to
get into. I was born into it — my whole family unit makes its living from ACE
creation — so from a small child I was trained on creating life forms by some
of the very best in the business. On the whole we are supported, but Single
Lifers have tried to destroy some of our ACE creatures, because they reckon
they are aberrations and that it’s wrong to tinker with genetics and splices.
Anyway, those who hold those beliefs don’t want to change.’
     
    Jan nodded in agreement, saying, ‘Single
Lifers are weird! Fancy seriously considering that you are only meant to have a
normal one hundred twenty years or so and then die completely — no hiving, no
re-lifing, not being uploaded into a chassis — just seeing out your days and
then dying forever! Stuff that!’
     
    ‘So, what base material are you
carving?’ Marko asked.
     
    ‘It’s altered Rusa antler.
Straight, no pith and very tough, with beautiful colouration.’
     
    ‘Antler? Would you mind if I
pinched some of your chips? Be interesting to run it through my machine to see
if I can create something better, maybe.’
     
    Jan nodded. ‘Sure. So what are
you designing at the moment?’
     
    ‘Well, I’ve been working on a
companion. Going to take a long time to map it out. Have the midi, of course,
thanks to the boss. It’s a powerful computer, but after all, this is the hobby
part of the business so I don’t mind how long it takes.’
     
    ~ * ~
     
    During
the flight, the crew took turns preparing the meals, caught up with sleep and
hobbies, but mainly chilled out, because the sub-AI computer on board was more
than capable of looking after everything. The captain took everyone through a
refresher on the handling of the shuttle, so if the brass ever looked at