QRM-InterplanetarySmith, George O. (George Oliver)
Science
QRM-Interplanetary
Smith, George O. (George Oliver)
Science fiction; Space stations -- Fiction
"All right, but it was getting interesting."
"If I'm betting on the right horse," said Channing, "this will be
interesting for all before it is finished!"
* * * * *
Seven days went by in monotonous procession. Seven days in a world of
constant climate. One week marked only by the changing of work shifts
and the clocks that marked off the eight-hour periods. Seven days
unmarred by rain or cold or heat. Seven days of uninterrupted sunshine
that flickered in and out of the sealed viewports with eye-searing
brilliance, coming and going as the station rotated.
But in the front offices, things were not as serene. No monotony
to become irksome. Not that monotony ever set in seriously
in the engineering department, but that sacred sanctum of
all-things-that-didn't-behave-as-they-should found that even their
usual turmoil was worse. There was nothing that a person could set
his finger on directly. It was more of a quiet, undercover nature. On
Monday Burbank sent around a communique removing the option of free
messages for the personnel. On Tuesday he remanded the years-long
custom of permitting the supply ships to carry, free, packages from
friends at home. On Wednesday, Francis Burbank decided that there
should be a curfew on the one and only beer emporium. That was made
after he found that curtailing all sorts of alcoholics might easily
lead to a more moral problem; there being little enough to do with
one's spare time. On Thursday, he set up a stiff-necked staff of
censors for the moving picture house. On Friday, he put a tax on
cigarettes and candy. On Saturday, he installed time clocks in all the
laboratories and professional offices, where previous to his coming,
men had come for work a half hour late and worked an hour overtime at
night.
On Sunday, he ran into trouble!
Don Channing stormed into the Director's office with a scowl on his
face.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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