Starpiercer: Sunlight's Edge

CHAPTER XI: LIEM III

XI

LIEM III

"Fasten your cable here. Yeah. Like that."

Liem wound the cable around the strut, trying to take his mind off of the lunacy of wasting good water like this. Sure, it would be filtered later, but the sheer amount of superfluous uses these greenies found for it was ridiculous. He took another deep breath, reminding himself that he didn't have to. He could breath normally in the mock-up voidsuit they'd put him in.

He clasped part of the loop of grey, striated cabling together, and carefully welded the knot closed, before applying the sealant from a cheap plastine caulk-gun. Strands of grey liquid cement drifted off into the briny murk of the surrounding water and hardened there as they fell into the darkness around him. He played his headlamp over the upper strut. It looked stable.

Thirty feet deep underwater in a macroplankton grow-farm. He'd never imagined his life would take him someplace as strange as this. It was vital for the terraforming, of course. There were tens of thousands of grow-farms on every world undergoing it's terraformation. The hyper-oxyenating macroplankton had been specifically engineered to pump a planet's atmosphere full of the right mixture of chemicals, which, along with a myriad of other miniscule plants and microbes injected into the atmosphere and soil made something close enough to a universal atmosphere that, with an implanted aerix lung to filter out the worst of the toxins, most respirating creatures could breath it. The mass of tiny little toxivores far above him ate poison and shat out breathable air. Amazing creatures.

The craziest part was that it was the middle of the day, and only thirty feet below the obscuring matt of grey-green macroplankton colonies, down here at the bottom of the artificial lake, it was dark as night.

"Weld is a good, Liem." Vhordha's chharic voice sounded like the churning arms of the waste processing pits back in Filhab Seven. He'd had to submit to a neural engram to even understand his instructor, and had been amazed at how intuitive it was. Just like someone was speaking regular Glossic to him. These greenies lived like gods, it sometimes felt.

He let go of the strut, and kicked away from the big mock-up of a long-range sensor array, giving the water a blast of pressurized air from his maneuvering pack for good measure to speed him on his way. Bubbles drifted past him, and his sweeping searchlight drifted over a pair of other trainees from team three. Grigori and Randol, who had their arc welders turned on full blast. He swam past them, to join the rest of his team.

"Liem," greeted Eider, raising one suited arm to greet him. Their team leader was helping Sanshiv and Sandra slot a huge sensor spar into place. "You get that strut secured?"

"Yeah, I got it in," he huffed, radioing back. He had to remember to radio back.

"Remember to radio in when you get a bit fixed, dustie," grunted Sanshiv. The small, lean duster turned to face him, his long face and spotty moustache visible through the faceplate. "Remember, this aint the filhabs."

"Clear call, Dustie." Liem swam up to the top of the sensor spar, and helped the others align it, pushing it into place in its housing and looping the securing cables that he'd just spent the past five minutes setting up around the base.

"Sandra," murmured Eider, her voice as soft and gentle as always. "Wire it up. Sanshiv, secure it's fit. Liem, get these plugs in the sympathetic nodes."

"Right." There was little barking. Just straightforward orders from Eider, and the rest of the team jumping to comply. She was a good leader. A bit quieter than Liem was used to, with none of a duster's brash good cheer but a good leader nonetheless.