Dark as Day Read Online Free PDF Page B

hundreds of thousands of applicants. Less than one thousand would pass the test and be allowed to head away from Earth for training in the Outer System. And most of those would be youngsters, early twenties or less, whereas Janeed and Sebastian were already well over thirty.
    She was sitting at the extreme eastern edge of the GM platform, as far down its side as she could get without falling in. Her feet dangled in the cold salt water of the eastern Malvinas’ shelf. Behind her she could hear the gentle thrum-thrum-thrum of the great extractor. Its upper portion curved away to become a one-meter pipeline that headed arrow-straight south and west, past the Falkland Islands, across the full width of the Malvinas’ shelf, all the way to landfall at Punta Arenas.
    The spine of the extractor plunged down through the middle of the Global Minerals’ platform and continued all the way to the seabed. Janeed and Sebastian were, according to their job description, “in charge” of the extractor operation during the remaining hour of the dawn shift. What that meant in practice was that any change in extractor performance, gas leak, or reduction in methane flow through the pipeline would be signaled by a klaxon loud enough to wake the dead. At that point the problem rose by definition above Jan and Sebastian’s authority and responsibility level. They would run at once to alert a more senior member of the GMS operations’ staff, assuming that by some miracle that person had slept through the din and was not already on deck.
    The sun was well above the horizon, but here, in July at fifty degrees south, the wind off the winter ocean of the South Atlantic would remain brisk all day. Jan lifted her bare feet from the icy water, examined her long, near-prehensile toes that had chilled to a bluish-red, and dried them on the lower edge of her sweater. She had been sitting far too long, introspective and brooding in the glimmer of pre-dawn. She was supposed to be the optimist, the initiator, the “can-do” queen. But it was hard to be all those things when you felt sure that the next few hours would bring only disappointment. And if she reacted like this, how must Sebastian be feeling?
    She put on her shoes, stood up stiffly, and climbed the ten-meter ladder to the main surface of the platform. Finding him should be no problem. He lacked her taste for minor masochism, and would be tucked in the warmest and most protected spot of the deck that still offered a broad-angled upward view.
    This morning she found him on the western side of the extractor, well shielded from the breeze. He had spread an air mattress there—no hardships for Sebastian—and lay on his back, staring upward.
    Janeed said, “Well?”
    Without looking at her, or seeming in any way to acknowledge her presence, he said softly, “Formation to the northeast. Triple layer, alto-cumulus over strato-cumulus over cumulo-nimbus, all moving in different directions. Wind vectors different at each height. We’ll see rain within the hour, I’ll make bet.”
    Jan didn’t want to bet, or look north-east or in any other direction. Clouds were clouds, and that was all. She moved to lean over him. “Not the weather , Sebastian. The interview .”
    “What about the interview?”
    “It’s less than an hour away. I’m nervous.”
    He sat up, slowly. Sebastian did everything slowly, so slowly that Janeed often felt ready to scream at him. Sometimes she did. It made no difference.
    “Jan, you’re nervous because you care.” His round moon face was smiling. “If we fail, we still have jobs.”
    Jobs that could be done as well or better by machinery. Jobs that needed so little of your skills and energy that someone like Sebastian could spend all his days happily dreaming and staring at the ever-changing cloud formations of the South Atlantic, without any question from their superiors. Dead-end jobs for all of them, while the Outer System was desperately short of people, even if