Moon for a few more minutes. I need to collect myself. My heart is racing, and I have blood on my hands. Literally. And it’s on the console and on the chair and in the cockpit itself.
I grin like a nutball myself. I haven’t felt this alive in years. Which is probably good, considering my future is filled with lawyers and police interviews and psychologists and more tests than I want to think about.
Not that I mind. What this means is that I’m done, and I will still get my pay raises. I get to serve out my five years without Sectioning. I’ll probably end up teaching emergency procedures or how to tell one nutcase from another (I’ll lie) or maybe I’ll become a consultant on improving regulations so that no one like Iva can slip through again.
Then I slide down in my chair. Who am I kidding? I’m not going to do any of that stuff. I’m not a consulting kinda guy because it means I’ll have to leave the station.
After the required post-incident time off, I’ll be right back here, fifteen minutes late every single day, steering ships and dealing with dingdongs like LaDonna.
And I’ll be grateful for it.
Because I don’t mind the regulations. I rather like them. They keep us safe.
And I’m all about safety—especially my own.
“ Safety Tests” by Kristine Kathryn Rusch was first published in Edge of Infinity, edited by Jonathan Strahan, Solaris, 2012.
About the Author
International bestselling writer Kristine Kathryn Rusch has won two Hugo awards, a World Fantasy Award, and six Asimov’s Readers Choice Awards. Her latest science fiction novel is Skirmishes , a Diving Universe novel. For more information about her work, please go to kristinekathrynrusch.com.
If you liked “Safety Tests,” you might like these works by Kristine Kathryn Rusch:
The Disappeared
Diving into the Wreck
Echea
Homecoming
Moments
I grin like a nutball myself. I haven’t felt this alive in years. Which is probably good, considering my future is filled with lawyers and police interviews and psychologists and more tests than I want to think about.
Not that I mind. What this means is that I’m done, and I will still get my pay raises. I get to serve out my five years without Sectioning. I’ll probably end up teaching emergency procedures or how to tell one nutcase from another (I’ll lie) or maybe I’ll become a consultant on improving regulations so that no one like Iva can slip through again.
Then I slide down in my chair. Who am I kidding? I’m not going to do any of that stuff. I’m not a consulting kinda guy because it means I’ll have to leave the station.
After the required post-incident time off, I’ll be right back here, fifteen minutes late every single day, steering ships and dealing with dingdongs like LaDonna.
And I’ll be grateful for it.
Because I don’t mind the regulations. I rather like them. They keep us safe.
And I’m all about safety—especially my own.
“ Safety Tests” by Kristine Kathryn Rusch was first published in Edge of Infinity, edited by Jonathan Strahan, Solaris, 2012.
About the Author
International bestselling writer Kristine Kathryn Rusch has won two Hugo awards, a World Fantasy Award, and six Asimov’s Readers Choice Awards. Her latest science fiction novel is Skirmishes , a Diving Universe novel. For more information about her work, please go to kristinekathrynrusch.com.
If you liked “Safety Tests,” you might like these works by Kristine Kathryn Rusch:
The Disappeared
Diving into the Wreck
Echea
Homecoming
Moments
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