Have you ever noticed how many suggestions begin with "You can..." and end with "...off!" Others will start with "Why don't you..."? and go on to suggest that the recipient can perform some (usually) anatomically impossible act on himself.

As I am neither willing to procreate, nor a hermaphrodite, I accordingly ignored the suggestions hurled my way by my crew when I asked them whose turn it was to go outside and inspect for meteorite damage on the hull. As Captain of the salvage tug Envy, the best in the Solar System, I was above these menial tasks, and besides, I was prone to space sickness. Once I got out of our artificial gravity field, I was likely to throw up twice my body weight into the confines of a space suit. Not a pretty thought.

Once my small crew of two had quietened down a little, they started to use their brains, and a slow scramble to find the duty roster ensued. It was eventually found buried deep in the navigation computer, in the Saturn trajectory file. Neither of them admitted to such shoddy filing practices, but I noticed that Snodgrass's name was at the top of the list, so I gave him credit for chicanery. I also gave him his marching orders, and grumbling, he suited up. Grabbing a can of sealant, he made his way to the Envy's airlock.

"If I go sailing off into space you'll be sorry Boss. Who's going to hold this bucket of bolts together? Who's going to make sure Smithy gets us pointed in the right direction?"

"Who's going to get done for mutiny if he doesn't get out there?" I asked him. I caught another suggestion as he closed the airlock behind him, but as we had no sheep aboard, I decided to let it go.

"Keep an eye on him, Smithy," I ordered as I settled in front of the long range scanners, always on the lookout for salvage, though nothing had been reported in this sector recently. In fact we hadn't had an alert from Titan Base for days now, not that unusual, as space wasn't littered with salvage, but disappointing nevertheless.

Snotty's job wasn't vital to the survival of the Envy, as it was rare to come across a meteorite large enough to penetrate the double hull, but you only needed one to zero in on an existing hole in the outer hull, and it would be goodnight Benson and crew. It was a million to once chance, but it was being prepared for them that had kept me as Envy's captain for the past ten years.
Snotty gave us a running commentary over his suit radio as he worked his way around the hull. "Nothing forward of the injector ports. I'm heading back towards the antenna. Ah, there's one! About half a centimetre in diameter. Soon have that filled and harmless. OK, that's done; you can both stop holding your breath. Coming up on the antenna mounting now. Bloody hell!"

Smithy and I looked at each other in amazement. Snotty wasn't known for his flappability. During one of Titan's mega storms with the winds reaching over 300 kilometres per hour, he'd been heard to refer to it as a bit of a breeze.
"What is it, Snotty? A big one?"

"It's two centimetres across, right through the antenna dish."

Smithy went pale. If a monster that size had hit us square on, it would have gone through both hulls and out the other side. We'd have all been breathing vacuum. Usually what we referred to as meteorites were little more than space dust, mostly harmless.

Snotty continued. "It went through the dish and clipped the receiver array on the base. No wonder we haven't had any warnings from Titan. We've been cut off in our prime."

"Can you fix it?" I asked.

"If the emergency tool kit is still attached out here I can."

He kept up a monotonous barrage of desultory curses as he retraced his path to the main door, retrieved the tool kit and made his way back to the antenna. As he worked on filling the hole and repairing the damage to the receiver array, the monologue trailed off, and I began to relax.

"I hope we didn't miss a call for salvage," I remarked idly to Smithy. "I hate to think of the Ariadne picking up all the juicy contracts." The Ariadne was my bete noir, a rival salvage tug captained by a ruthless bloke called Jorgensen, who'd nabbed some good jobs from right under our noses.

"That's funny," from Snotty. "That can't have been a meteorite that did that. The hole came from the wrong side. If it had... I don't see how... it would have had to... Boss! We done been sabotaged. That hole wasn't pushed through by a meteorite. It was pulled through, could only have been done by a grapple beam. Bloody Jorgo! He must have done it days ago when we both went after that mining barge."
Fuming, I ordered Snotty to finish up out there so we could get back in touch with Titan Base to notify them of Jorgo's latest dirty trick.

Two hours later, I leaned back in my chair, with a sigh of relief.

"No problem. Jorgo hasn't been taking advantage of our lack of communications. In fact he's been stalled out near Juno with clogged intake valves. Seems like somebody sprayed sealant in the lot of them, and it will be days before they are cleared enough for him to get the Ariadne going again. What? What are you two sniggering at? That could have been us, stuck out there."

"No it couldn't, boss. We wouldn't clog up our own intake valves." It took a few seconds for the truth to hit me, and even while I was howling with laughter, I was trying to figure out how much of a bonus I owed Snotty for that trick. I figured a free life pass to Titan's only strip club would just about cover it.

© Sandy Parkinson April, 2005. Word count 1014