Part 7a
Hi Takeshi! It’s been a while…
I know we haven’t spoken since graduation… I hope you still recognize me with short hair, too. I know it was prettier before, but now that I’ve got an actual job I’ve got to keep it practical.
There’s a ton of work to do, too. Did you ever mine sulfur dioxide? Nasty stuff. But super useful. I think the alliance just shipped a bunch of it to AP on the end of the transit window. But even when the asteroids get close, Greytower is still like an AU away. But there’s a lot of traffic now that the window is closing. The heavy transports are something to see. It drives me nuts just to think how many kilotons of hydrogen goes into each ship to go from one rock to another. Out here the distances are just so… big. And the sun is so tiny. I can’t explain it, but it just feels too cold and distant whenever the sun is out. And the days are really quick, and they don’t match up to the clock like they do at home. But, I guess I got used to that after a few weeks.
Oh! And I met Christina yesterday! She got up here on the last shuttles that made the window. She said she saw you a few weeks ago. Said you already found work. That’s pretty impressive. All our pod-mates that I’ve talked to are either up in the alliance rocks or still looking for something to do. Finding a mining gig that actually pays on AP is tough. But I always thought you’d be the one to quietly get the best jobs, even before we went into the academy.
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Anyway, congrats on landing that! She just mentioned it and that got me thinking about you and how things used to be back in the hab and even in the academy. Everything was so different. So I had to give you a call. I know we promised to keep in touch, but I guess I’ve been too busy, and you’ve been, too, probably. It’s just not the same as just going together to class or hitting the gym together.
What else can I tell you? The people are generally nice. Not very easy to connect with, maybe because I’m not formally in the alliance. They have this whole system for getting in, I don’t know, it’s complicated. And there are those who are the ‘originals’ and then there’s everyone else in the alliance, and then the new arrivals are like, only here to work, and that’s it. I feel bad for Christina, she only just got here and still needs to figure it out and find someone who needs another pair of hands. I guess I’m lucky, coming here right out of the academy. You know what? It’s not luck. I was smart to get out. You all should have come with me at the start of the year. You work hard, you make good choices, you get to succeed. According to Teacher, anyway.
But she’ll be fine, eventually. There’s enough work and plenty to mine. Greytower is pretty big, but you still always get a feeling like the horizon is way too close. The habitat I’m in is for newcomers only, so you get to meet a lot of people from AP and from other rocks, just folks looking to get some minerals out and maybe make a profit. It feels weird, though, like everyone here is just temporary, and you never know who’s going to leave and who’s going to stay. Lots have gone in the last couple of months, but I think even more people showed up. There was a shipment of food, too. I was getting worried when it slowly got more and more expensive to eat the stock the alliance was producing locally. Then a couple of kilotons arrived, or at least that’s what Christina said she heard at the spaceport. It’s cheaper now. And you get it wrapped in the same plastic with the PC sigill on it like we had back home. What they grow here doesn’t look so different, but it doesn’t taste the same. I don’t know.
I can’t believe it’s almost Landing Day again. I wonder if they celebrate it here, too. I mean, I think we have a holiday on the calendar like everywhere else, I just wonder what the hab would look like. I’ll keep you posted.
And look, I know it’s hard to just talk to the camera like this, finding what to say, after all this time… I know, I know, it’s like, I dunno, like what else can I say? But I really do want to hear from you. You know, if you have time. No pressure. I hope you’re doing good. Ok, I’ll talk to you soon. Bye.
