voice- un: brightness_kholin

[veristitalian]

People have been vanishing. Not many, not often, not at a volume where we've noticed quickly, but a small number of the ones who initially arrived here have simply disappeared. They've been vanishing since before the doors into space opened, and at enough of a rate that we'd notice the diminishing number of suits if they were all falling off the station into the black.

Initially I had assumed it must be because this place is dangerous. If that were the case we should be tripping over the corpses by now. We clearly aren't.

Comments

[veristitalian]

The way the sun can burn your skin, except worse. More extensive.

Where is it coming from out here, since we don't have sunlight? What creates it, and what do we do about it?

[donkeyballs]

Well, that's the thing. We do got some sunlight - but even inside, the star in this system is sendin' out invisible radiation all the time. Visible light only makes up a part of it.

Now - it's hard to tell, but the planet below has got water, so there's probably a magnetic field around it - and hopefully, that means, around us, too - so that'll keep some of the worst of the radiation out. Think of it - uh - like an invisible shield, that envelops the planet in almost a tear-drop shape.

[ He paused, looked a little helpless. ]

I don't know how to explain it in a way that'll make sense. But generally speakin', shieldin' is the most important. Water's the best, and most stations or ships will have a room in 'em that's got thick lead walls or surrounded by a water tank, for solar flares. That's when a star kicks up a lot more energy than it would otherwise. You can actually see 'em, with a good enough telescope.

[veristitalian]

[Jasnah reaches up and pinches the bridge of her nose, because that's just one more thing to add to a long list of preoccupations.

She needs a minute to process all that.]

I'll add it to the list.

[Maybe one day she'll be able to stop adapting rapidly to life as an astronaut, and this will feel easy.]

Do our medics know anything about treating it?

[donkeyballs]

Radiation meds are pretty common, where I'm from - even a really hard dose of nuclear radiation is somethin' you can survive, long as you get the meds in time - though you ain't havin' any children, after.

[veristitalian]

Well, it would be idiotic to risk getting pregnant in a place like this.

[Says Jasnah, with her customary empathy for the human need for connection.]

So as long as we can find the medicine.

[donkeyballs]

It ain't a good idea in space, regardless. Even Belters generally try to get down a gravity well.

[ His is completely said with empathy. Miscarriages go up dramatically, outside of Earth's gravity. He knows from experience. ]

Yeah. As long as we find it. Or find a way to synthesise it.

[veristitalian]

Do you think the food replicators can be reprogrammed?

[She asks, another subject she knows relatively little about.]