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    Safety Tests
    Safety Tests
    Safety Tests
    Ebook42 pages25 minutes

    Safety Tests

    By Kristine Kathryn Rusch

    5/5

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    About this ebook

    Devlin trudges through his job on the space station waiting for retirement and hoping he won't die first. A test pilot with Licensing and Regulation, he makes sure only the most qualified pilots make it to the test flight, let alone pass it. But sometimes, even the most jaded tester misses something. And the difference between life and death on a space station? Missing nothing. Nothing at all.

    "Rusch takes a fairly mundane scenario and makes a most readable story. Through the well-observed downbeat and wry narrative voice of a spacepilot licence examiner, we look at some of the issues in making a life out there in the solar system."

    —Best SF

    "Safety Tests" by Kristine Kathryn Rusch puts the mundane role of the driver's test instructor in space, increasing the danger and thus increasing the excitement. I had no clue where this story was going to go but was happy to go on the ride. In the end Rusch surprises! (A)

    —Stainless Steel Droppings

    "Kristine Kathryn Rusch has one of the most pleasant and easily readable styles in the sf field today. 'Safety Tests' is no exception…it's a fun, quick read."

    —Tangent Online

    "Devlin's narrative is deeply toned with entertaining cynicism. Rusch pulls off a tough one, making the license tester [we've all met this guy] sympathetic, the regulations [stoopid rules] make sense, and the story enjoyable."

    —Locus

    "Kristine Kathryn Rusch's grimly comic 'Safety Tests' is all about how tremendously dangerous flying a spaceship is."

    —The Idea Refinery

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherWMG Publishing
    Release dateJun 10, 2019
    ISBN9781393456148
    Safety Tests
    Author

    Kristine Kathryn Rusch

    New York Times bestselling author Kristine Kathryn Rusch writes in almost every genre. Generally, she uses her real name (Rusch) for most of her writing. She publishes bestselling science fiction and fantasy, award-winning mysteries, acclaimed mainstream fiction, controversial nonfiction, and the occasional romance. Her novels have made bestseller lists around the world and her short fiction has appeared in eighteen best of the year collections. She has won more than twenty-five awards for her fiction, including the Hugo, Le Prix Imaginales, the Asimov's Readers Choice award, and the Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine Readers Choice Award.   

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      Book preview

      Safety Tests - Kristine Kathryn Rusch

      Safety Tests

      SAFETY TESTS

      KRISTINE KATHRYN RUSCH

      WMG Publishing

      CONTENTS

      Safety Tests

      Newsletter sign-up

      Also by Kristine Kathryn Rusch

      About the Author

      SAFETY TESTS

      Fifteen minutes late, I’m always fifteen minutes late, even though I live not six meters from the office. The nearest door is humble enough, with its cryptic sign: L&R: Employees Only.

      L&R—Licensing and Regulation. Sounds so innocuous, yet everyone is afraid of us.

      With good reason I suppose.

      We’re in the main part of the space station, although intuitively, you’d expect us to be on our own little platform along with our ships. I suspect that back in the days before anyone knew how dangerous L&R could be, the office was near the ships, which were probably docked not too far from here.

      Now we all know that one pilot misstep could destroy an entire section of the station, so the test ships have their own docking platform far away from here. And L&R remains in its original location partly because it’s safer here, and safety is very, very important.

      I step into the office, and take a deep whiff of the bad-coffee smell of the place. It’s almost like home, if a bland white (okay, gray) office with industrial chairs can be home. I say hello to Connie, and put my bag on the back of my chair in the actual office section.

      Connie doesn’t say hello. She never says hello. Just once I’d like a Nice to see you, Dev or a You’re late again, Devlin, or maybe even a three-finger wave. Or a grunt. I’d be shocked if I ever got a grunt.

      Today she’s leaning over the counter, dealing with whatever stupidity has walked into the waiting room. There’s a lot of stupidity here, which should worry people, since we’re the last stop between them and sheer disaster. But most people never come to our little bureaucracy. They think it’s better to have someone else operate space-faring vehicles. Which, considering the stupidity that walks through our door, stupidity that has already had one year of classwork, five written tests (minimum score: 80%), 500 hours simulation, 300 hours hands-on training with an instructor, and one solo journey that consists mostly of leaving the space station’s test bay, circling the instruction area, returning to the bay, and landing correctly at the same dock the ship had vacated probably ten minutes before, is probably good.

      And that’s just for the student license, the one that allows practice flights solo in areas inhabited by other spacecraft.

      No automation here. There’s too much

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