Transcriber's Note:
This etext was produced from Analog Science Fact & Fiction October 1960. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.
SATELLITE
SYSTEM
By H. B. FYFE
Fyfe's quite right ... there's nothing like a satellite system for acold storage arrangement. Keeps things handy, but out of the way....
Illustrated by Summers
aving released the netting of his bunk, George Tremont floatedhimself out. He ran his tongue around his mouth and grimaced.
"Wonder how long I slept ... feels like too long," he muttered. "Well,they would have called me."
The "cabin" was a ninety-degree wedge of a cylinder hardly eight feethigh. From one end of its outer arc across to the other was just overten feet, so that it had been necessary to bevel two corners of thehinged, three-by-seven bunk to clear the sides of the wedge. Lockersflattened the arc behind the bunk.
Tremont maneuvered himself into a vertical position in the eighteeninches between the bunk and a flat surface that cut off the point ofthe wedge. He stretched out an arm to remove towel and razor from oneof the lockers, then carefully folded the bunk upward and hooked itsecurely in place.
With room to turn now, he swung around and slid open a double door inthe flat surface, revealing a shaft three feet square whose center wasalso the theoretical intersection of his cabin walls. Tremont pulledhimself into the shaft. From "up" forward, light leaked through apartly open hatch, and he could hear a murmur of voices as hejackknifed in the opposite direction.
"At least two of them are up there," he grunted.
He wondered which of the other three cabins was occupied, meanwhilepulling himself along by the ladder rungs welded to one corner of theshaft. He reached a slightly wider section aft, which boastedentrances to two air locks, a spacesuit locker, a galley, and a head.He entered the last, noting the murmur of air-conditioning machineryon the other side of the bulkhead.
Tremont hooked a foot under a toehold to maintain his position facinga mirror. He plugged in his razor, turned on the exhauster in the slotbelow the mirror to keep the clippings out of his eyes, and began toshave. As the beard disappeared, he considered the deals he had cometo Centauri to put through.
"A funny business!" he told his image. "Dealing in ideas! Can youreally sell a man's thoughts?"
Beginning to work around his chin, he decided that it actually waspractical. Ideas, in fact, were almost the only kind of import worthbringing from Sol to Alpha Centauri. Large-scale shipments ofnecessities were handled by the Federated Governments. To carry evenprecious or power metals to Earth or to return with any type ofmanufactured luxury was simply too expensive in money, fuel, effort,and time.
On the other hand, traveling back every five years to buy up plans andlicenses for the latest inventions or processes—that was profitableenough to provide a good living for many a man in Tremont's business.All he needed were a number of reliable contacts and a good knowledgeof the needs of the three planets and four satellites colonized inthe Centaurian system.
Only three days earlier, Tremont had returned from his most re