Things had gone more smoothly than usual this morning, and Lou Corlin got down to the station with almost half an hour to spare. Since there wasn’t really any use sitting around the front office waiting for Brenda to wind up her air shift, he decided to drop in on an old friend in the robotics shop.
Spencer Dawes was hard at work on a basic robotic arm, small enough that it could be brought down here instead of needing to be repaired in situ. Parts were arranged across the workbench, presumably in the order they had been removed.
But Ken Redmond was always adamant about keeping an orderly workspace as the best way of avoiding stupid mistakes. More than once the Chief of Engineering had bawled people out for returning tool boxes in disarray, especially if they also needed cleaning.
Of course he had good reason to, especially with the team that brought their tools back after an EVA in three buckets and coated with moondust. That stuff’s dangerous.
As Lou approached, Spence looked up from his work. “What brings you down here so early?”
“Just one of those days when things actually go right for a change. Hit every airlock when it was ready, that sort of thing.” Lou made a point of looking at the clock on the far wall. “So I figured I’d see how things are going down here.”
“Pretty well, all things told. How much are you doing on the programming side of things any more?”
“Not as much as I’d really like, but right now Steffi’s got me doing hardware troubleshooting for help desk. It’s always interesting, mostly because of how we’re having to keep stuff running that we’d just replace if things were more normal.”
“Tell me about it.” Spence gestured to the disassembled robot. “I’ve got half a dozen pieces that would normally be replaced, but we have only so many spares, so it’s going to be a repair job.” He paused, then looked over his shoulder in the direction of the Engineering office. “By the way, I hear Ken Redmond’s getting the new main board ready to be installed at the station.”
“Then I’d better get over there, just in case he wants me helping.”