Open Space: A Collection
The one-mile diameter by five-mile length of the Open Space cylindrical space-habitat is a part of a larger transportation system called the Star Way.
The Star Way stretches for 4.3 light-years from Earth to the Centauri System and along it, huge laser-powered light-sails transport people and goods.
At a distance of 100 AU from each other, the habitats support the beam relay stations which maintain the laser beams generated near the stars of the two systems.
The habitats also support families with young kids who find adventure in such a life.
Open Space: A Collection is set in the future (2390s) and is a collection of 8 short stories set in the Future Chron Universe.
The volume contains the following short stories:
Open Space
Who listens to kids? No one.
But on a space habitat the rules all change. And the kids might be the first to know.
Follow the gang of four as they discover an anomaly that could spell disaster for the habitat, if no one listens.
The Old World
After their adventure with the gravitational eddy Willis and the others had the opportunity to travel from their space habitat to Earth to tell their story.
There they were to make the rounds of media interviews and do some sightseeing. But there were those that didn't want any more publicity over the incident because they knew it hadn't been as accidental as people thought.
The kids were not alright.
Insurrect
Life in a space habitat has one fundamental difference from life on a planet. Each and every one of the habitat's inhabitants has the power to disrupt the lives of the others.
The simplest failure to obey the rules can lead to major ramifications and misunderstandings.
But an ideological effort to change the rules without regard to the reality of life in a habitat can have even worse consequences.
Second Beam
We, without thought, turn over more and more control of our lives to machine AI.
And machine AI does the thinking for us.
But what if it also suffers from the same failings of character that we do?
After all we make machines in our image.
All For One
No good deed goes unpunished.
This Willis and the others learn when their math teacher, for an unknown reason, insisted on making them an example to the rest of the class.
They would have to find out why they were targeted, what they had done, and still pass the class.
One For All
The kids take up flying lessons. But these lessons aren't like planet-based flying where gravity rules. At the center of the spinning habitat there is no gravity and flying is personal as each one spreads his own wings in the light air a half mile up from the spinning floor of the habitat.
Sometimes it only takes a moment to make a choice that can change many lives. But that doesn't make the choice easy.
When an accident happens, that moment arrives, what choice will one of the kids make?
And two others:
Shotgun
Allison
Hard Science Fiction - Old School.
