WE WERE OUT ON A GOD-forsaken landing field on Mars, MacReidie and I, loading cargo aboard the Serenus. MacReidie was First Officer. I was Second. The stranger came walking up to us.
“Got a job?” he asked, looking at MacReidie.
Mac looked him over. He saw the same things I’d seen. He shook his head. “Not for you. The only thing we’re short on is stokers.”
You wouldn’t know. There’s no such thing as a stoker any more, with automatic ships. But the stranger knew what Mac meant.
Serenus had what they called an electronic drive. She had to run with an evacuated engine room. The leaking electricity would have broken any stray air down to ozone, which eats metal and rots lungs. So the engine room had the air pumped out of her, and the stokers who tended the dials and set the cathode attitude
