“Seriously Tanner?” Maddison asked from the door.
“What?” Tanner turned to see the frown on her face.
A piano in space made little sense. It had to be a remnant from the early days of cheap launch solutions. As humans transitioned away from liquid rocket boosters and high dollar per pound launch platforms engineers routinely sent awkward objects into orbit. Just to prove they could.
This was before the first space tourist tragedy and long before the event that started the First Orbital War. The engineers must have assumed that a hunk of wood, some thin wired and 88 plastic keys would orbit a few times and then burn up in the atmosphere.
It would have, if the cargo container functioned properly.
Malfunctions, mistakes and miscalculations were now the foundation of Off Earth Salvage. Most of the debris created during the first orbital war was now collected and processed. The bigger pieces were stored on the moon at the Off Earth Maintenance and Repair headquarters. Smaller pieces were still here on Lagrange-4 but a piano didn’t belong anywhere.
“Tell me you’re going to turn that into a wardrobe or a wet bar.” Maddison stepped further into his room.
“No. I’m going to restore it and learn to play.” Tanner answered factually.
Maddison Holtz was the operations manager at Lagrange-4. Her job was to make sure everything ran smoothly and needless items didn’t clog up the works. A piano would definitely clog up the works.
She walked over to the keyboard and pressed a key. A dull thud came in response.
“And when you can play you’ll give concerts in the salvage bay to inspire the crew? Tanner this is a waste of time. There is a list of projects that need completing around this place and piano isn’t one of them.” She scolded her boss.
“Have you ever heard a live piano?” He asked.
“Of course. My parents had one in their living room when I was growing up. None of us played, but my mom always threatened to take lessons. It was just a waste of space that wound up collecting old coats and dust.” She replied.
“But that doesn’t mean you’ve heard one played live.” Tanner challenged.
“I can’t even count the times. Every grade school play and choir show was accompanied by a fumbling old piano player. It’s not that great.” Maddison was not going to fall for another persons piano fantasy.
“This is the first piano I have ever seen in person. I’ve never heard one played live. Isn’t there something magical about a human manually stringing together key strikes to create a melody? Even the mistakes must add to a memorable performance.” Tanner was not going to let her dampen his excitement.
Maddison didn’t consider Tanners history. She knew he was born in space and had never set foot on Earth, but little things like seeing or hearing a piano never even occurred to her. This was probably just another case of him looking for something just beyond his reach.
Looking around his quarters brought a smile to her face. The piano fit perfectly.
Tanner Nazca technically owned the entire rock parked at the Earth-Moon Lagrange-4 location. That allowed him to have the best quarters, and the only ones with windows. Not just any windows either, a long wall of windows that looked out towards the Earth and Moon.
In addition to the windows, there was a fireplace at one end of the main room. She had never seen a fire burning in space. Stories were that on the rare occasion they found wood or encountered a seam of coal on an asteroid Tanner would light something. Her predecessor told of walking in on Tanner sipping scotch and staring at a small, dying flame.
Around the room were antiques and artifacts. The untrained eye would say the area was cluttered with junk but it was definitely decorated. Tanner loved anything old from Earth and anything from the earliest days of space flight. The newest item in the room spanned an entire wall. It was the name section from the hull of the ship Tanner was born on. The vessel he crashed into a massive ore freighter when returning from deep space, alone.
That was probably why Tanner liked being alone. He was eight when the crew of the ship died and almost twenty two when he finally got the ship back to Earth orbit.
His eccentricities were to be understood and she needed to soften her tone.
“I think there was some wire rejected by one of the bots recently. It might be thin enough to repurpose as piano wire.” She offered.
“My hope is that all the wires are still inside. I haven’t done much research but if things go well I’ll fix a couple broken pieces and tune it up. It was well secured in its’ container so the issue is age, not impact.” Tanner was overly optimistic.
“Well you’re going to be the first one looking at most of the videos on this topic. You’ll probably need to fetch the data from Earth. Just be patient and don’t break anything while you wait for it to come across.” She reminded him how remote they really were.
“And if things frustrate me I can just burn it.” He shrugged.
“I’ve never seen an open flame in space.” Maddison didn’t really care but couldn’t stop herself from commenting.
“Then I’ll let you know and we can sip scotch and watch it burn.” Tanner nodded like it was a plan.
Maddison wasn’t sure what to do next. It was time to leave and Tanner was ignoring her while arranging things around the piano. Good-bye was simple, but she didn’t want to go. Watching him work on something he was deeply interested in with no regard for anyone else was mesmerizing.
When was the last time she let herself get lost in work? But now was not a good time to get lost in her thoughts.
“A final word of caution, it takes years to learn piano. Just promise you won’t skip revenue opportunities to find pieces for this project. We’re both trying to pay down debt. Back on Earth you’ll be able to see and hear piano’s almost any time you want.” She exaggerated the prevalence of live music.
“Actually it would be a cool wet bar.” Tanner smiled.
“And not hearing one would give you even more motivation to pay down your debt and get back to Earth.” She added.
“There is nothing that could give me more motivation to get back to Earth.” Tanner answered with a cold, serious tone.
“I know how you feel.” She answered with equal coldness.
Maddison knew better than to suggest someone with a heavy debt load needed more incentive to work. She regretted her word choice. The laws preventing anyone with a debt from returning to Earth made sense when they were enacted, but now almost seventy five years later they were just a form of punishment for those that were unlucky.
Tanner turned and walked away from the piano. At the windows he stopped and stared out at the blue orb floating in the distance. Times like this made the windows a curse more than a luxury.
Maddison could turn and walk into the tunnels of Legrange-4 and spend weeks without getting a glimpse of Earth. Tanner saw it when he woke and when he went to sleep. It was always there looming over him and taunting him. Right there but just out of reach.
“Sorry for that. Neither of us needs more motivation to pay off our debts. Which is a good reminder that I have work to do. I’ll see you at the contract meeting later today.” Maddison apologized, but reminded Tanner that he wasn’t alone in his struggle.
“See you at the meeting.” Tanner dismissed her with a wave of his hand.
Pausing to look at the instrument against the wall Maddison wondered how it was so easy to move materials between Earth and space but moving people was treated like a privilege. Clearly something was missing with the way humans were allowed to move between Earth and space. Unfortunately it was not a problem with parts and components that they could replace. It required people skills and caring about your fellow man.
by K. D. McAdams copyright 2018
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