Editing A Midnight Clear
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''Done''.<br> | ''Done''.<br> | ||
Pausing only to double check the cupholder did indeed open and fold flat beneath the left armrest as designed, I quit the bridge and turned right toward Rick’s botany bay. The next job would be trickier: swapping out the filter pump for a newly refurbished one required fiddling with wiring as well as underwater hoses and the pump itself wasn’t exactly what you’d call silent. Its absence for the time it took to swap it out might be noticed by someone accustomed to its murmur in the background. Nevertheless, I had to try.<br> | Pausing only to double check the cupholder did indeed open and fold flat beneath the left armrest as designed, I quit the bridge and turned right toward Rick’s botany bay. The next job would be trickier: swapping out the filter pump for a newly refurbished one required fiddling with wiring as well as underwater hoses and the pump itself wasn’t exactly what you’d call silent. Its absence for the time it took to swap it out might be noticed by someone accustomed to its murmur in the background. Nevertheless, I had to try.<br> | ||
| − | I laid everything I needed on the deck beside his carp tank, flipped the switch on the old pump and got to work. I was fortunate that it was a model that simply slung over the side of the tank. Working my drill across the container from his bunk would have given the game away. I disconnected the power source and got busy. I worked the old hoses free from their clamps and inspected them, found one in need of replacement and grabbed it from the spread of tools and parts at my knee. On it went onto the new pump and into the drink the assembly went. I reattached the hoses, clamped them in place, and grinned as the carp nibbled on my fingers for food. I waved them away with my hand and kept working, up to my elbows in water. Three hoses later, I pulled out of the tank dripping and dried off with the towel I’d packed in my bag to keep my tools from clanking. Two minutes later the new pump was connected to the power and humming quietly away, and I | + | I laid everything I needed on the deck beside his carp tank, flipped the switch on the old pump and got to work. I was fortunate that it was a model that simply slung over the side of the tank. Working my drill across the container from his bunk would have given the game away. I disconnected the power source and got busy. I worked the old hoses free from their clamps and inspected them, found one in need of replacement and grabbed it from the spread of tools and parts at my knee. On it went onto the new pump and into the drink the assembly went. I reattached the hoses, clamped them in place, and grinned as the carp nibbled on my fingers for food. I waved them away with my hand and kept working, up to my elbows in water. Three hoses later, I pulled out of the tank dripping and dried off with the towel I’d packed in my bag to keep my tools from clanking. Two minutes later the new pump was connected to the power and humming quietly away, and I sipped aft for the med lab.<br> |
| − | Arden wasn’t pulling an all-nighter at his terminal and that suited me just fine. I closed the door to the | + | Arden wasn’t pulling an all-nighter at his terminal and that suited me just fine. I closed the door to the lounge, the better to hide the noise, and pulled the last item out of my bag. I’d noticed that Arden habitually took notes during his exams and I’d always thought he needed a more convenient method to have his data pad at the ready while keeping his hands free. And like a cup holder for a pilot’s coffee, I’d devised a rig to hold his data pad securely to the side of the exam bed that would fold out of the way when it wasn’t needed. It didn’t take much, being nothing but a few lengths of rolled steel, some joints and hinges, a clamp at top and bottom. Child’s play with an erector set. Still, installation would take more than four screws with a cordless drill. I had to be certain it wouldn’t interfere with the bed’s workings when deployed or folded, and the height and angle when in use had to be geared for a man standing at six feet-plus, not a barefoot woman who barely cleared five.<br> |
Following the adage to measure twice and cut once, I got my dimensions, made my marks, and took up my drill. Once I dropped a screw and had to crawl around on hands and knees to look for it, my flashlight gripped in my teeth. Twice I had to shut everything down and duck behind the bed as someone stirred in the corridor outside. I saw by my watch that I’d already tipped over into Christmas proper but reasoned it wasn’t Christmas until everyone woke up, so I was still in the clear. I got the last screw tightened, oiled the hinges and the joints so it would work flawlessly and silently, and swept up the metal shavings with a tack rag. Tools stowed, bag slung, I got out of there and back to my workshop with no one the wiser. <br> | Following the adage to measure twice and cut once, I got my dimensions, made my marks, and took up my drill. Once I dropped a screw and had to crawl around on hands and knees to look for it, my flashlight gripped in my teeth. Twice I had to shut everything down and duck behind the bed as someone stirred in the corridor outside. I saw by my watch that I’d already tipped over into Christmas proper but reasoned it wasn’t Christmas until everyone woke up, so I was still in the clear. I got the last screw tightened, oiled the hinges and the joints so it would work flawlessly and silently, and swept up the metal shavings with a tack rag. Tools stowed, bag slung, I got out of there and back to my workshop with no one the wiser. <br> | ||
My workshop lay silent, lit by the overheads on dim, and I put away my bag with the satisfaction of having pulled off a fast one. It had taken some planning and not a little guile to fabricate everyone’s gifts in defiance of Arden’s orders to avoid working so I could heal. It was a challenge finding the materials I needed from the scrap we carried, especially when it came to the pump, without giving away what I was doing. I was fortunate that just about everything was made of components that didn’t immediately betray their function and aside from some minor shaping and drilling, it was mostly a matter of screwing them together in the right order. The hardest part was keeping Joshua from observing me for more than ten minutes at a time, lest he divine what I was doing, and only tomorrow could tell me how successful I’d been.<br> | My workshop lay silent, lit by the overheads on dim, and I put away my bag with the satisfaction of having pulled off a fast one. It had taken some planning and not a little guile to fabricate everyone’s gifts in defiance of Arden’s orders to avoid working so I could heal. It was a challenge finding the materials I needed from the scrap we carried, especially when it came to the pump, without giving away what I was doing. I was fortunate that just about everything was made of components that didn’t immediately betray their function and aside from some minor shaping and drilling, it was mostly a matter of screwing them together in the right order. The hardest part was keeping Joshua from observing me for more than ten minutes at a time, lest he divine what I was doing, and only tomorrow could tell me how successful I’d been.<br> | ||
