
In the quiet spin of a wheel‑shaped orbital platform, Lieutenant Alice Britton watches the Earth below while contending with an unexpected complication: she is pregnant. Trained as a radar technician, she has become an essential part of the station’s daily rhythm, yet the medical protocols of the 21st‑century space program never imagined a birth among the stars. The low‑gravity environment eases her physical strain, but the lack of obstetric equipment turns each contraction into a calculated risk.
When a tiny meteor pierces the hull, a sudden depressurization triggers labor far earlier than expected. With limited communication windows to Earth and a commander who doubts the safety of a rocket return, Alice must decide whether to stay aboard and trust the station’s makeshift care or gamble on a perilous descent. The clock ticks as the crew scrambles to keep her and her unborn child alive in the unforgiving vacuum.
Language
en
Duration
~16 minutes (15K characters)
Publisher of text edition
Project Gutenberg
Credits
Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
Release date
2019-01-20
Rights
Public domain in the USA.

1927–1987
A prolific mid-century science fiction and fantasy writer, he became especially well known for the Lord Darcy stories, where detective fiction meets an alternate world shaped by magic. He also wrote heavily for the pulp magazines of the 1950s and 1960s and collaborated with other major SF writers.
View all books
by Randall Garrett

by Randall Garrett

by Randall Garrett

by Randall Garrett

by Randall Garrett, Laurence M. Janifer

by Randall Garrett

by Randall Garrett, Laurence M. Janifer

by Randall Garrett