The Death of Sleep

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The single engaged engine of the empty spherical ore carrier thrummed hollowly through the hull. It set the decks and bulkheads of the personnel quarters vibrating at a frequency which at first, depending on one's mood, could be soothing or irritating. After four weeks aboard the Tau Ceti registered mining vesselNellie Mine, Lunzie Mespil had to think about it to remember that the hum was there at all. When she first boarded, as the newly hired doctor for the Descartes Mining Platform Number 6, the sound drove her halfway to distraction. There wasn't much to do except read and sleep and listen, or rather, feel the engine noise. Later, she discovered that the sound was conducive to easy sleep and relaxation, like being aboard a gently swaying monorail passenger carrier. Whether her fellow employees knew it or not, one of the chief reasons that the Descartes Mining Corporation had so few duels and mutinies on delivery runs was due to the peace-inducing hum of the engines.

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