Saturn Run

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From ten kilometers out, the Sky Survey Observatory looked like an oversized beer can. Yellow-white sunlight glittered from the can’s outward side, while the other half was a shifting fun house reflection of the pale blues and pearly cloud streaks of the earth, a thousand kilometers below.

The can was not quite alone: an egg-shaped service module, human-sized, encrusted with insectile appendages, ports, windows, and cameras, was closing in on it. Storage lockers and canisters surrounded the base of the egg. Had there been any air around it, and anything with ears, the faint twang of country music might have been heard vibrating through its ice-white walls: “Oh, my ATV is a hustlin’ on down the line, and them tofu critters are looking mighty fine….”

The handyman was making a house call.

The Sky Survey Observatory carried four telescopes: the Big Eye, the Medium Eye, the Small Eye, and Chuck’s Eye, the latter unofficially named after a congressman who slipped the funding into a veto-proof Social Security bill. The scopes stared outward, assisted by particle and radiation detectors, looking for interesting stuff.

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