STARTING POINT: THE GHOST OF LYNUS HAYES

The ghost of

Dr. Lynus Hayes had haunted the corridors of the Exhault 5 space station for

1500 years. In that time he had broken several records; first confirmed

haunting of an artificial satellite; first confirmed spiritual visitation by a

Nobel laureate; first ghost to be given the Diana Spencer Award for

Contributions to Paranormal Science (awarded posthumously, of course).

Now, as the station was scheduled to be demolished, Dr. Lynus Hayes was making headlines

once again.

–

Seiko really hated the graveyard shift. What sense did it make to fix the enviro leak in

corridor 7-A when the entire station was about to be sold to Spatial Salvage Inc.

And then broken down for scrap?

No one needed Exhault 5 anymore. This space station was way too small to serve as a service station.

Oh sure 1500 years ago it was the main traffic hub of this planet less star.

The star had been discovered in Pre Astro times and was marked in the Union star catalogs as DENIS 1048-39 and known as Denis Star. This this extremely dim brown dwarf was of little importance but it was 13.2 Light-years from Sol and Earth and thus had to have a space station.

When they offered a laid back and easy job as Enviro maintenance engineer on an old space station it sounded like a good thing but it was too boring even for him.

Well in two month it would be all over. He would move to the new station, much closer to the local brown dwarf, big enough to serve to serve as a stopover for full size battle ships and the real big freighters making the core run from Petra and Blue Moon to Sol and vice versa.

The new station was a full Gigamon and that meant first class recreation and

entertainment.

But until the new station was completed, this one had to be maintained. Not that it served much of a purpose other than being a GalNet repeater relay.

The corridor was deserted, not that there was many personnel left in the first place, but at this time in the wee hours just past the ten hour, or past midnight OTT (Old Terran time) not even a janitor robot was active.

It was an old station but like everything Union, everything was spot less and sparkling clean. Space Station operations manual, section 61 spelled out in bureaucratic detail how much dust particles per cubic meter were acceptable.

This is why he was here at that ungodly hour with his faithful robotic tool box following him,

Gork the idiot had transferred the entire recycling load of deck 8 in the

sub distribution net that was not designed to take such a load.

The result, a busted line, and the smelly gob all over the shiny floor.

Well the robots had cleaned the mess earlier, but the line was still busted.

Fixing it could not wait, as the crew quarters a deck below had bathrooms that could not be used until the line was fixed.

Few things made spacers more irate than not being able to take a dump.

Well there it was, should be an easy fix.

In moments like this all by himself he of course remembered the stories of this place being haunted.

A genuine ghost was supposed to appear and cause all kinds of mischief. The ghost even had a name and a title Dr. Lynus Hayes.

Of course it was all bogus, perhaps a hoax of bored engineers using a field projection or a hologram.

As far as he knew there wasn’ t an Avatar enabled Galnet console on the entire station.

There, almost done.

Seiko suddenly felt someone watching him. It was something just outside of his field of view and he turned.

Seiko’s scream echoed through the empty corridor.

---

“Glad you came on such a short notice Mr. Sinclair.” The station manager greeted the tall blonde man that stepped through the air lock membrane.

“I was in the proverbial neighborhood Mr. Osborne. Earth is not too far after all and Earth is my home.”

“I guess everyone has to be home somewhere, Mr. Sinclair I assumed you came all the way from Pluribus. I must admit I never heard of Workgroup Olympus before, but I am sure glad the science council has such a department.”

The blonde man wore a black combination of pants and jacket and thin leather like gloves he said. “We are a very small department with very little public exposure. Mostly of course because there aren’t many taking the supernatural very serious or put much stock in, let’s say ghost stories.”

“I haven’t either Mr. Sinclair until I became the station manager of Exhault 5.

Our ghost is always has been sort of a mascot. Not that anyone really believes the apparition exists.”

“So what about the claim of a confirmed spiritual visitation?”

“A publicity stunt, at least that that is what we believed. It was a new story in the Union Herald almost 250 years ago. A visiting reporter claimed to have interviewed the ghost, this is how we know the ghosts name.”

The Station manager spread his arms, the reputation of the Union Herald in terms of being a serious magazine is, as you probably know not the best. The magazine even awarded the ghost with the Diana Spencer Award for contributions to paranormal science. Other than the whacko crowd that reads that rag no one has ever taken it serious. It provided us with visitors of that crowd that occasionally descended on the station. Station Managers before me always encouraged them as it was good business, for our two hotels.

Now I have never put much credence to that. I smiled and dismissed the occasional sightings and stories.

That all changed about six month ago. Mr. Sinclair the ghost is real and he kills. The last time only yesterday.”

“Yesterday? That was not in the report that summoned me.”

“Well technically happened this morning. One of my Environmental Maintenance Engineers spaced himself. He was found floating near the station apex. Security footage shows him running screaming through a corridor and entering an airlock without space suit and killing himself by cycling into space.”

“Of course I see a pattern here relating it to the other cases, but I must ask this. Why do you think it had to do with the ghost? While it is very rare nowadays, insanity is not entirely unknown and men have spaced themselves before.”

“Because the robotic toolbox recorded the last word of Seiko, the technician. He begs the ghost for mercy.”

“Alright Mr. Osborne, I am going to listen to that later. But first I like to talk to the

medics. A forensic examination of the body was made?”

“No, we only have a med bot, our doc has left a week ago...”