Walking the Plank, AD 2257
By Dave Mollett
Contrary to popular opinion, the possibilities of love in a zero-g environment have not yet been exhausted. Take the case of Major Melissa Husserl, for example. She had, on her first assignment, been found guilty by the rest of the crew of the scout ship Eurydike of something or other (details restricted), and it was decided that she must walk the plank. Thus was she stripped, dressed in one of those transparent spacesuits so beloved of pleasure cruisers, and ceremoniously thrown out the back of the ship, with nothing but a mass of lifelines attached to her behind. Ah, those tubes and wires wrapping themselves around her writhing figure in the zero-g, Major Husserl powerless to stop her tumbling this way and that, the ship drifting forwards to accentuate her fall, so graceful against that starry backdrop, while the crew gazed at the viewscreen for the entire evening…