She killed the engines allowing drift and gravity to pull the ship into the outer ring of the space station. She pulled together her equipment and costuming and entered the air dock.

Looking out the viewer she was struck again by the darkness of space, which is only broken by points of light. The space station was also dark with only enough light to keep visitors and staff from running into walls or each other. She followed the curve of the outer wall around to the main passageway to the inner ring. Entered the main terminal through the bioscanner ring, which validated her identity and her permission to be on the station.

This space station was referred to as Brachynexus Terminus V. Not terribly creative, but functional in that it referred to the station number and gave a rough orientation in the galaxy from Helios 1 and its third planet, ignominiously named “Earth.”

Sometimes she worked with the local replicators and holographic projectors, although in this case she was not familiar with their systems and since they seemed to be conserving power, she felt more secure carrying her gear. At least then she knew what she had to work with and she could generate enough energy from her pocket pack to manage her performances for the evening.

As she reached the hub, she found the requisite directioning personnel to tell her where to go and she proceeded down yet another dark corridor to the distraction center. These centers were designed to provide station personnel with entertainment and other means to distract themselves from being stuck in a space station millions of miles from the nearest inhabited planet. Since there is no such thing as being “off duty” when you are this far from the nearest colony, there were always station staff entering and leaving based on the current need for their services.

The first biped she encountered was female.

“Do you come here often?”

“No, it’s my first time on this station.”

“What would attract you to this bleak outpost?”

“Work.”

“They must pay you well. Do you offer androgenic tension relief?”

“No and no.

“Then what do you do?”

“You’ll see soon enough. Although a quick search of the universal tracker would give you the basics. Now could you please point me to the central emination point.”

“It’s right over there.

“Thanks.”

She set up her equipment and quickly changed her costume. Then she tapped into the ship’s communication center so that everyone would be able to hear her voice and anyone who was near a monitor would be able to see her, too.

“Hello everyone! My name is Desdemona and I will be your storyteller for this period.”

All around her glowed a ring of light that attracted them like moths. They walked, ran, stumbled and fell under her spell. She brought them to a different place and made them forget their dark circles.

Then she got in her ship and went to the next station. Spreading the light…

*******

With thanks to The Speculative Fiction Muse http://www.katfeete.net/writing/specfic.php

Story-A-Day Challenge is courtesy of Forward Motion for Writers http://www.fmwriters.com/

And to my writing partners, Mary C Sutton and D Anthony Brown danthonybrown.me for the support and the laughs.