Keystones: Altered Destinies by Alexander McKinney Page B

cases the injured people were just collateral damage. You have clients bringing in animals exhibiting various degrees of Keystone traits. Just outside your office I was attacked by a stray dog who turned out to be a Keystone.” As Deklan finished speaking, his vague surmises came together, and he saw the problem.
    Susan rotated her hand in a get-to-the-point gesture. “Yes?”
    “I came here to confirm that the dog that attacked me was a Keystone and not just a mongrel with a nasty set of bacteria in its mouth.”
    “Why?”
    “There are approximately two billion people on the planet, right? How many animals are there?”
    Susan looked perplexed by his abrupt line of questioning. “What?” she asked.
    “How many animals are there? What I’ve seen and heard today proves that we’re not the only species to have developed Keystones. In fact, from the conversations I’ve overheard, a plethora of different species are exhibiting Keystone traits.”
    Susan pulled a face and drummed her ring finger on a table before asking, “Are you suggesting that humanity is in danger from non-human Keystones?”
    “Yes. I think that things are about to get very ugly.”
    “What are you going to do?”
    “The only sensible thing. I’m going to take a holiday.”
    Susan blinked rapidly, her eyelids rivaling a hummingbird’s wings. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I think that either you segued into another conversation or had a stroke in mid-sentence.”
    “A holiday to the Terra Rings. We’re the most populous species up there. We’ll have the advantage.”
    “What if you’re wrong?”
    “Then I’ll have visited the Terra Rings, which is something I’ve always wanted to do anyways.”

The Terra Rings

    Jonny had finished his video of the rat scurrying across the Elevator’s glass exterior and enjoyed the rest of his trip after having been paid an exorbitant amount of money for very little work. The Elevator finally reached the space-side terminal, where he disembarked along with his fellow passengers.
    Space-side terminals were always impressive. After you stepped out of the Elevator, an entire wall of glass gave you a perfect view of the spinning Terra Rings. They were massive on a scale impossible to imagine for someone who’d never been off-planet. They were also a bit irregular. People imagined them as smooth bands spinning in space. The second part was true, but countless shuttle bays, shipyards, and other irregularities dotted their planes.
    Several travelers peeled off and headed toward a tour station; others bee-lined for the massive window that stared out into space. It was always easy to identify the tourists. They were the ones who were clumsy in zero gravity. Jonny overheard the tour introduction:
    Like the space bridge itself, the docking station is in geostationary orbit, approximately thirty-six thousand kilometers above the surface of the Earth, an orbit that is only possible along the Equator. However, the Terra Rings revolve around the Earth. Three concentric bands make between six and seven revolutions of the planet on a daily basis in order to simulate standard gravity. Constructed before the advent of the Doppler-Bubble Drive, the Terra Rings started their existence as an outpost on the end of one space bridge that had been built for the express purpose of capturing near-Earth asteroids and mining their raw materials. Such pursuits became more profitable due to nearly limitless solar energy and the absence of environmental regulations. People migrated to space en masse for the manufacturing jobs created during this process. . . .
    The prerecorded voice dropped off as Jonny moved farther away, gliding from handhold to handhold.
    He lived on Ring Two and was most interested in determining when his section would pass this docking station so that he could get home. He scanned the departure information. He was in luck. The next rotation meant that passing onto Ring Two near his home would be feasible