You’ve probably seen me around the station. I’m Taku Amankwa, the Utilities Operations Manager. My friends joke that I’m a lot shorter than my title. I wear one of the forest green uniforms that adorn lots of the Astropolis staff. It tones with my skin colour and looks especially good on me. One of my responsibilities is for the water treatment plant where we check that no polluting substances go back into the main water supply for the habitat. Over the past two months what I lovingly call the Great Effluent Project has been under way.

In this month’s station newsletter I thought I should update you on what’s been happening.

Several questions have been on the minds of the thousands of Astropolis inhabitants: Why do they keep closing the side entrance to the Central Plaza Complex while someone climbs down the manholes in the corridor? Why are there pipes and cables everywhere trying to trip us all up? How many people have fallen down open access hatches, never to be seen again? All good questions, to which I didn’t really have any good answers.

As you may know, Astropolis has been in Earth orbit for just over 200 years, and while we’re pretty good at maintenance there comes a time when things just have to be replaced. The basic plan was to divert the effluent streams coming from the oldest units of the station away from the smelly tanks that have been at one end of Central since it was first constructed. They will instead be piped around to my posh new green tanks at the other end. Hence, the cross-pumping and open service hatches around the perimeter. It’s quite an ingenious plan, making use of the gravity fields in each section to allow the water to flow up, across and down without the need for pumps. As far as the water knows, it will just be falling all the way. Of course, nothing ever goes smoothly, as many people noticed as they passed by the utilities service section last week.

On Wednesday morning, it was discovered that the effluent pipes were blocked and effluent was backing up towards the main commercial sector. The closure of all businesses seemed imminent. This was especially bad news for the stasis booths where several dozen transient passengers were in hibernation awaiting trans-shipment. They would not be happy to be woken up still aboard Astropolis. Station engineers and contract workers started pulling up service hatches and setting up temporary pumps. Hoses were reeled out and pipe work lain. In a flurry of activity bollards, cones and barriers were put in place while warning tape was wrapped around anything that didn’t move. At one point, the plaza in front of the utilities plant was flooded ankle deep in dirty water. A hose popped off a pump and created a spectacular effluent fountain 3 metres high. Two brave engineering chaps waded in to put things to rights. 

During all this chaos, while about a dozen assorted engineers and contract workers milled about and I stood watch over the collapse of my effluent empire (sorry, I’m getting a bit Shakespearean), a valiant figure appeared. It was an event that proved the spirit of the old Pony Express still lives on a thousand years later (yes, I saw that new historical drama last month too). Pushing through bollards and cones, stepping over tape and barriers, squeezing past an electric cart, wading through effluent and narrowly avoiding a gaping manhole, a single package clasped in her hand – yes, it was the post lady. She made it to the neighbouring offices and was advised to exit via a different route.

The blockage in the pipe work was eventually discovered – a lump of plascrete the size of a melon! Now who flushed that down the sink? Or, more ominously, has it fallen off a foundation joint somewhere? Anyone noticing any instability where they work is advised to let me know.

During the Great Effluent Crisis, as it has come to be known, the diving pool was at one point flooded about a metre deep. You probably don’t know the diving pool. It’s a cavernous void above the utilities plant where the gravity field is inverted to prevent any leaks dripping down onto the monitoring equipment. It’s worth a visit to peer up into its gloomy heights: at 18 metres it compares favourably with the Grand Canyon.

There’s a platform just below the level of the flood that holds the transfer pumps, one of which had stopped working, and two engineers were there working away. One had hooked his yellow jacket on some protruding metal work. Suddenly — some say it was due to lack of training, others blame a freak vibration of Astropolis itself — the jacket slipped off its mooring and floated gently upwards into the flooded pool and sank above the surface. The jacket’s owner, seeing what had happened, jumped straight in after it and with only a second’s hesitation plunged above the surface to emerge seconds later gripping the dripping coat triumphantly. Those of us who were looking on from below gaped up in amazement.

 “What on Earth d’you do that for?” the second engineer asked. “It’s only your old work jacket!”

 “I’m not worried about the jacket,” he replied. “But my sandwiches are in the pocket!”

Relieved that as long as the engineers continued to be fed the crisis would be solved, I returned to my office to see what the post lady had brought.