Long considered a possibility by theoretical physicists, Heavy Matter was proven real when a meteorite only 3 feet in diameter came to earth in Canada’s remote Northwest Territory with an explosion that left a crater over a half mile wide. Only a few hundred Native Americans and their Caribou herds were killed, and the strong polar jet stream kept the worst of the dust cloud in latitudes well north of Earth’s’ temperate zones. Scientists later calculated that the small meteorite, part of a thin stream of matter in an elliptical orbit around the sun reaching all the way out to the Oort Cloud, must have contained a few particles of Heavy Matter.
Fortunately for Earth, the other meteorites in the stream passed by without coming close enough to be a danger. Scientists theorized that Heavy Matter forged at the instant of the Universe’s creation had slowly accreted in the cold clouds of gas, ice and debris on the edges of interstellar space. Gravitic disturbances, collisions and the like could send bits and pieces of this primordial matter streaming sunward in highly-eccentric orbits, creating icy carbonaceous chunks that flew through the solar system, sometimes seeded with bits of the Dark Matter clumped inside. In the Earth’s past, a few of these bodies impacted the planet, leaving devastation in their wake that marked major epochs in Earth’s history.
The dangers of Heavy Matter combined with the theoretical possibility that it could be used for power generation created a boom of interest in space travel. By 2046 every industrialized nation had a major presence in space, with the most advanced building deep exploration ships and stations to track and intercept objects with the right types of eccentric orbits, and mine the Heavy Matter when it was found. In that year, a dispute over basing rights on one of Mars’ moons, Ceres, erupted into a three-way skirmish between Chinese miners, a small contingent of U.S. Marines and a unit of the Foreign Legion under contract to the European Space Agency.
In this first, fumbling battle in space, the Chinese miners habitat was accidentally breached, killing all 26 inhabitants. An explosion disrupted Ceres’ orbit and caused the asteroid moonlet to begin a severe tumble that made it almost impossible for spacecraft to match orbit and attitude well enough to land. Half the surviving men and women of the two military contingents were lost trying to get off the surface and back to their ships – some of them miscalculated their hasty jump-pack burns and missed getting close enough to be picked up. The ships did not have sufficient fuel to intercept the lost personnel and also get onto trajectories back to Earth, so the lost soldiers had to be abandoned. Although the ships took many months to reach Earth orbit, the horrifying reports of the dead, and the pitiful radio transmissions of the soldiers kahramanmaraş escort drifting to their deaths raced home at the speed of light.
In the wake of the Ceres incident the United Nations Space Administration (UNSA) was formed to regulate the exploitation of space in general, and Heavy Matter in particular. UNSA began to sell a limited number of mining and basing franchises to Corporations (not to governments), and development of space industry accelerated. Foundries and factories multiplied in Earth orbit and at the Lagrange points. More and more nickel-iron asteroids were brought in-system to provide raw materials for further construction, and soon very little other than personnel and low-mass supplies needed to be brought up out of Earth’s gravity well to feed the boom. But the pipeline going down into the gravity well was going full-force, with new metals the sight of a two hundred-pound man in his forties whining like a little girl while cupping his crotch with both hands made it hard. It didn’t help that in the three weeks since the doctor had arrived for her rotation at the base she had been overwhelmed by a steady stream of patients with vague complaints, lustful gazes and roving hands. The crew of miners, technicians and support personnel Nexia had brought to XR-18736 was overwhelmingly male and other than a handful of special contractors brought in by the Entertainment Coordinator the few female staff were all either taken or not interested in male company anyway.
Despite her efforts at patience Doctor Zhao sighed; some of these miners might have even worked at operations so small that female medical staff doubled as “entertainment”. Eventually they would learn that she definitely wasn’t on base for their pleasure but in the meantime it was making her life miserable. She knew from reviewing logs from the previous doctors’ rotation that she had seen more patients in three weeks than he had seen in three months. Then again the previous physician had been a short Brazilian man in his late fifties, while Zhu was twenty-nine years of age and at 5’6 somewhat tall for an asian girl. She had high cheekbones and light olive skin, with a slender, athletic frame featuring breasts and hips that filled her form-fitting white med jumpsuit very nicely. Her jet-black hair was kept short in a cut that floated softly around her head like a halo in zero g and in the .8 gravity of the base hung to barely cover the tops of her ears so it was easy to keep it out of the way.
The doctor placed her hands on the miners’ shoulders and gently but firmly pushed him back onto the examination table, simultaneously tapping a floor control that extended the table and forced him to raise his feet. “Tell me about the pain – on a scale of one to ten, where is it? Is it continuous or episodic?”
The kastamonu escort miner stuttered as he tried to form a reply; nobody working at a major mining operation was dumb, and at an extremely distant base like this one everyone was pretty sharp because they had to be ready to back up multiple crew positions. So he understood the doctor’s questions perfectly, but was struggling for some reason. “Well ahhh, I would say it is ahhhh episodic” the miner licked his lips nervously “And when it gets going I would call it a seven..” he trailed off, looking extremely uncomfortable.
Dr. Zhao realized that beneath his fierce-looking beard this tough miner was actually blushing. And with his hands still cupped at his groin, it was clear where he was experiencing discomfort. Somewhat bemused and pleasantly surprised that this wasn’t just another horny crewman hoping to score some “medical relief sex” or get a peek at some asian ass, the doctor gave her patient a reassuring look. “It’s good that you are letting me know about the pain and I am sure that I will be able to help you. When do you you feel discomfort? Is it when you lift something heavy or bend at the waist? During urination?” She raised an inquisitive eyebrow and waited for his response.
“Ummm.. well it is only at certain times doctor” he glanced away from her nervously, looking around the small examination room. “Just from time to time” he looked back at her, eyes pleading for her to leave it at that.
“You’re going to have to be more precise or I can’t help you. And you know that the union contract requires that you provide honest, complete information about your physical condition at all times so that we can determine whether you can safely do your job.” She gave him a stern look, and slapped a medi-patch onto the exposed skin of one hairy arm, glancing at a monitor to quickly take in a summary of his physical state. Body temperature, basic hormonal level and electrolytes all were within the normal range; his blood pressure, pulse rate and sweat secretions were all slightly elevated but not unduly. He was obviously a little anxious.
Finally he stammered out “I-it’s when I become aroused. You know…” With that he nodded towards his hands, still cupped protectively over his groin.
She nodded curtly at him. “Okay, then we need to check you out. Disrobe please so that I can examine you properly.” She stepped back half a step to give the big miner a little room and ostentatiously turned her focus to the monitor for a moment. The medi-patch had taken blood samples with a microprobe and a summary of his white and red cell counts, oxygen and iron levels plus more detailed hormonal data was being displayed. Her brow furrowed as she saw the he had a slightly elevated white cell count and some trace signs of more soft tissue kayseri escort inflammation than his work shift and workout routines would likely account for.
The doctor glanced down to find that the miner had finished sliding his legs out of his jumpsuit and despite his unwillingness to talk about his problem, he didn’t look overly-anxious about being naked in her presence. Most people working in space learned to deal with tight quarters and little to no privacy early in their careers. By the time they had built their skills and seniority enough to get a posting at a top-tier Heavy Matter mining operation they no longer even cared much about the greater room and private quarters the that came with the positions, although they certainly relished the much higher pay.
Like a lot of the men who became successful at running the mining trains that sifted asteroids and comets for Heavy Matter his body was heavily muscled from the grueling workouts designed to build strength and endurance for 16 hour shifts. The mindset that allowed him to handle the vast information flows of the trains’ sensors and turn it into action while dealing with tremendous vibration and sudden changes in g-forces and orientation often seemed to lead to intense workouts, drinking, drugs and lots of sex on off days. Those things in turn led to fights and the miners’ gnarled knuckles and the seam of a long scar along his ribs said that he had been in his share of those.
Dr. Zhao ran her eyes farther down his muscular chest, covered in a veritable forest of wiry black hair salted with gray. She took each of his thick wrists in a delicate grip and tugged his large square hands away from their protective position above his crotch; she couldn’t have moved his arms at all had he resisted, but he let her steer his hands up to his chest and she lay them atop one another over his breastbone.
She leaned over him a bit, peering down between the the hairy trunks of the miner’s thighs to examine his penis. It was semi-erect, circumcised and thick, surrounded by a patch of wiry hair that had gone a little more gray than the rest of his body hair. The dark glans glistened with just a hint of moisture, and the shaft was relatively smooth with a few ropy veins showing through his pale skin. “I’m going to examine you, tell me if you feel any discomfort, okay?”
With that she gently took the shaft of his cock in one hand, lifting it so that she could see from the tip to where it disappeared into his thick hair. He was becoming more erect in her hand and she could see that his veined member was quite thick. She closed her fingers around the shaft, making a fist and moving it up and down a little bit, feeling for any lumps or irregularities in the erectile tissue of his cock as it continued to engorge with blood. The doctor didn’t feel anything irregular and other than a slight leftward lean, his fully-erect member seemed perfectly normal, except that it protruded almost three inches from her small fist; he had to be seven or eight inches long and big enough around that the tip of her thumb barely touched her middle finger as it wrapped around his girth. “Any pain?” she asked.