The Path of Least Resistance

by Josh Taylor

About the Author: Josh Taylor was born in Baltimore and lives in France. His short stories have appeared in Electric Spec, Metaphorosis, and The Penn Review.

Excerpt

Captain Belven was going on and on about things I hadn’t even asked about. Air filters. Garbage drops. Rivets. I turned to face the planet-side window, hoping the sight of my back would slow her down.

“Photochromic glass protects the crew from flares,” she began.

Eventually she’d get to murder, if I didn’t kill myself first. I yawned as I looked out. Miles below us the purple atmosphere of Swiffle Prime sloshed and swirled around the mantle drill. It looked motionless, though it was gradually widening as it absorbed beryllium from the planet’s core. I yawned again. Belven was clearly enjoying herself too much to notice.

 “Not a single injury or death in twelve years,” she said. “Virtually no accidents because everything is state-of-the-art. Argon-bonded aluminum hull, temporal-difference matrix managing all mission-critical functions, ground return for all electrical systems—”

“Ground return?” I opened the tablet on which I’d been filling out the Mining Ship Safety Assessment Form. “Naked current runs through the ship?”

“Harmlessly through the aluminum hull.”

Nothing I said or did had any effect on her.

“It’s quite common in terrestrial and railway power systems,” Belven went on. “Current flows to the load through a wire, and it flows back through earth, track, or, in this case, hull. It saves a fortune in material to leave out all the return wires.”

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