Kort historia, kunde ha varit i Analog , Fantasi och science fiction , eller Amazing .
"Million Dollar Day" , en novelette av Kevin O'Donnell, Jr. ; publicerad i Analog Science Fiction / Science Fact , oktober 1987 ; tydligen aldrig återtryckt.
I grund och botten finns det någon form av krig mot utlänningar och sjukdom används som ett vapen.
Some considered Abe lucky. He had caught, but survived, one of the plagues released in Bysk's only successful bio-attack on Terra. His bones were melting into cartilage, and his system had reabsorbed most of his brown hair, as well as his fingers and toes, but he had survived. So far.
Resenärer på planeten måste gå igenom en månad karantän som hanteras i en tidsbubbla så att det bara är några minuter i realtid.
"Right," he said sourly, and cut the connection. He pushed back from his desk, there in his office in the Sirius Wing of the Quarantine & Relay Station a billion kilometers darkside of Pluto. He glared at his chrono. "Damn. Damn, damn, damn! Why did they have to come back early?"
The chrono said nothing but:
Universal Time—4 Jul 2204 1300GMT
Experienced Time—18 Jan 2232 0937
[. . . .]
He slapped the writing surface of the console. The damn monitors worked after all. Halfway to retirement and things had to go wrong.
He had expected to retire at seventeen hundred hours on 4 July 2204 Universal Time. Late spring, early summer of his seventieth year, Experienced Time.
After withholding taxes, BCQ would credit his account with a million dollars, give or take a few cents. Not bad for a universal day's work, even if the day did happen to run a few hours over forty-eight apparent years. And more than enough to pay for Abe's treatment.
[. . . .]
Fradero almost cringed. He had played similar scenes with other Guests many times, and never liked them. This one, though, this one would hurt. "To put it most simply, time in Quarantine moves 260,000 times faster than normal. That means that even though you'll spend one hundred eighty days in here, only about a minute will have elapsed in the outside, real world."
Varje karantän måste dock bemannas, så att personalen bemannar karantänåldern mest av sitt liv på en dag. Efter hans tjänstgöring framträder skötaren som en gammal man med stor kunskap (från läsning och tittar på shows) av nutiden upplevde han aldrig.
"But more than that. For me, Earth is a fossil in amber. I will experience forty-five or fifty years in here, and Terra will not change.When I emerge, I will understand the world of my retirement better than anyone alive except my colleagues."
"But then the carousel resumes its ceaseless spin."
"Of course. But I'll know why it's spinning because I will have had time to study trends and fads and social influences and technological developments and anything else that affects my world."
PS Som påpekat inkommentarer av DavidW, fanns en uppföljare, " Fradero Goes Home ", som visas i Analog Science Fiction / Science Fact , maj 1988 :
Franklin Delano Roosevelt Nikolaites came home hurting, both in his body and in his mind.
He had lived fifty-two years (experienced years, they called them) in the space of one day (a universal day, they called it). He had done it to make money, to defend human civilization, and to learn all he could about the civilization he was protecting. In pretty much that order of priority.
He had succeeded.
He had earned (net of all withholding taxes) a few dollars over a million.
He had prevented seven plague-carriers from reaching Earth in the infectious but asymptomatic state.
He had studied the history and the geography of his planet, the science and the art of his culture, the politics and the economics of his country. He understood the world into which he would retire better, perhaps, than anyone alive.
Seventy (experienced) years old, returning to the town where he had drawn his first breath eighteen (universal) years ago, Fradero hurt, in both his body and his mind.