“Dr. Jeffrey will take this, our newest Sunship, out on a dive shortly after we finish our tour,” Kepler said. “Just as soon as Commandant deSilva returns from reconnaissance in our other ship.
“Fm sorry the Commandant wasn’t here to meet us. when we arrived on the Bradbury. And now it seems that Jeff will be gone while we hold our briefings. It’ll add a dramatic touch, though, to get his first report just about the time we finish tomorrow afternoon.”
Kepler started to turn toward the ship. “Any introductions I’ve forgotten? Jeff, I know you’ve met Kant Fagin earlier. Pil Bubbacub appears to have declined our invitation. Have you met Mr. LaRoque?”
The chimp’s lips curled back in an expression of disgust. He snorted once and turned away to look at his own reflection in the Sunship.
LaRoque glared with hot-faced embarrassment.
Jacob had to hold back a laugh. No wonder the superchimps were called chips! For once, someone with less tact than LaRoque! The encounter between the two in the Refectory last night was already legend. He was sorry he’d missed it.
Culla laid a slender, six-fingered hand on Jeffrey’s sleeve. “Come, Friend-Jeffrey. Let ush show Mishter Demwa and hish friends your ship.” The chimp glanced sullenly at LaRoque then looked back at Culla and Jacob, and broke into a wide grin. He took one of Jacob’s hands and one of Culla’s and pulled them toward the entrance to the ship.
When the party reached the top of the other ramp they came to a short bridge that crossed a gap into the interior of the mirrored globe. It took a moment for Jacob’s eyes to adjust to the dark. Then he saw a flat deck which stretched from one end of the ship to the other.
It floated, a circular disk of dark springy material, at the equator of the ship. The only breaks in the flat surface were a half dozen or so acceleration couches, set flush with the deck at intervals around its perimeter, some with modest instrument panels, and a dome of seven meters diameter at the exact center.
Kepler knelt by a control panel and touched a switch. The wall of the ship’ became semi-transparent. Dimly, light from the cavern came in from all sides to illuminate the interior. Kepler explained that interior lighting was kept to a minimum to prevent internal reflections along the inner surface of the spherical shell, which might confuse both equipment and crew.
Inside the nearly perfect shell, the Sunship was like a solid model of the planet Saturn. The wide deck made up the “ring.” The “planet” protruded above and below the deck in two hemispheres. The upper hemisphere, which Jacob could see now, had several hatches and cabinets breaking its surface. He knew from his reading that the central sphere contained all of the machinery that ran the ship, including the timeflow controller, the gravity generator, and the refrigerator laser.
Jacob walked to the edge of the deck. It floated on a field of force, four or five feet away from the curving hull, which arched high overhead with a curious lack of highlights or shadows.
He turned as his name was called. The tour group stood by a door in the “side of the dome. Kepler waved for him to join them.
“We’ll inspect the instrument hemisphere now. We call it ‘flip-side.’ Watch your step, it’s a gravity arc so don’t be too surprised.”
At the doorway, Jacob stood aside to let Fagin pass, but the E.T. indicated that he would rather stay above. A seven-foot tall Kanten in a seven-foot hatch wouldn’t be too comfortable at that. He followed Kepler inside.
And tried to duck out of the way! Kepler was above him, climbing a path that mounded just ahead, like part of a hill enclosed in bulkheads. He looked like he was about to fall over, judging from the angle of his body. Jacob couldn’t see how the scientist could keep his balance!
But Kepler kept walking up and over the elliptical path and disappeared over the short horizon. Jacob put his hand on the bulkheads to either side and took a tentative step.
He felt no lack of balance. His other foot moved forward again. Still perfectly upright. Another step. He looked back.
The doorway tilted toward him. Apparently the dome enclosed a pseudo-gravity field so tight that it could be wrapped around a mere few yards. The field was so smooth and complete that it fooled his inner ear. One of the workmen stood in the hatch grinning.
Jacob set his jaw and continued over the loop, trying not to think of himself as slowly turning upside down. He examined the signs on access plates on the walls and floor of his path. Halfway around he passed over a hatch with the words TIME-COMPRESSION ACCESS inscribed on it.
The ellipse ended in a gentle slope. Jacob felt right-side-up when he got to the doorway and he knew what to expect, but even so he groaned.
“Oh no!” He brought his hands to his eyes.
A few meters over his head the floor of the hangar stretched away in all directions. Men walked around the ship’s cradle like flies on a ceiling.
With a resigned sigh he walked out to join Kepler where the scientist stood at the edge of the deck, peering into the guts of a complicated machine. Kepler looked up and smiled.
“I was just exercising a boss’s privilege to poke and pry. Of course the ship has been fully checked out by now, but I like to look things over.” He patted the machine affectionately.
Kepler led Jacob to the edge of the deck, where the upside-down effect was even more pronounced. The foggy ceiling of the cavern was visible far “below” their feet.
“This is one of the multi-polarization cameras we set up soon after we first saw the Coherent Light Ghosts.” Kepler pointed to one of several identical machines that stood at intervals along the rim. “We were able to pick the Ghosts out from the jumbled light levels in the chromosphere because, no matter how the plane of polarization migrated, we were able to track it and show that the coherency of the light was real and stable with time.”
“Why are all of the cameras down here? I didn’t see any up above.”
“We found that live observers and machines interfered with each other when they rode on the same plane. For this and other reasons the” instruments line the edge of the plane down here, and us chickens ride on the other half.
“We can accommodate both, you see, by orienting the ship so the edge of the deck is aligned toward the phenomenon we wish to observe. It turned out to be an excellent’ compromise; since gravity is no problem, We can tilt in any angle and we can arrange for the point-of-view of both sentient and mechanical observers to be the same for later comparison.”
Jacob tried to imagine the ship, tipped at some angle and tossed about in the storms of the Sun’s atmosphere, while passengers and crew calmly watched.
“We’ve had a bit of trouble with this arrangement lately,” Kepler went on. “This newer, smaller ship Jeff will take down has had some modifications, so soon we hope… Ah! here come some friends…”
Culla and Jeffrey emerged from the doorway, the chimp’s half simian, half human face contorted in disdain.
He tapped at the chest display.
“LR SICK. NAUSEOUS GOING OVER RAMP. SKIRTED BASTARD.”
Culla spoke softly to the chimp. Jacob could barely overhear. “Shpeak with reshpect, Friend-Jeff. Mr. La-Roque ish human.”
Incensed, Jeffrey tapped out with frequent misspellings, that he had as much respect as’ the next chimp, but that he wasn’t about to toady up to any particular human, especially one who had no part in his species’ Uplift.
DO YOU REALLY HAV TO TAKE CRAP FROM BUBBACUB JUST BECAUS HIS ANCESTORS DID YOURS A FAVOR HALF A MILLION YEARS AGO?
The Pring’s eyes glowed. There was a flash of white between the thick lips. “Please, Friend-Jeff, I know you mean well, but Bubbacub ish my Patron. Hu-mansh have given your race freedom. My race must sherve. It ish the way of the world.”