“Nah, too late,” said Todd.
“Yeah, you blew it,” Peters agreed. “Once they think they got you figured out, you can’t change their minds with anything that don’t do permanent damage.”
“Ssth.” Dreelig paused in thought. “We know how to deal with status societies, we do it often. But your society seemed remarkably free of such wasteful nonsense. Everyone we spoke to seemed very, ah, informal.”
“Suits are informal among themselves,” Todd pointed out. “It’s a small group—”
“But if you aren’t part of the group, formality applies,” Dreelig finished for him. “Ssth. We know how to do this. How did we miss it?”
“You spent too much time listenin’ to the words,” said Peters. “My Granpap explained it to me. Used to be, maybe seventy-five or a hundred years ago, the words meant something. They still use the words, but they don’t mean nothin’—”
“Outside the group,” Dreelig completed the thought again. “Yes, that is clear. Ssth.” When Todd started to speak he waved him down, then leaned back in his chair. “Would you be willing to make suggestions?” he asked.
“I don’t understand the question,” Todd said.
“These are your people,” Dreelig pointed out. “If we learn to deal with them effectively, it may work to their disadvantage.”
Peters snorted. “Our people, Hell. They been pushin’ us away from the food dish for half a century, maybe longer,” he said with some heat. “I still got folks back in West Virginia livin’ on huntin’ and home gardens, with spells in jail for shootin’ some critter they’re cherce of. You got a way to cut ‘em down a peg, you let us know. We’ll help if you need it.”
“I need to discuss this with the others,” Dreelig said. “For now, you need practice with the kathir suits.”
The practice room was as before. “Would you mind if we hurried through this?” Dreelig asked. “I need to talk to the other people in my section.”
“Sure,” said Todd. “What should we do? Just play around with the air and gravity?”
“No, you need to learn the belt controls.” Dreelig pulled his belt off and held the buckle up for them to look at.
The gaudy design on the buckle was controls for the suit functions. One pair of squares increased or decreased the pressure in the “bubble” around the head; the increase one got easier to push as the air supply ran down. “When the square has almost no resistance, the air supply is very low,” Dreelig said earnestly. “You should get inside as soon as possible.”
“What about refillin’ it?” asked Peters.
“That is automatic, as soon as you get back into air. You can check the status by pressing the control.”
Round spots forming a diamond-shape in the center were the thruster controls: up, down, left, right. Up and down together were forward; the center button usually converted sideways push into rotation, so center plus top was lean back, for instance, but up, center, and bottom together meant “back”. “You will need to turn the gravity off before these are effective,” Dreelig told them. “They are weak, but enough to move around.”
“How long do they last?” Peters wanted to know.
Dreelig looked at him. “I have never thought to ask,” he said finally. “I never heard of one running out or stopping.” Peters and Todd shared a look. “Practice with what you know now, and I will see you after the next meal,” the Grallt said, and took himself off in obvious haste. They were getting used to Grallt facial expressions, and thought he looked worried.
“Never runs out of gas, eh?” said Peters when he was out of sight. “Brother Todd, this ain’t Navy issue.”
“It’s not exactly standard around here, either,” said Todd.
“What do you mean? I seen lots of people wearin’ these.”
“Yeah.” Todd held his buckle up next to the gravity control. “Notice any difference?”
Just as a design, the buckle could have been made in Japan or Boston: simple and sophisticated, even elegant. The gravity control was more of a piece with the rest of the ship: a metal panel half a meter square, painted speckle gray, with shiny screws at the corners. The wheel in the middle was a chunk of cast metal, plated or polished. “Looks like somethin’ out of a monster movie,” Peters said. “A real old monster movie, last century.”
Todd shook his head. “It looks,” he said with emphasis, “like something made by the people who built the doors to the ops bay. Whereas this—” he held up the buckle again.
“So what? It don’t matter where it came from so long as it works,” Peters pointed out.
“Yeah, I guess you’re right.” Todd shrugged. “You want to let the air out, or shall I?”
“Reckon we need to? Be hard to talk.”
Todd shrugged again. “That’s what the suits are really for. Might as well keep it realistic.”
Having control over their movements made a big difference. As long as the gravity was off, they could glide freely around the room under near-perfect control. Pressing the thruster buttons harder made them push harder, not that they were any great shakes at maximum; pushing off the walls was faster. They were almost fully acclimated to zero gravity, and hadn’t thought about the lack of air in a long time.
They were making full circuits around the room at an angle, bouncing off all six walls in the process, when Peters thought to check the time. He pulled back his gauntlet to look at the watch; his wrist immediately began to swell and redden, accompanied by a tingling sensation, and he hurriedly restored the gauntlet before catching Todd and bringing their heads together. “Time to go. It’s already after second ande, mealtime’s almost over.”
Todd nodded, and Peters grabbed the door handle and gave it a yank. It didn’t budge, and Todd’s hand on his shoulder kept him from trying it again.
“Hang on,” Todd said. “Let me go shut the windows, and you try again when the air comes back.”
“Shit, I didn’t think,” said Peters sheepishly. “Now we’re even, Todd. You go shut the windows, and I won’t say anythin’ else about the window in our quarters, all right?”
“Deal.”
The crowd in the messroom had thinned out considerably; they had no trouble finding a table near a wall. They again managed to order food and drink, though not quite as successfully as before. Each of them got a patty of vegetable paste, fried crisp, which they’d never seen before. Peters liked it, Todd didn’t care for it much.
Dreelig didn’t show up until they were done eating and idling over coffee. The place was almost empty, and the waiters were lounging about, clearly wishing them gone. “Pleasant greetings,” the Grallt said. “I came as soon as I could. We have been arguing.”
Peters shrugged. “You set the hours. What do you have on the agenda? Sorry, I mean the program.”
“The plans have been modified.” The sideways twist in Dreelig’s mouth would have meant disgust in a human. “Your information has made changes necessary,” the Grallt went on. “That is why you are here, but changing all the plans is disruptive even so.”
“Yeah,” Peters drawled.
“We will want you to listen to our plans and criticize, but we are not ready for that. The practice room is in use, and Znereda is busy.” Dreelig drew his eyebrows together. “Perhaps it would be best if we found the, ah, stewards, and continued cleaning your officers’ quarters.” When the sailors didn’t say anything, the Grallt let out a very human sigh. “It is not a pleasant task, but it must be done. Come along, then.”
They collected the crew of stewards from a section of the ship the sailors hadn’t visited before, two decks up and aft from the messroom. The workers weren’t any more enthusiastic than the sailors were, but they all slouched across the docking bay in a loose straggle, Dreelig in the lead and the humans coming last as usual. Once they’d gotten their tools and divided up into crews Dreelig excused himself, pleading “making plans”, and the sailors continued as before. Peters found that he was hearing more and more of the language, and began to wish for another session with Znereda.