The bubbles merged when their heads were about twenty centimeters apart, but didn’t separate until they were farther away than that, thirty or so. Peters started to take his gloves off, to feel it bare-handed, but Dreelig caught his arm. “There is no bubble for the hands,” the Grallt explained when he was close enough. “Only for the head.”
“No radios?” Peters wanted to know.
“Radios? Oh, communicators. No, the kathir suit doesn’t have a communications device,” Dreelig said; the three of them stood with their heads together, backs slightly bent like a football huddle.
“Something else for the list,” Todd said.
“Shit yes,” said Peters. “The earbugs we use on deck would be enough.”
The two sailors walked around, handling things and checking their freedom of movement. After a few minutes of that Dreelig threw the lever the other way. The windows swung closed and there was a blast of air, not as strong as when they’d opened. “What next?” Peters wanted to know when the roar had tapered off.
“Next is no gravity. That takes longer.” The Grallt went to a panel by the door, grasped a large wheel with both hands, and began turning it slowly to the right.
Gell had given them a taste of low gravity on the dli, but they’d been sitting down, and there had been distractions. This time lightheadedness built up, and up, and up, it had to stop, there had to be a sudden stop at the bottom—
Except there wasn’t. Peters looked at Todd, figuring he was probably about that shade of green himself; when he looked back, his legs had flexed and pushed off, and he was already half a meter off the floor and still—
Falling.
His stomach began warning him that it was about to empty, but Dreelig was turning the wheel the other way. Peters drifted back to the floor, but had achieved a slight angle and his knees weren’t working all that well, so he ended up in an ungainly sprawl. It didn’t hurt. The sensation was exactly like landing in something really soft that got hard while he lay there. Todd did a little better, landing on his knees.
They got to their feet, more than a little shaky. Maybe it was Peters’s imagination that labeled the Grallt’s expression ‘disgust.’ “We will wait a few moments for your stomachs to settle,” Dreelig announced. “Then we will try it again.”
“I don’t know if I’m ever gonna get used to it,” Peters warned.
Dreelig shrugged. “Some people never do,” he admitted. “But you should try. There are many things you will not be able to do if you cannot bear thukrellith. You will not be allowed to learn to pilot a dli, for instance.”
“Maybe it’ll be better now that we know what to expect,” Todd suggested.
It did get better. By the end of the session the sailors were able to tolerate no gravity for several minutes. Neither lost his lunch; both regarded that as a real triumph. “Enough,” Dreelig finally announced. “You should return to your quarters and rest until next mealtime.”
“Sounds good.” Peters picked at the rubbery fabric. “Should we wear the kathir suit?”
“Yes, wear them back to your quarters,” Dreelig said. “Dee will come to escort you to the next meal. You can stop by the suit office, and they will color the kathir suits for you. After your suits are colored, Dee will show you the rooms your officers will be using, and you can begin preparing them for that use.”
“Get to work, in other words,” Peters observed.
“Yes,” Dreelig said, sounding amused. “Can you make your way from here back to your rooms?”
“I reckon you’d better show us the way, at least as far as the elevator,” Peters said. “We’re new here, remember?”
“Yes.” Dreelig took himself off up the corridor, pausing for them to catch up, and Peters and Todd followed. The Grallt led them to the elevator; that took them back to the operations bay, and from there it was easy.
They were halfway across the bay when there was an actinic flash, like lightning, and a booming bang of metal on metal that echoed in the huge space and vibrated the deck enough to feel through the feet of the suits. They both went white and froze in place for a moment, then headed by mutual agreement for the door that led to their quarters, Peters setting a pace that wasn’t quite a dead run. Another flash was accompanied by a loud thunk and a buzz that rose to a howl. By that time they had reached the hatch and were holding on to one of the vertical beams, peering out from behind the flange. “What the fuck?” Todd wanted to know.
“I think it’s comin’ from the bay door,” Peters suggested. Another heavy thunk wiped out his last word, the howl dropped a bit in pitch, and there was a loud squeal, followed by a clank. A crack appeared in the middle of the bay door; the squeal and clank were repeated, not quite in a regular rhythm, accompanied by squeaks, screeches, and a grinding noise. The two halves of the door moved slowly apart, with a noticeable jerk every few meters.
The evolution took about a minute, ending with the doors parallel to the walls, where the leading edges hit a set of bump-stops with crashes much like the ones that had begun the process. Another thunk and arc, and the howl spooled down to a buzz and silence. That seemed to end it; the panels were motionless and there wasn’t any more noise. “Shit,” Peters commented. “Ain’t they ever heard of grease?”
“Welders and a machine shop,” said Todd.
“What’re you talkin’ about?”
“Welders and a machine shop,” Todd explained patiently. “They go on the list, shit we gotta bring along, you know? Like pillows and little radios.”
Peters looked around. “You reckon they’re gonna let us start rebuildin’ their spaceship? Shit, ain’t no human bein’ ever built a spaceship. Reckon they might ask about experience an’ qualifications?”
“They might,” said Todd. “But Goddamn it, this thing looks like it was put together by Russians from a bad set of plans and kept up by —s.” The word he used would have got him tossed in the brig. “Lazy —s. They get a bunch of us up here and tell us we can’t do a little maintenance, we’re likely to find out what a Grallt looks like with a fifty-amp wire welder running out a slit in his trousers like Mickey’s tail.”
“Chill, Todd, let’s get up to our quarters, OK?”
“Yeah.” Todd turned to grasp the latch handle, ran his hand over the coaming around the door. “Look at this shit. I was doing better welding in junior high shop. Qualifications!”
Peters hadn’t expected to fall asleep, so Dee’s knock came as a disorienting surprise. When he answered the door she jumped back with a little eek, and he swung the panel shut. At least he’d put on his skivvies after skinning out of the kathir suit. When he opened the door again after hastily pulling on dungaree pants and a T-shirt she was leaning, arms folded, against the wall of the passageway. “Sorry,” he said. “I was asleep.”
“Yes.” She stood erect. “Are you ready?”
Peters shook his head. “I got to finish dressin’. I’ll go roust Todd out, he’s like to startle you like I did.”
Dee performed her narrow-shouldered shrug. “I will wait. Please do not take too long.”
“I’ll hurry.” He closed the door, then went through the head and banged on the door to Todd’s room. “Look alive in there,” he called out. “Our guide’s here.”
“Right,” said the other sailor’s muffled voice. Peters laced his boondockers and got into a shirt.
Dee was still waiting. “Todd’ll be a minute,” Peters advised her, and it wasn’t much more than that before the younger sailor emerged with his kathir suit over his shoulder.