and it felt as if the bottom had dropped out of everythingâwhich was exactly what had happened because there wasnât any âbottomâ or âtopâ anymore. Zero-g has sometimes been called âfree fallâ and thatâs literally true, for it doesnât make any difference that the fallâs not toward Earth, but away from it. This condition affects human beings in various ways. Some people love it; itâs the kind of floating that used to be possible only in dreams. Others are just plain sick, and this would include a pretty large group if it werenât for those antinausea shots. Still others are terrifiedâafter all, as I learned in Psychology I, fear of fallingâs one of the two basic fears a babyâs born withâand I suspect that I would have come out in the latter category, except that Alex didnât let me.
He raised his seat, then started to undo his straps so that he could reach over and raise mine. The flight attendant rushed right over and started to protest. (She floated through the hatch upside down, as it happenedâno wonder their uniforms have pants instead of skirtsâand turned so that her feet pointed toward the âfloorâ more for the passengersâ benefit than for any practical reason.) âSir, passengers are not allowed toââ
Alex pulled his card wallet out of his pocket. âEven with this?â he inquired, holding something out to her.
âSorry, Mr. Preston. Certainly you may unstrap.â
I looked at him and asked, tactlessly maybe, âAre you a VIP or something?â
He smiled. âNot at all. Itâs just that I have a card to show that I know how to handle myself in zero-g.â He released the lock on my seat and it sprang forward so that I was sitting up. âIt used to be that they wouldnât let anyone unstrap on these short hauls, but as the proportion of experienced space travelers grew, so did the protests. Now they honor the cards. Iâm afraid that wonât help you or your dad, though.â
âI donât want to move around!â I declared fervently.
âI wonât argue because they arenât going to let you anyway. But youâd be surprised at how much fun it is once you get a taste of it.â
âWhere did you learn?â I asked. âYouâre not an astronaut, are you?â
âNo. I learned on a trip to Phobos, when I was twelve. All Colonial kids do.â
âFor fun?â
âPartly. You might call it a compensation for the centrifuge, which isnât so pleasant.â
âCentrifuge, like the way they test astronauts? Why did you have to do that if you werenât going to be one?â
âBecause I knew that I might want to come to Earth someday. And Earthâs gravity is three times what I was born to.â He grinned at me. âIf I hadnât trained for it, Earth to me would have been something like that liftoff was to you.â
Slowly I took this in. Iâd known Martian gravity was low, but the implications hadnât struck me before. No wonder heâd moved slowly and deliberately back at the terminal. âHow could you train for it?â I asked.
âIn a special gym, under spin. Ever since eighth grade, an hour a day. You work up gradually, of course. It prepares you to accept terrestrial gravity, but not to enjoy it. This is the first time Iâve been really comfortable since I landed last year!â
âIâm glad I wasnât born on Mars.â
âThatâs one way of looking at it,â he agreed. âBut if you had been, you wouldnât have had to come to Earth; lots of people donât. It used to be that most families wanted their kids to go sooner or later, the way the early American colonists sent their sons home to England to be educated. But that attitudeâs getting to be old-fashioned.â
âYouâre not sorry you came, are
Anne Conley
Robert T. Jeschonek
Chris Lynch
Jessica Morrison
Sally Beauman
Debbie Macomber
Jeanne Bannon
Carla Kelly
Fiona Quinn
Paul Henke