Integration by Aer-ki Jyr

Author:Aer-ki Jyr [Jyr, Aer-ki]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2012-02-21T16:00:00+00:00

6

Adjusting to the zero gravity hadn’t been as hard as Paul had previously thought, but it was an odd set of motions to learn. Every movement he made had to be scaled down and he constantly had to be reaching for hand or footholds. There was no ‘standing’ still, because even when he nulled out his motion every twist of his neck or flick of his wrist would start him listing. In truth, he felt overpowered for the environment.

But fortunately the station’s designers had been wise enough to take this into consideration when laying out the interior. The more Paul looked around he realized that there were handlebars, rungs, indentations and edges everywhere, and once his eyes knew what to look for he began to develop a subconscious rhythm to his movements.

That rhythm was 80% arms, 15% twisting, and 5% legs…which was also odd to Paul because in gravity he did almost all his movement with his legs, but here they were almost a detriment to him unless he had a long span of clear hallway to shoot down, which he and the others had fun trying to get maximum speed and accuracy out of their ‘jumps.’

After a day of running through the zero gravity obstacle course set in the spine of the station, which ironically also looked like a kids’ playground, Paul and the others were brought into a completely empty room, ten times larger than anything else on the station. There were small handholds on the padded walls of the giant white cube, but nothing in the open airspace to latch onto.

Everywhere else on the station there were polls, grating, or even just wall protrusions extending out to avoid this type of open space, but here there was simply nothing to work with and Paul felt a sense of unease wash over him. Glancing at his teammates he saw similar concern on their faces.

Their lead trainer, named Gent, pushed off from the wall near the entrance and floated up towards the center of the gymnasium-sized room as one of his assistants toggled a wall-mounted control board, causing a thin rod to extend down from the ‘ceiling’ into the dead center of the chamber. Gent grabbed hold of it then hand-walked himself down to the nub. Once settled, the assistant retracted the pole, leaving Gent floating in the center of the room.

“You need to remember,” he began, making tiny hand movements to steady himself, “that every twitch you make has an effect. Even turning your head will cause you to rotate, so you need to be aware of everything you do before you do it. You also need to adjust to your environment…in this case, that means the air. You’re not free floating in vacuum, so you have some limited means of movement. Use it,” he said, beginning to ‘swim’ through the air.

He didn’t go far, but to Paul’s surprise Gent began moving, imperceptibly at first, then gaining speed as he traveled towards the wall. Above them on the ‘ceiling’ a clock started counting up from zero, timing the trainer.

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