The centrifuge was at the heart of the ship. It only stopped spinning twice an hour, to let people in or out, so Victor had to wait a few minutes after he arrived for the hatch to open. Inside there were a dozen people scattered throughout the room, most of them standing on the wall or floor, waiting for the fuge to get back up to speed so they could continue with their exercise. A few of them like Victor had just entered, and these made their way to the wall where all the magnetic greaves were hung. Victor followed them, already feeling the centripetal force pull him to the floor.
He found a pair of greaves that looked to be his size and strapped them around his shin
s. Soon he was standing upright, the magnets holding his feet firmly to the floor. Greaves weren't like real gravity. More like one-sixth of a G, or what someone might experience on the surface of Luna. The trick with greaves was you had to work hard to keep your legs under you, constantly pulling your feet forward as you stepped, dragging against the pull of the greaves.
But greaves weren't enough to condition his legs, especially if he was thinking of Earth or Mars. He needed time on the treadmills as well. He walked toward the center of the room to the hatch that led down to the fuge within a fuge: the track, the room where the treads were kept. He could feel himself getting heavier as the fuge picked up speed. When it got going full tilt, the pull of the magnets combined with the spin would be about half a G.
To his right was the nursery, a long row of glass-paneled rooms where the children under two years old lived. In one room, a toddler was taking a few unsteady steps from the arms of one adult and into the waiting arms of another. Without the simulated gravity of the fuge, toddlers would never develop the muscles necessary for walking, or learn how.
There were some free-miner families who didn't have fuges or magnetic greaves and who preferred instead to always fly in zero gravity. But bats, as they were called, were completely useless planet-side. Their children couldn't walk or even stand, their legs thin and atrophied.
Concepcion wouldn't hear of it. Everyone was required to spend at least two hours a day down here to keep leg muscles from atrophying and bones from becoming brittle. Some people stayed vertical wherever they were on the ship, electing to wear greaves while they worked. It was a matter of leverage and efficiency. Most of the labor on the ship required sure footing. It was far easier to push and pull and lift if your feet were locked down.
Victor reached the hatch and lowered himself into the track. There were fewer people down here than in the main fuge, and all of them were younger than Victor, walking, running, listening to earphones, wearing movie goggles, reading. Yet all of them were vertical. Victor strapped himself into a treadmill and raised the setting to three-quarters of a G. He walked slowly at first, then gradually worked his way up to a light run. After twenty minutes his calves were twitching and his thighs burned. As he lowered the G level and started to cool down, he wondered how much more he would have to train each day to prepare himself to leave.
His handheld began flashing.
Victor stopped the treadmill. The message was from Edimar, Janda's fourteen-year-old sister. She was an apprentice spotter and watched for movement in space: comets, asteroids, anything that might pose a collision threat to the ship. The message read: COME TO THE CROW'S NEST. URGENT!!
Victor didn't hesitate. He left the fuge as soon as it stopped spinning, then moved through the ship quickly, his legs still burning, his shirt damp with sweat.
The crow's nest was a glass dome atop the upper deck, well above the main body of the ship. Victor flew up the long, narrow tube that led to the room and then pulled himself up through the hole in the floor. The room was dark, and the billions of stars beyond the glass dome shined so clearly and distinctly that Victor felt as if he were outside the ship.
Edimar was floating weightless across the room, wearing her data goggles. The computers were extremely sensitive to light, so spotters wore skintight goggles with interior displays instead of using bright computer monitors.
"Epa, Mar. What's the emergency?" asked Victor.
Edimar removed her goggles. "You've always taken me seriously, Vico. Even when nobody else did. You've always treated me like I'm smart."
"You are smart, Edimar. What's this about?"
"And Jandita said that if I ever needed help with something I could come to you. She said you'd treat me fair, help me out."
"Of course, Mar. What is it?"
"I want to show you something. And I want you to be honest with me and tell me what you think it is."
"Okay."
She found another pair of goggles and handed them to him. "The Eye saw something that doesn't make any sense. And I don't want a bunch of people laughing at me if it's nothing."
The Eye was the computer system that kept up a constant scan of the sky in every direction, watching for any incoming objects that might collide with the ship. In terms of safety, it was one of the most important pieces of equipment on board. Even small rocks, if they were moving fast enough, could cripple the ship and prove fatal.
"Have you shown your father?" asked Victor
She looked aghast. "Of course not."
"Why not? He's the spotter. He'll be more of a help interpreting what the Eye sees than I would."
"My father doesn't think I can do this job, Vico. He has zero confidence in me. He wanted sons, and he got three girls. The only reason I'm his apprentice and not some boy is because Concepcion made him take me on. I can't go to him with something that's a mistake. I'd never hear the end of it. He might go to Concepcion with it as proof that I'm not fit for this job."
Victor knew Janda's and Edimar's father well, and it sounded like a pretty accurate description. Victor knew he shouldn't ask, but he did anyway. "Why work with your father then, Mar? If it's so difficult, maybe you'd like doing something else, being around other people."
She looked angry. "Because I like what I do, Vico. I like working the Eye. And because he's my father. Why don't you go work in the laundry or the kitchen, if it's so easy to switch?"
He held up his hands in a show of surrender. "Sorry. Forget I asked. What did the Eye see?"
She looked irritated and said nothing for a moment, as if considering whether she wanted to involve him after all. Then her face softened, and she relaxed. "Goggles," she said, sliding on her own.