April 5
It was only 8:15, but Maggie knew the folks upstairs were awake; she could hear the baby crying. In contrast, Beth was happy and content in her morning bath. But there were no diapers remaining. She should have gone on a scavenger hunt last night. Well no matter, the folks upstairs were awake; maybe they'd be accommodating.
"Tamara, can you run upstairs and ask if they have extra diapers, or wipes? I really should stay here with the baby, and your father's still in bed. Tell them," ... "tell them we lost our suitcase with all our baby things."
Tamara opened the door and stepped out onto the landing. She closed the room door and was about to push the up button when her eyes were drawn to the far side of the landing. She stepped towards the gaping hole in the floor, almost 8 feet square. Below her, another landing, with another hole just like this one. A series of holes closed in on a tiny point in the distance, the floor of the ship, and the ladder ran all the way down to the bottom. She looked up through another series of holes, all the way to the top. "It's only one floor, and I feel so light; who needs the elevator?" Her left foot swung out into space and stepped onto a rung of the ladder. In a moment she was climbing with ease, like an arboreal creature in its natural habitat. With her head and shoulders poking through the next hole she placed her hands on the floor and flipped herself up onto the landing. It was easy!
Tamara stood up and knocked on the door. Several minutes went by, and she was about to knock again when a short woman answered. She seemed surprised to see a young girl.
"Can I help you with something?"
"Hi. I'm from downstairs and..."
"Oh dear, I'm so sorry. He just seems to cry all the time, and I can't make him happy. I guess it's the low gravity or something." He was crying even now, his voice ringing out through the corridor.
"Oh that doesn't matter. We have a baby too." The woman was visibly relieved. "But, well," Tamara wasn't good at lying. "They lost our suitcase, the one with all the baby things in it, and...". If you follow a lie with the truth, it's not so bad. "We have absolutely no diapers. We were wondering if we could..."
"Don't I know it!" began the young woman. "Two years ago we took a trip to Canada, and wouldn't you know, they lost all our bags. All of them! Oh they found them a couple days later, but we had to buy clothes and things, just to get by. Well I'm not surprised. Sure, I'll get a bag together. diapers, wipes, I think we have a couple extra outfits, how about formula?"
"You mean like milk? Oh I don't know, she seems to eat regular food. She eat part of my spaghetti lunch yesterday."
"Ok, I'll be right back." She ducked inside and returned a few minutes later with a plastic bag in her hand. "This should hold you for at least a few days. If they don't find your bag by then, come on back up. We've got plenty of everything; I think I packed for a month."
"Thank you." said Tamara as the woman closed the door. She walked back towards the ladder and stepped out across the hole. Left foot, left hand, right foot. Without realizing it, she released her grip on the bag, so she could grasp the ladder with her right hand. It drifted down to her waist before she realized what she had done. "The diapers." she thought as she lunged for the bag. Her aim would have been perfect on Earth, but on the ship, she overcompensated. Both hands clutched at thin air, just below the bag. It fell towards her hands and she caught it, but now she was leaning out from the ladder and her center of mass was falling. One foot slipped off the ladder, and then the other as she fell through the hole in the floor. An adult would have grabbed the landing and stopped the descent, but Tamara froze, clutching the diaper bag with both hands. After two seconds she was gliding past her own landing, as room 21 sailed by. After three seconds she had built up some speed. The floors ticked by once a second, tick tick tick, and she didn't think she could reach out and stop herself. She finally let out a scream that echoed up and down the corridor.
One hundred times a second the ship's computer divided thrust by acceleration to derive the inertial mass. This was the oldest formula in science, f = ma. The quotient decreased steadily as the engines sent propellant streaming out the back, but the computer compensated for this. Then there were small variations as kids jumped from bed to bed. While the energetic child was airborne the apparent mass decreased, but two seconds later he was back on the floor and the inertial mass returned to normal. The computer monitored the mass of the ship, second by second, and for 3 seconds running, now 4, now 5, the ship was under budget by 87 pounds, the weight of a young girl in freefall. It signaled the alarm and cut the engines back to 0.001G, just enough to hold water in containers. Faucets closed shut and toilets slowly drained under the feeble gravity.
John woke with a start. He recognized his daughter's scream and adrenaline coursed through his system. Legs and arms flew in all directions, but to no avail. He was floating above his bed and there was nothing to push against. He stretched one leg towards the floor and touched the side of the bed with his foot. A push sent him hurtling towards the door. "What happened to the gravity?" he shouted.
"I don't know." said Maggie, who was already at the door. She opened it, along with 50 other curious passengers.
"Futsack!" cursed Captain Mills as he saw the red indicator on his panel. "If he dropped another suitcase he's fired! I can just hear his lame excuses now."
"The lift was busy. I didn't want to wait. It was only three floors. Only two bags. I thought I could carry them both with one arm and climb the ladder. Only one tenth gravity; I thought I could do it."
"The last porter wasn't like this." muttered Captain Mills under his breath. "This guy's a real putz. Oh well, let's have the bad news."
Maggie opened the door and held on to the knob for stability. She looked around the landing but didn't see a thing. It sounded like Tamara was right outside her door. Then she realized what had happened. "John, come quick, I think she's fallen down the ladder."
Tick tick tick, the floors were going by at a steady rate, and Tamara realized it was a steady rate. "I should be speeding up, but I'm not." Fusion reactors glowed red on either side, generating power for the ship and its engines. Other children wouldn't know what they were, but she had seen them before, at her father's work. The next hundred yards of shaft were featureless; no landings, no doorways, just the ladder and the elevator shaft. She was falling between two large tanks of propellant, used to provide the thrust. She could see the engines down below, and then the floor of the ship coming up fast.
Captain Mills activated the internal video and cursed. He zoomed in on the image, which was almost down to the floor. "What the skat was she doing on the ladder?" he grumbled. He pushed the shaft speaker button and keyed his mike.
"Little girl, listen up. You don't have any way to talk back to me, so just listen." His voice echoed up and down the metal walls of the vertical corridor. "Land on your feet, then tuck and roll. Spread the impact across your entire body. You aren't moving very fast, and the floor below you is padded. You should be fine. Once you land, call for the elevator and go back to your stateroom, and for skat's sakes stay off the ladder!"
Tamara could see the ion engines on either side, though she didn't understand this technology. Grids, transformers, capacitors, and long vacuum chambers drifted by. The floor was clearly visible now, with its carpet of thick padding. Three, two, one, impact! She let herself roll onto the floor. Aside from a mild sprain in her right wrist she felt fine. She tried to stand up, and rose high into the air, only to drift back down again like a leaf in the wind.
Captain Mills spoke again. "Well you look unharmed. You're having trouble standing up because the gravity is down to .001 G. The ship did that automatically for you, and I'm sure it saved your life. Now sit still and we'll return to one tenth G, then you can go back to your room."
One, two, three, four, five. The computer divided thrust by acceleration and found the expected mass for five seconds running. The engines throttled up over the next 50 seconds, until the gravity was once again 0.1 G. Tamara stood up without difficulty and called for the lift. It was at the top of the ship, and seemed to take forever coming down. Suddenly she remembered the diapers. The bag lay on the floor next to her, with half its contents scattered about. She gathered everything together and stuffed it back into the bag, favoring her right wrist. The elevator opened its doors and she stepped in. She pressed 21 and the doors closed.
Every parent knows the feeling. You want to paddle your daughter for being reckless, but you're so relieved that you just want to hold her in your arms. Maggie was doing the latter. There would be time enough later for scolding.
"We were scared to death." said John.
"So was I." replied Tamara, and perhaps that realization made any additional punishments unnecessary.
While the engines were shut down, Beth drifted around the room unattended and undressed, waiting for her diaper. John, Maggie and Mark were out on the landing, staring down at Tamara below. Now they were back in their room with the door closed, but where was Beth? Her cries of discontent revealed her location, in the middle of the kitchen floor. Maggie gave Tamara one last kiss, then hopped over to the kitchen to retrieve the baby. She brought Beth back to the bed as Tamara pulled a diaper from the bag.
"Here you go." She handed the diaper to her mother. "Next time maybe you can go ask for diapers. I'll stay here and watch cartoons."
"It's a deal." said Maggie as she taped the flaps together. "Now how about some breakfast, for all of us. You want to feed the baby?" She was trying to return to business as usual, and it seemed to work. Tamara handed Beth pieces of cereal, and both parties were happy and content.