Free Survey Ship by Marion Zimmer Bradley Page B

face tightly barriered, was thinking, Oh, yes, Moira, being nice to the class freak, the way she'd be so nice to a cripple or a blind person. Well, I'm damned if I want her pitying me! She said, “Well, the question's academic anyhow. It makes more sense to figure out who's going to cook dinner. Teague, didn't you say there was fresh food storage for a period of months? Why don't we celebrate our takeoff with a steak dinner, or the nearest equivalent we can find in the food machines? I'll volunteer to cook tonight, but
     after this we take turns.”
    Once again, the dizzying shifts in direction as they moved from the strongly oriented gravity of the “bridge” to the Life-Support central area — which was fairly circular — and once again Peake stumbled as the direction of “down” abruptly reversed itself.
    Moira, flipping herself over in the low gravity, catching Ravi and spinning with him on a common center in the almost-gravity-free corridor between two modules, thought, I guess the gravity-sickness was psychological. When I don't have to look out that damned window at the whole universe, I seem to have my space-orientation just fine! Holding tight to Ravi's hand, they cartwheeled the length of the zero-gravity corridor. Ching was clinging tightly to the crawl-bar, inching like a fly along the wall. Peake pushed his legs against one end and took off, shooting along the corridor and colliding with Ravi and Moira; the three of them ended in a laughing tangle of arms and legs. Teague and Fontana, clinging to each other and making “swimming” motions, joined in the laughter.
    “I should remind you all,” Peake said, “that the exercise area — that's the conical module we didn't get to, next to the sleeping quarters — is arranged with DeMag units that can be cut down to zero or up to full gravity. We have to work out at full gravity to keep our muscles in good shape — ” Teague groaned, but Peake ignored him and went on, “but we can experiment with free-fall acrobatics if we want to, too.”
    “Look at Ching,” Moira squeaked. “Let go, Ching, you can't get hurt, there's nowhere to fall to!”
    Ching was clinging dizzily to the crawl-bar still. She said, “I think I'll wait to get my orientation. If it's quite all right with you, Moira?” she added meticulously.
    Fontana's voice was sharp. “Let her alone, Moira, we all have to adjust at our own rate, and you've been in free-fall before; she hasn't.”
    Moira, holding to Ravi, felt his body against hers, looked with pleasure at the contrast of his coffee-colored hands against her own pallid ones. She twisted a little and their lips met; she felt his kiss with a shock of recognition, a familiar thing among all the new strangenesses. They floated together, their lips just touching, entangled, her hair floating around him, streaming, intermingled with his own dark curls. She fancied Ching's look down at them both was one of disapproval, and defiantly prolonged the kiss.
    Peake pushed through the sphincter into the next module, which was the main cabin they had first entered. He went to the food machine, Ching joining him there a moment later.
    Ching said, “They didn't lose any time, did they — Moira and Ravi?”
    Peake shrugged. He said, “Does it matter that much?” The sight of the two, intertwined and kissing, lost in each other, roused painful memories. Every scrap of his being longed for Jimson; even during the excitement of pulling away from the Space Station, he had had to keep remembering, I can't share it with him, is he watching me go, I'll never be able to share it with him again. Was Jimson suffering like this, too, at the other end of that lengthening string which separated them? Part of him wanted Jimson to share even this suffering, part of him quailed at the thought of Jimson, tender, sweet, vulnerable, undergoing this monstrous pain that seemed to eat him up inside.
    Alone, and I will be alone all the rest of my life. There is no