Free Journey Between Worlds by Sylvia Engdahl Page A

rendezvous. We didn’t have to recline this time since the maneuvering acceleration didn’t exceed one gravity. (It felt like more, after weightlessness, but Alex assured me that it wasn’t.) Then in a few moments we were back to zero-g again, and eventually some bumps indicated that we were docking with the Susie.
    The lower compartment was nearest the exit, so we had to wait until it was emptied before they even let us unstrap. Then the flight attendant took us over to the hatch one at a time because she didn’t want us crashing into each other. Climbing down the steps was easy enough, as long as we held on, and the other flight attendant was waiting at the bottom to help us through the double airlocks into the Susan Constant ’s vestibule.
    I was disappointed not to get even a glimpse of the Susie from the outside, but we never were outside; outside was vacuum. I had seen pictures and knew that she was huge, and shaped rather like a dumbbell, with the power plant in one sphere and the passenger decks in the other. But all I saw when I went aboard was a perfectly ordinary passageway with doors opening off at the sides and some steps going off at unbelievable angles. The Susie ’s flight attendants, who wore red uniforms instead of blue, came to meet us and escort us to our staterooms. We wouldn’t be allowed to walk around by ourselves until the ship broke contact with the shuttle and got her spin back.
    That was where I was separated from Alex and also from Dad. I already knew that I’d be sharing my stateroom, for there’s no room to spare on a spaceship and all the cabins are double. I wasn’t prepared for just how small it would be, though. (If you’ve ever seen one of those “sleeping cars” they have in railroad museums, you’ve got the general idea.) There was barely room to stand up next to the double-deck bunk. And of course, no window. When the flight attendant closed the door behind him, I thought for a minute I was going to get claustrophobia after all, especially since that door wouldn’t open again. Then I saw the sign on it: THIS EXIT IS AUTOMATICALLY SEALED DURING MANEUVERS AND ZERO-GRAVITY. IN CASE OF EMERGENCY RING FOR THE ATTENDANT. I spotted the bright red “panic button” and felt a little better.
    The cabin lights were dim, and my roommate was lying on the lower bunk with a blanket pulled up over her and the safety net loosely fastened; all I could see of her was the back of a blonde head with short, tousled curls. She didn’t move when I came in, or even when there was a knock and another flight attendant appeared with my duffel bag. I wondered if she was sick until I remembered that by ship’s time it was nearly midnight.
    I didn’t want to go to sleep. I wanted to go out and find Dad. I wanted him to hug me tight and call me “Mel, honey” in that comfortable, affectionate way of his that I was coming to depend on, and maybe tell me once again just why it was that we were in this cramped, chilly cocoon of a ship on our way to Mars. But there was no way to do that, so without bothering to undress I clambered onto the upper bunk—which wasn’t really up, of course—and buried my face in my arms.
    Eventually I did fall asleep because I was worn out. Sometime later, about the time that would have been dawn if there were any dawn in space, we sailed. I never knew it. It was a low-g maneuver; I didn’t wake to feel the weight seeping back into me as the Susan Constant slowly eased into her outbound orbit, toward another world.

Chapter 6
    Dear old Susie —she was a good ship. It wasn’t her fault that my ten weeks aboard were for the most part such miserable ones. Maybe if I hadn’t drawn Janet Crane for a cabinmate, I would have been spared a lot of trouble. Looking back, though, it’s hard to know how many of my problems were caused by her influence, and how many I would have brought