Jennifer-Herself

The university had allocated me a space behind one of the car park garages so I tucked the Sky Cruiser in snugly out of the way and made my way through the corridors to the office reserved for the latest conference. My twelve were thinned down to eight when I told them the requirements we were looking for in flight engineers and experimental technicians which made this seem a more reasonable number to work with. “Right, boys and girls, we will be trying out for the practical requirements today, so firstly please will you let me know before we start if you are claustrophobic or nervous about erratic movement. Nobody? Good. I will be taking you through a series of exercises that copy what I believe I will be using during our explorations and if any of them make you uncomfortable you must let me know immediately. It may not disqualify you from the project but it is important that we know if you are possibly not working at your best capacity.” I kept up the background chat as we walked around to the car park and used the time to make a careful study of the three girls and five lads that I had to make decisions on relating to their abilities and personalities. I was sure that they were all exactly what we needed to man our team, the big problem would be to decide whom to leave behind. As expected they were surprised – perhaps even confused when we approached our vehicle. It was in its usual park situation, on three supports with the large lift deployed beneath the main cabin. I had left Rod up in the navigator’s position so, as we rode up in the lift he greeted us and showed each pupil to a seat. I had them all buckle up, mainly so that they would know how, then did my minimum lift drive and headed straight up, gradually increasing the thrust until we were above the commercial airline flightpaths and at one point five gee. “There is a devil of a lot I want to get through today, but the important thing is for you to make yourself as familiar as you can with the craft, so do not hesitate to ask questions. The first point that everybody starts with is what about safety, are we in danger. The answer to that is of course you are, if you take another breath, however, the biggest danger here is standing at the back of the room. Trust Rod at your peril, he shows no mercy on your person, otherwise you are safer than as if you were standing on a London street. I will drop the drive to one gee so that you can wander about in comfort and see what we have to offer.” When I did this they all unbuckled and together came over to the control board. “Can you really control gravity like that?” one lass, Pat asked, “I was told that it was impossible unless you altered a body’s mass.” “That’s quite correct, I don’t control gravity, what I do is alter the thrust driving the ship and I can do that in any direction to any degree. It feels like gravity though. I think you should feel the range we might use. First, since you are all unbuckled we will try zero. Prepare yourselves to float free.” I dropped the drive to zero and watched as the puzzled students drifted about the cabin, pushing themselves and each other from side to side. “This is marvellous,” said the oldest boy Quentin, “but I think I might be feeling a bit queasy.” “That’s common, a lot of people do at first. The old time astronauts like the American lunar explorers felt it all the time in flight. We do it by choice. I’ll go back to one gee.” I did this in a smooth increase to avoid any shock action to our participants. When everybody had managed to stabilise themselves I informed them our principle advantage in space was our ability to control the vessels thrust to any degree, and within limits, with any reasonable load. The crewmembers will need to take any level of drive at a moments notice even if they are carrying out other duties. Rod was happily showing everybody around, where cabins were located, what our basic facilities were and how they were maintained, approximately what their duties may incur when they had positions set for them, and of course, answering a million questions. I, on the other hand, limited myself to demonstrating the piloting functions on the keyboard and navigators panel. I also had them strap in and demonstrated varying thrusts in differing directions, up to an emergence braking at four gee. Enough to make them all gasp, including Rod I must admit.