it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place
Running is something that Esfir does for any number of reasons. She runs to keep fit, she runs for the joy of it, she runs to push herself - out of her comfort zone, out of her nice warm bed - but increasingly, she runs to clear her mind. The Liberty is a beautiful ship, both inside and out, and there are long, long corridors with nothing but white floors, white walls, white ceilings, and the occasional door.
(there are also faint, ever so faint, swirls of colour in the white - Liberty had been a pleasure ship before being retrofitted with cannons. Sometimes, Esfir notices)
She runs every morning she can, up and down the corridor, up and down and pushing so that her calves ache. Up and down and she can do this because there is artificial gravity. Somehow. She doesn't know how, and she can't even start to guess as she's on a ship, a ship, a ship like in pictures from her world that can't ever be real. To make gravity, fake gravity, Tsiolokovsky suggested that you could spin a space station around an axis so that the centrifugal force from the rotation simulations gravity along the outsides. The more you walk towards the center, the less gravity you feel.
But every morning she runs across a corridor that you can set a spirit level on, in a ship that cruises horizontally through space.
And she can't ask.
She can't ask because everyone around her takes it for granted, and she can't stand out. She can't. She can be quiet and reserved and odd, but she can't ask because she's supposed to know. Or at least, not wonder. Not wonder how hyperspace and hyperspeed works (you can't go lightspeed, but you can go faster, she'd realized, once you make that jump, but logically once you get over the speed of light, you go backwards in time...), not wonder about artificial gravity and how aliens evolved to be bipedal with their nose over their mouth. She can't ask about where the hell they get their co-ordinates from, and that is important. Coordinates are linear or angular quantities that designate the position that a point occupies in a given reference frame or system, and she doesn't know the reference system.
She has no idea where her A-Wing is, where the ship is, where the fleet is, but, most importantly, she has no idea where she is.
For a pilot, not knowing where you are is potentially fatal. For a cosmonaut, it is almost certainly fatal.
It keeps her awake more than everything else.
And it's not that she isn't used to holding her tongue, because she is. She survived twenty-six years in the Soviet Union, eight of those in the airforce, and she knows how to hold her tongue. But being in the space program meant that she could ask questions about how things worked. Being in the Bar meant she could ask and read to her heart's content.
She's badly out of practice at not asking obvious questions.
So, she runs.
She drags herself out of bed before the bell (siren?) and runs. Up and down, up and down, pushing herself so that her calves burn. She runs until her mind is clear and there is nothing left but this moment, and this run, and it's all that her brain can do but breathe, put one foot down, breathe, put another foot down. Not ask questions, not even have them pressing against her skull, don't listen to the not-quite-audible vibrations of the engine (she'll lie awake at night, one hand against the wall, listening to the vessel. As long as she can hear things, feel things, it's okay. It's alright. She's not going to be trapped if it all is working), just run.
And if sometimes she has to run in the evenings too, well.
At least she's not asking questions.
(there are also faint, ever so faint, swirls of colour in the white - Liberty had been a pleasure ship before being retrofitted with cannons. Sometimes, Esfir notices)
She runs every morning she can, up and down the corridor, up and down and pushing so that her calves ache. Up and down and she can do this because there is artificial gravity. Somehow. She doesn't know how, and she can't even start to guess as she's on a ship, a ship, a ship like in pictures from her world that can't ever be real. To make gravity, fake gravity, Tsiolokovsky suggested that you could spin a space station around an axis so that the centrifugal force from the rotation simulations gravity along the outsides. The more you walk towards the center, the less gravity you feel.
But every morning she runs across a corridor that you can set a spirit level on, in a ship that cruises horizontally through space.
And she can't ask.
She can't ask because everyone around her takes it for granted, and she can't stand out. She can't. She can be quiet and reserved and odd, but she can't ask because she's supposed to know. Or at least, not wonder. Not wonder how hyperspace and hyperspeed works (you can't go lightspeed, but you can go faster, she'd realized, once you make that jump, but logically once you get over the speed of light, you go backwards in time...), not wonder about artificial gravity and how aliens evolved to be bipedal with their nose over their mouth. She can't ask about where the hell they get their co-ordinates from, and that is important. Coordinates are linear or angular quantities that designate the position that a point occupies in a given reference frame or system, and she doesn't know the reference system.
She has no idea where her A-Wing is, where the ship is, where the fleet is, but, most importantly, she has no idea where she is.
For a pilot, not knowing where you are is potentially fatal. For a cosmonaut, it is almost certainly fatal.
It keeps her awake more than everything else.
And it's not that she isn't used to holding her tongue, because she is. She survived twenty-six years in the Soviet Union, eight of those in the airforce, and she knows how to hold her tongue. But being in the space program meant that she could ask questions about how things worked. Being in the Bar meant she could ask and read to her heart's content.
She's badly out of practice at not asking obvious questions.
So, she runs.
She drags herself out of bed before the bell (siren?) and runs. Up and down, up and down, pushing herself so that her calves burn. She runs until her mind is clear and there is nothing left but this moment, and this run, and it's all that her brain can do but breathe, put one foot down, breathe, put another foot down. Not ask questions, not even have them pressing against her skull, don't listen to the not-quite-audible vibrations of the engine (she'll lie awake at night, one hand against the wall, listening to the vessel. As long as she can hear things, feel things, it's okay. It's alright. She's not going to be trapped if it all is working), just run.
And if sometimes she has to run in the evenings too, well.
At least she's not asking questions.