2061 Odyssey Three

chapter 13 'No-one told us to bring swimsuits...'
Captain Smith kept his little surprise until day five, just a few hours before turnaround. His announcement was received, as he had expected, with stunned incredulity.

Victor Willis was the first to recover.

'A swimming pool! In a spaceship! You must be joking!'

The Captain leaned back and prepared to enjoy himself. He grinned at Heywood Floyd who had already been let into the secret.

'Well, I suppose Columbus would have been amazed at some of the facilities on the ships that came after him.'

'Is there a diving board?' asked Greenburg wistfully. 'I used to be college champion.'

'As a matter of fact - yes. It's only five metres - but that will give you three seconds of free fall, at our nominal tenth of a gee. And if you want a longer time, I'm sure Mr Curtis will be happy to reduce thrust.'

'Indeed?' said the Chief Engineer dryly. 'And mess up all my orbit calculations? Not to mention the risk of the water crawling out, Surface tension, you know...

'Wasn't there a space station once that had a spherical swimming pool?' somebody asked.

'They tried it at the hub of Pasteur, before they started the spin,' answered Floyd. 'It just wasn't practical. In zero gravity, it had to be completely enclosed. And you could drown rather easily inside a big sphere of water, if you panicked.'

'One way of getting into the record books - first person to drown in space...'

'No-one told us to bring swimsuits,' complained Maggie M'Bala.

'Anyone who has to wear a swimsuit probably should,' Mihailovich whispered to Floyd.

Captain Smith rapped on the table to restore order. 'This is more important, please. As you know, at midnight we reach maximum speed, and have to start braking. So the drive will shut down at 23.00, and the ship will be reversed. We'll have two hours of weightlessness before we commence thrust again at 01.00.

'As you can imagine, the crew will be rather busy - we'll use the opportunity for an engine check and a hull inspection, which can't be done while we're under power. I strongly advise you to be sleeping then, with the restraint straps lightly fastened across your beds. The stewards will check that there aren't any loose articles that could cause trouble when weight comes on again. Questions?'

There was a profound silence, as if the assembled passengers were still somewhat stunned by the revelation and were deciding what to do about it.

'I was hoping you'd ask me about the economics of such a luxury - but as you haven't, I'll tell you anyway. It's not a luxury at all - it doesn't cost a thing, but we hope it will be a very valuable asset on future voyages.

'You see, we have to carry five thousand tons of water as reaction mass, so we might as well make the best use of it. Number One tank is now three-quarters empty; we'll keep it that way until the end of the voyage. So after breakfast tomorrow - see you down at the beach...

Considering the rush to get Universe spaceborne, it was surprising that such a good job had been done on something so spectacularly non-essential.

The 'beach' was a metal platform, about five metres wide, curving around a third of the great tank's circumference. Although the far wall was only another twenty metres away, clever use of projected images made it seem at infinity. Borne on the waves in the middle distance, surfers were heading towards a shore which they would never reach, Beyond them, a beautiful passenger clipper which any travel agent would recognize instantly as Tsung Sea-Space Corporation's Tai-Pan was racing along the horizon under a full spread of sail.

To complete the illusion, there was sand underfoot (slightly magnetized, so it would not stray too far from its appointed place) and the short length of beach ended in a grove of palm trees which were quite convincing, until examined too closely. Overhead, a hot tropical sun completed the idyllic picture; it was hard to realize that just beyond these walls the real Sun was shining, now twice as fiercely as on any terrestrial beach.

The designer had really done a wonderful job, in the limited space available. It seemed a little unfair of Greenburg to complain: 'Pity there's no surf...'