mother. Then, artificial gravity runs parallel to the cylinder's axis.
In operational mode, when the Climber provides its own gravity, the Can's walls become floors.
Even then there'll be very little room if everyone is awake at once.
I take one long look around and ask, "How do you keep from trampling each other?"
"Some of the men are in their hammocks all the time. Unless we're in business. Then everybody is on station."
The Can is fifteen meters in diameter and forty meters tall. Doubled pressure partitions separate it into four unequal compartments. Operations Division, the brains of the ship, occupies the topmost level. Immediately below is Weapons. The two divisions share their computation and defection capacity. The third level is Ship's Services. It's the smallest. It contains galley, toilet, primitive laundry and medical facilities, recyling sections, and most importantly, the central controls by which internal temperature is sustained. Below Ship's Services is Engineering.
Engineering's main task is to make the ship go from point A to point B. Their equipment, systems, and responsibilities often overlap with Ship's Services'.
A central structural member, called the keel, runs the length of the cylinder. When the ship is in operational mode the crew will take turns sleeping in hammocks attached to it. That's something to think about. I've never tried extremely low gravity sleep. I hear that it's hard to get a good rest, and dreams become a little crazy.
In parasite mode sleeping arrangements are catch-as-catch-can, with the quickest men hanging hammocks from available cross-members, then negotiating sharing deals with slower shipmates. Some of the places hammocks get slung seem almost too small for mice.
The luxury quarters of any ship, the Ship's Commander's stateroom, here consists of a screened-off section of beam near the entry hatch. He'll share his hammock with the First Watch Officer and Chief Quartermaster. Every hammock will be shared. It takes no imagination to see the potential for havoc in that. It takes some complex shuffling to put three men in one hammock and allow each a reasonable day's ration of sleep. I suspect Command would prefer android crews who need no sleep at all.
There's little open space inside the cylinder. The curved inner hull supports most of the consoles and working stations, with little separation between them. Two meters off the hull the inner circle begins. There're a few duty stations on that level, but most of the space is occupied by the ship's nervous and circulatory systems, and those parts of her organs which don't need to be instantly accessible. With the exception of a few holes providing access to the two-meter tunnel around the keel, the central eleven meters of the Can are an impenetrable maze of piping, conduit, wiring, junctions, humming boxes of a thousand shapes and sizes, structural beams, and ductwork.
I have to ask. "How the hell can human beings work in this jungle gym?"
Westhause smiles. "Looks better on holo, doesn't it?" Clambering around like a baboon in pants, he leads me to an abbreviated astrogator's console. Flanking it are a pair of input/ output consoles for the ship's main computation battery. Nudging up in front, like a calf to its mother, is the tiniest spatial display tank I've ever seen. I've see cheap children's battle games with bigger tanks. With a perfectly straight face, Wet-hause reminds me, "It won't be as nasty after we go on ship's gravity."
"Any way is up when you can't get any farther down."
An argument breaks out in the keel passageway. Wanting to appear conscientious, I move toward the nearest access way.
"Never mind. They'll settle it. That's Rose and Throdahl. They're always fussing about something."
"If you say so. Where're the lockers, Waldo?"
"Lockers?" He grins. It's a mean grin. A sadist's grin. Your basic got-you-by-the-balls-and-nevergoing- to-let-go grin. "You are fresh meat, aren't you? What lockers?"
"Gear
In operational mode, when the Climber provides its own gravity, the Can's walls become floors.
Even then there'll be very little room if everyone is awake at once.
I take one long look around and ask, "How do you keep from trampling each other?"
"Some of the men are in their hammocks all the time. Unless we're in business. Then everybody is on station."
The Can is fifteen meters in diameter and forty meters tall. Doubled pressure partitions separate it into four unequal compartments. Operations Division, the brains of the ship, occupies the topmost level. Immediately below is Weapons. The two divisions share their computation and defection capacity. The third level is Ship's Services. It's the smallest. It contains galley, toilet, primitive laundry and medical facilities, recyling sections, and most importantly, the central controls by which internal temperature is sustained. Below Ship's Services is Engineering.
Engineering's main task is to make the ship go from point A to point B. Their equipment, systems, and responsibilities often overlap with Ship's Services'.
A central structural member, called the keel, runs the length of the cylinder. When the ship is in operational mode the crew will take turns sleeping in hammocks attached to it. That's something to think about. I've never tried extremely low gravity sleep. I hear that it's hard to get a good rest, and dreams become a little crazy.
In parasite mode sleeping arrangements are catch-as-catch-can, with the quickest men hanging hammocks from available cross-members, then negotiating sharing deals with slower shipmates. Some of the places hammocks get slung seem almost too small for mice.
The luxury quarters of any ship, the Ship's Commander's stateroom, here consists of a screened-off section of beam near the entry hatch. He'll share his hammock with the First Watch Officer and Chief Quartermaster. Every hammock will be shared. It takes no imagination to see the potential for havoc in that. It takes some complex shuffling to put three men in one hammock and allow each a reasonable day's ration of sleep. I suspect Command would prefer android crews who need no sleep at all.
There's little open space inside the cylinder. The curved inner hull supports most of the consoles and working stations, with little separation between them. Two meters off the hull the inner circle begins. There're a few duty stations on that level, but most of the space is occupied by the ship's nervous and circulatory systems, and those parts of her organs which don't need to be instantly accessible. With the exception of a few holes providing access to the two-meter tunnel around the keel, the central eleven meters of the Can are an impenetrable maze of piping, conduit, wiring, junctions, humming boxes of a thousand shapes and sizes, structural beams, and ductwork.
I have to ask. "How the hell can human beings work in this jungle gym?"
Westhause smiles. "Looks better on holo, doesn't it?" Clambering around like a baboon in pants, he leads me to an abbreviated astrogator's console. Flanking it are a pair of input/ output consoles for the ship's main computation battery. Nudging up in front, like a calf to its mother, is the tiniest spatial display tank I've ever seen. I've see cheap children's battle games with bigger tanks. With a perfectly straight face, Wet-hause reminds me, "It won't be as nasty after we go on ship's gravity."
"Any way is up when you can't get any farther down."
An argument breaks out in the keel passageway. Wanting to appear conscientious, I move toward the nearest access way.
"Never mind. They'll settle it. That's Rose and Throdahl. They're always fussing about something."
"If you say so. Where're the lockers, Waldo?"
"Lockers?" He grins. It's a mean grin. A sadist's grin. Your basic got-you-by-the-balls-and-nevergoing- to-let-go grin. "You are fresh meat, aren't you? What lockers?"
"Gear
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