the walls where they came together. On the other hand, if I stayed out in the open his superior strength and skill would soon force me into an unfavourable position. It was necessary, therefore, to think of some way of neutralizing his advantages.
I thought about the problem a lot before discovering the answer—and then I put in a good deal of practice when nobody else was around, for it needed very careful timing.
At last I was ready. We were seated round the little table bolted to one end of the Morning Star s' cabin—the end which was usually regarded as the floor. Ron was opposite me, and we'd been arguing in a good-humoured manner for some time. It was obvious that a fight was going to start at any minute. When Ron began to unbuckle his seat straps I knew it was time to take-off…
He'd just unfastened himself when I shouted, 'Come and get me!' and launched myself straight at the 'ceiling', fifteen feet away. This was the bit that had to be timed carefully. Ron kicked himself off a fraction of a second after me, once he'd judged the course I was taking.
Now in free orbit, of course, once you've launched yourself on a definite path you can't stop until you bump into something again. Ron expected to meet me on the 'ceiling': what he didn't expect was that I'd only get half-way there. For my foot was tucked in a loop of cord that I'd thoughtfully fastened to the floor. I'd only gone a couple of yards when I jerked to a stop and dragged myself back the way I'd come. Ron, of course, couldn't do anything but sail right on. He was so surprised at seeing me jerk back that he rolled over as he was ascending, to watch what had happened, and hit the ceiling with quite a thud. He hadn't recovered from this when I launched myself again—and this time I didn't hang on to the cord. Ron was still off-balance as I came up like a meteor. He couldn't get out of the way in time and so I knocked all the wind out of him. It was easy to hold him down for the count of five: in fact Norman got to ten before Ron showed any signs of life. I was beginning to get a bit worried when he finally started to stir…
Perhaps it wasn't a very famous victory, and a number of people thought I'd cheated. Still, there was nothing against this sort of thing in the rules.
It wasn't a trick I could use twice, and Ron got his own back next time. But, after all, he was older than me…
Some of our other games weren't quite so rough. We played a lot of chess (with magnetic men), but as I'm no good at this it wasn't much fun for me. About the only game at which I could always win was 'swimming'—not swimming in water, of course, but swimming in air.
This was so exhausting we didn't do it very often. You wanted a fairly large room, and the competitors had to start floating in a line, well away from the nearest wall. The idea was to reach the winning-post by clawing your way through the air. It was much like swimming through water, but a lot harder—and a lot slower. For some reason I was better at it than the others, which is rather odd because I'm not much good at ordinary swimming.
Still, I mustn't give the impression that all our time was spent in the Morning Star . There is plenty of work for everyone on a space-station, and perhaps because of this the staff made the most of their time off. And—this is a curious point that isn't very well known—we had more opportunities for amusement than you might think, because we needed very little sleep. That's one of the effects of zero gravity. All the time I was in space, I don't think I ever had more than four hours of continuous sleep.
I was careful never to miss one of Commander Doyle's lectures, even when there were other things I wanted to do. Tim had advised me, tactfully, that it would make a good impression if I were always there—and the Commander was a good speaker, anyway. Certainly I'm never likely to forget the talk on meteors which he gave to us.
Looking back on it, that's rather funny,
I thought about the problem a lot before discovering the answer—and then I put in a good deal of practice when nobody else was around, for it needed very careful timing.
At last I was ready. We were seated round the little table bolted to one end of the Morning Star s' cabin—the end which was usually regarded as the floor. Ron was opposite me, and we'd been arguing in a good-humoured manner for some time. It was obvious that a fight was going to start at any minute. When Ron began to unbuckle his seat straps I knew it was time to take-off…
He'd just unfastened himself when I shouted, 'Come and get me!' and launched myself straight at the 'ceiling', fifteen feet away. This was the bit that had to be timed carefully. Ron kicked himself off a fraction of a second after me, once he'd judged the course I was taking.
Now in free orbit, of course, once you've launched yourself on a definite path you can't stop until you bump into something again. Ron expected to meet me on the 'ceiling': what he didn't expect was that I'd only get half-way there. For my foot was tucked in a loop of cord that I'd thoughtfully fastened to the floor. I'd only gone a couple of yards when I jerked to a stop and dragged myself back the way I'd come. Ron, of course, couldn't do anything but sail right on. He was so surprised at seeing me jerk back that he rolled over as he was ascending, to watch what had happened, and hit the ceiling with quite a thud. He hadn't recovered from this when I launched myself again—and this time I didn't hang on to the cord. Ron was still off-balance as I came up like a meteor. He couldn't get out of the way in time and so I knocked all the wind out of him. It was easy to hold him down for the count of five: in fact Norman got to ten before Ron showed any signs of life. I was beginning to get a bit worried when he finally started to stir…
Perhaps it wasn't a very famous victory, and a number of people thought I'd cheated. Still, there was nothing against this sort of thing in the rules.
It wasn't a trick I could use twice, and Ron got his own back next time. But, after all, he was older than me…
Some of our other games weren't quite so rough. We played a lot of chess (with magnetic men), but as I'm no good at this it wasn't much fun for me. About the only game at which I could always win was 'swimming'—not swimming in water, of course, but swimming in air.
This was so exhausting we didn't do it very often. You wanted a fairly large room, and the competitors had to start floating in a line, well away from the nearest wall. The idea was to reach the winning-post by clawing your way through the air. It was much like swimming through water, but a lot harder—and a lot slower. For some reason I was better at it than the others, which is rather odd because I'm not much good at ordinary swimming.
Still, I mustn't give the impression that all our time was spent in the Morning Star . There is plenty of work for everyone on a space-station, and perhaps because of this the staff made the most of their time off. And—this is a curious point that isn't very well known—we had more opportunities for amusement than you might think, because we needed very little sleep. That's one of the effects of zero gravity. All the time I was in space, I don't think I ever had more than four hours of continuous sleep.
I was careful never to miss one of Commander Doyle's lectures, even when there were other things I wanted to do. Tim had advised me, tactfully, that it would make a good impression if I were always there—and the Commander was a good speaker, anyway. Certainly I'm never likely to forget the talk on meteors which he gave to us.
Looking back on it, that's rather funny,
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