Waypoint Kangaroo by Curtis C. Chen Page B

sitting to the captain’s right, on purpose, so I’m the last to introduce myself.
    â€œEvan Rogers,” I say, extending my hand. I’m normally not much for excessive touching, but this is part of the role I’m playing.
    The captain shakes my hand. I feel calluses on his palm and thumb. “A pleasure to meet you, Mr. Rogers. How are you enjoying your journey so far?”
    â€œOh, it’s fantastic,” I say, gushing just a little, not wanting to sell it too hard. “This is my first time on a cruise spaceship. I can’t wait to try out all the different activities.”
    â€œAnd what do you do for a living?” he asks.
    â€œOh, I work for the U.S. State Department,” I say, waving a hand, drawing attention to myself while pretending to be dismissive. “I’m a trade inspector.”
    â€œWhat kind of trade?” asks the captain. The question comes a fraction of a second too quickly. He’s not just being polite; he’s actually interested in the answer.
    â€œInterplanetary,” I say. “Imports, exports, tariffs, duties, taxes. Most people don’t realize how much commerce there is between all the inner planets and our asteroid belt colonies. And of course, trade regulations have changed quite a bit since the war.”
    I don’t have to name the conflict. Everyone knows I’m talking about the Independence War. A lot of things changed after Mars graduated from being a colony world to a full-blown planetary rival, and most of them don’t make anybody happy.
    All eight of the other passengers at the table are from Earth, six of them are American, and four are especially patriotic and talkative. The captain’s eyes are livelier now, watching with genuine interest. He no longer needs to drive the conversation. I wonder how many of his dinner guests expect him to be the master of ceremonies throughout the entire meal.
    The background music in the dining room fades for a moment, and a male announcer’s voice tells us that Dejah Thoris has passed Lunar orbit and is now in interplanetary space. A smattering of applause follows, and then the music resumes.
    One of the women at my table asks the captain how fast we’re traveling. He consults his wristband display and answers her precisely, in kilometers per hour, then adds that the ship is still accelerating—that’s why it feels like we have gravity.
    â€œJust under nine meters per second squared,” Santamaria says. “That’s about ninety percent of Earth normal.”
    Dejah Thoris will continue accelerating, he explains, until we reach “midway”—the middle waypoint of our trip, halfway between Earth and Mars—on the fourth day. Then the engines will throttle down until the ship’s at zero acceleration again, propelled forward only by inertia, and we’ll be in freefall. That will last for one full day, during which several sections will be converted into weightless open spaces. Passengers can register for sessions of various zero-gee activities, aided by crew chaperones and recorded by flying cam-bots like the one following the captain around now.
    Everyone else at the table looks excited—“Weightless Day” is one of the big selling points of this cruise—and I feign enthusiasm. These people haven’t suffered through hundreds of hours of military spacewalk training. Well, maybe Captain Santamaria. His beard hides most of his face, but his skin is aged and mottled from exposure. I wonder if he was in the Outer Space Service before retiring to this cushy job.
    Santamaria continues his breakdown of our voyage. During midway, Dejah Thoris will slowly rotate until the ship is facing backward, with the engines pointing in our direction of travel. Then everyone will go to sleep, and wake up again under point nine gravity, only this time we’ll be decelerating until we reach Mars orbit.
    The purpose of all this, he