*****
The next morning his father called him to the gyro-gym. Building strength for Ermol’s strong gravitation was Keelic’s least favorite activity onboard. He drifted into an acceleration room, pulled himself down in a huff, and buckled in. As the room matched speed with the spinning gym, he was pushed into the seat until he was sitting firmly in it. The door opened onto the clank of metal weights and the soft whir of gyrocycles.
Something caught his eye, and he looked "up" part way around the wheel-shaped room to see blonde hair, and lots of it. The young owner was on a treadmill, laughing with two other girls. They were all in 3-Dyed exercise outfits. Two had scenes of some vid playing over them, but the third’s was black until something moved across it. A ship? Yes, and the shape was unmistakable. It was the far-space probe Galahad.
A girl who knew about Galahad? Keelic knew more about the probe ships of the Pathfinders than anyone he knew. He stared at her, wondering what to do. In three months of exploring the ship, he was sure he’d never seen her. His mother called to him from the other direction. He cringed. One of the girls looked at his parents, then at him, and then ignored him, laughing at something another girl said.
His parents began him on the first machine.
"I know how to do it," he snapped.
His mother scolded, "Do not speak to me in that tone."
He mumbled an apology, glanced at the girls to see if they had heard, and did his sets in record time. He jumped to the next machine and started in, watching the trio as they finished warming up on the treadmills and began working out along the curved wall. He spent extra time at the bench press so he could watch them.
He ended his workout as they did, and entered a deceleration chamber with them. The one with blonde hair looked directly at him, and he suffered under her frank gaze until she looked away. The other two girls giggled, and Keelic clenched his jaw. He took a pull-me behind them and followed their track switches. To his dismay, they went straight toward the bow of the ship, forward quarters section. Reserved for the ultra-wealthy, it was the only place on the vessel he had been unable to get into. He had been to the engine room, bridge, crew galley, crew quarters, maintenance corridors—everywhere except the forward quarters.
The section door slid open for them. Keelic tightened his grip on his pull-me and went through the door after them. The pull-me stopped, a chime rang, and the Ship-Ann said, "I’m sorry, but all guests must be declared."
The girls, still going down the hall, looked back at him. He could see that the corridor beyond them ended in a large round chamber. A steward in a gold-embroidered uniform emerged from a side door between Keelic and the way aft.
The man was broad shouldered, with a mean twist to his mouth. He said, "Who are you with, little boy?"
Keelic hated being called little. Deciding to die with honor, he pushed back, and then pulled hard, launching himself after the girls, away from the steward.
"Stop!" called the man.
Keelic sailed past the girls, and saw on one face a surprised, delighted smile. Entering the circular room, he looked back at her, and found that he had pursuit coming in at twice his speed. He calculated approach and distance to the far wall. Too far. The steward would arrive first. Keelic pulled in his legs and waited.
The steward reached out, and Keelic pushed away the man’s wrist with one foot, planted the other on the steward’s shoulder, and shoved off using the steward’s mass.
Spinning out of control, the man used his mag-guide to stop himself, but not before Keelic reached a wall. There was an audience watching from the eight halls leading from the room. Some were smiling, but not the steward, whose face was red with cruel intent.
A woman called to the steward from a nearby doorway, "Why don’t you just have the Ann call in his mag?"
The steward ignored her and, using his crew-class mag-guide, accelerated toward Keelic.
Skimming along the wall, Keelic slid just above its surface. The steward adjusted to intercept. The man had obviously never played Free-Tag. Keelic let the steward accelerate for a few seconds more, then spun lengthwise and kicked the wall with both feet, rocketing away in the opposite direction. Even with his powerful mag-guide, the steward’s speed forced him to a wall to change his vector to pursue. Keelic had already flipped and bounced off the far wall and was sailing toward the doorway where the three girls watched, blocking the exit.
The steward shouted to the Ship-Ann, "Mary-Ann, catch that boy!"
Keelic was ready for that and unlatched his belt, letting it get pulled away. The girls scrambled to get out of his way, but scrambling didn’t work in zero-g. He would have laughed, except that he was about to collide forcibly with the blonde-haired girl. She was grabbed out of the way by a friend so late that his face brushed through her hair. He memorized the smell of it as the steward behind ordered the Ship-Ann to close the door. A group of people using pull-me’s were coming through, keeping the door open, and he sailed past them.
Free—until he reached his quarters, where his parents and another steward were waiting. Their expressions were not forgiving.