Chapter 10. Floating and Flying
The girls all looked around in fascination as they followed Jupiter. Archways on either side opened into large rooms where serious men and women sat before banks of screens or manipulated pieces of scientific equipment.
‘In here.’ Jupiter beckoned Angelica through an archway, and the others trailed behind open mouthed. The room was full of strange creatures, each in its own uniquely decorated compartment. They all appeared to be free to move around, but a slight shimmer in the air in front of each one showed that there was an invisible wall keeping them in.
‘It’s like a zoo,’ Kate whispered.
‘Gross!’ Phoebe recoiled as a slimy, yellow, slug-like creature spewed a glistening grey slime as it lurched to the front of its cell.
‘Oh, isn’t that cute,’ cooed Celeste, as a tiny furry creature with large imploring eyes squeaked trustingly up at her.
‘Very cute,’ said Jupiter dryly. ‘Unfortunately, when it gets annoyed it spits an acid strong enough to melt metal. And it gets annoyed frequently. This is harmless though.’ He pointed to a scaly grey blob that looked like a deformed warthog. ‘It only eats foliage.’
‘It may be harmless but it’s definitely not cute,’ shuddered Celeste. The others were inclined to agree with this, particularly after the blob gave a large, disgusting smelling burp.
Jupiter took the egg from Angelica and shut it in an empty cell, passing his hand across a small plate at the side. The shimmering barrier zipped across.
‘It should be safe there behind the force field. The System will look after it and it will be safe to keep as a pet in another three revolutions,’ he said in satisfaction. ‘Now Angelica, we need to find out what you can do.’
He spent the next hour and a half asking Angela to push buttons and panels on a variety of machines, exclaiming in delight when they malfunctioned.
‘This is boring,’ wailed Angelica, after requesting the sixth farinata from a food screen and turning it to mush.
‘Get used to it,’ snapped Jupiter. ‘We have a lot more to do yet.’
Eventually he relented and took pity on Angelica. The other girls were bored as well by this time. The delights of watching the strange zoo had soon palled and they were restless with nothing to occupy them.
‘I guess you deserve a break, so why don’t you take your visitors to the Gravidome. We’ll do some more work tomorrow.’
He led the relived girls out an archway and snapped his fingers for a hoverpad.
‘Thanks Jupiter,’ chorused Angelica and Celeste, while Kate and Phoebe wondered what a gravidome was.
‘It’s a brilliant place. We only get to go there sometimes,’ squeaked Celeste.
‘It’s okay,’ sniffed Angelica, but Kate could tell she was really pleased.
‘But what is it?’ Phoebe asked.
Celeste laughed. ‘It’s too hard to explain. You’ll see when we get there.’
The Gravidome turned out to be a large dome at one end of the city. The girls entered a small circular chamber and Celeste put her hand on a blue button as large as a dinner plate that was set into the wall beside her.
‘Four students, credit to Jupiter,’ she said loudly.
‘Accepted,’ came a voice from behind Kate. She jumped, but all she could see was a small grid on the wall.
‘Proceed,’ intoned the voice, and an archway opened on the wall in front of them. The girls went through into an even smaller chamber and the door slid across behind them. Kate was beginning to feel claustrophobic when there was a hiss of air and her feet left the floor.
‘What’s happening?’ she shrieked, flailing her arms to keep her balance.
‘It’s quite safe. They’re just equalizing the pressure,’ Angelica reassured her.
With a ‘whoosh’ a small circular panel opened in one of the walls and the girls were sucked though it into a narrow tube. Phoebe screamed but Angelica and Celeste were laughing.
‘Don’t worry. It’s going to be fun,’ giggled Celeste.
One by one the girls sped down the tube and out the other end. The tube opened up into a large airy dome where dozens of boys and girls were swooping and hovering in the air.
‘It’s low gravity,’ Celeste explained, before giving a yell and launching herself into the air. The walls and roof were padded with a soft spongy covering and Kate and Phoebe soon got the hang of pushing off from a wall and flying across the dome. There were inevitable giggling collisions with others, but as the lightest touch sufficed to send the other person flying in another direction, this only added to the fun.
‘I feel like a balloon,’ said Kate rather hysterically as she floated slowly toward the roof.
‘How will we ever get out of here?’ laughed Phoebe, turning a slow somersault in the air beside her. A cheerful boy soaring slowly past heard her.
‘It’s easy. You just work your way down the handholds and push through one of those black ports into a tunnel. They suck you back to the entry port,’ he called out.
‘Thanks,’ called Phoebe, as he drifted up towards the ceiling.
‘Come and play snakes,’ he invited. ‘You can both be in my team if you like.’
The girls launched themselves upward after him, where a group of boys and girls were gathered in one spot. Copying the others, they joined in a line, each person holding the belt of the person in front. Snakes turned out to be a loosely organised game where snaking lines of children tried to catch others and send them hurtling to one end of the dome. The leader called out directions so that all the children kicked together or turned at the same time. Kate was amazed at how fast the line could go although she and Phoebe were slower on turning than the others.
‘Sorry,’ she said breathlessly, as her feet became tangled in the robe of the girl in front of her.
‘No problem,’ the girl assured her. ‘You’re new here, aren’t you?’
When Kate nodded she said, ‘don’t try so hard. Let yourself drift and you’ll find it’s much easier. You are wasting too much energy trying to fight the direction. Just go with the flow.’
‘Thanks,’ gasped Kate and took her advice. She found the game a lot easier after that. They spent a frantic and hilarious half-hour playing snakes, and Kate’s arms began to ache from the swimming movements she had to make to propel herself along.
‘Flying is fun but it’s exhausting,’ Phoebe panted a few minutes later as she and Kate bumped into each other. Kate nodded as she clung for a few moments to one of the looping handholds fixed to the wall. Phoebe clutched a handhold beside her and they paused to admire a group of girls who were performing some sort of practiced routine at the very top of the dome.
‘It’s a bit like synchronised swimming, only in air,’ said Kate with a grin.
‘They’re good, aren’t they,’ said Celeste, drifting across to join them. ‘They put on exhibitions when we have important visitors from other bases.’
‘Is that their talent?’ asked Phoebe.
‘Oh no.’ Celeste was shocked. ‘A talent has to be productive and this is strictly recreational. No, they will all have other talents. I know that Arianwen, she’s the one in the centre, is a talented mathematician. She’s a whizz at trajectories which I find really hard.’
‘We’d better go, it’s nearly dinner time.’ Angelica swooped down beside them and pulled herself across to a black hole in the wall. She propelled herself headfirst into it and disappeared from sight. Sighing with regret, Celeste followed her as Kate and Phoebe hovered nearby.
‘You go first,’ said Phoebe, eyeing the hole with trepidation.
‘No, it’s okay. You can go.’
‘We’ll both go together then.’
Holding hands, they pushed themselves reluctantly into the hole. A rush of air carried them tumbling down a narrow vertical tube. They floated softly down, becoming heavier as they neared the bottom.
‘Oh! My feet feel as if they have lead weights tied to them,’ complained Kate.
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‘Mine too,’ agreed Phoebe. ‘I feel all heavy and horrible.’
They stamped out an archway to find Angelica and Celeste waiting for them.
‘It’s terrible when you come down again, isn’t it?’ said Celeste sympathetically.
‘Worth it for the flying, though,’ remarked Angelica cheerfully. ‘Let’s take the Low Way back.’
The Low Way was a slowly moving belt that was studded with soft squashy cushions at regular intervals. Sighing with relief, the girls flopped onto a group of these and were carried up and down sloping ramps, through tubular corridors and between domes.
‘This is the only way to travel,’ said Phoebe, stretching luxuriously.
‘It’s a lot slower though,’ said Angelica severely. ‘It is mainly used by the Old Ones.’
The few people Kate could see didn’t look particularly old but they certainly bore themselves proudly, as if they were very important.
‘Most of them are so old they are watching their children’s children do the Glory Walk,’ whispered Celeste.