A Visitor to the Future - 132 - Transit Décor
Watching the Boiling Point grow larger as we closed in was a novel experience from my perspective. When you walked closer to something with your own eyes, finer details usually became more visible - but with the definition of the Consortium-augmented cameras I was using with my neural link, there wasn't much difference. What did become more apparent was scale - the Boiling Point was far larger than my house, and probably most apartment buildings - and that was to say nothing of the detection array. With some help from Anode I rotated my perspective until the array was positioned above me - from here it was almost like sitting below the branches of a tree under the night sky.
As the skiff approached the Forefort, a rectangular recess appeared in the hull, which promptly slid open to reveal a small docking area. My perspective spun around as reaction control thrusters slowly but expertly fired to allow us to fly backwards into the docking bay. There was a kind of grace to the movement - we spun so gradually that the motion was barely noticeable from inside the vessel. The skiff connected to the docking port without incident or fanfare and the exterior door slid closed behind us, leaving my perspective in darkness for a brief moment until my neural link disconnected. I blinked several times to readjust, now back to the visual abilities of a mere human.
We disembarked into the no-gravity space, floating through both the docking port and two airlocks. The interior corridors were well-lit and clean, colored an off-white tone which was bright and cheerful, but not excessively so. Both sides of the circular corridor had a grey carpeted strip which ran the length of the space, following the layout of the space and dipping around corners - though one side was wider than the other. There were also frequent hand-holds across the walls, to my relief. I didn't have nearly as much no-gravity experience as the rest of the group - that had been part of the reason why I'd asked for a Contact wall - I was hoping the zero-gravity game would help my dexterity.
The rest of the group began to disperse to different parts of the ship, leaving Gatecrash to give me a rundown of ship operations.
"Quick rundown of standard transit décor," said Gatecrash, now floating in front of me, "So, this grey carpeted strip here has several purposes. First, when the ship is accelerating, the wider strip will be the floor. We'll be doing a large burn to begin with, so we'll have about 1G of gravity. As we slow down, we'll go to 0.37G. With our travel itinerary, we'll also have a large 0G period, which is good because the Abnormals live in 0G - it's nice to have time to adjust."
"Sorry - I'm really not great with all of this - how does that work?"
Gatecrash grabbed one of the handholds, their new denser hands seeming to make their grip extremely secure. Using it as leverage, they put their feet on the wide carpet, then with their free hand, pointed down towards it.
"Below us are the ship's engines. Imagine standing in an elevator. When the elevator goes up, you feel the sensation of force from below. It's the same in a space ship that's accelerating - while the ship is accelerating we have what is effectively artificial gravity. But that gravity is tied to our acceleration, so we won't have it for the entire trip - which is why having a gravity ring is useful. Anyway, what I'm trying to say is that when we're accelerating, the wide carpet becomes the floor. You'll also notice that the ship is designed so that there's no open corridors that run directly downwards of that floor - you'll find access ladders around though."
"Got it, thanks."
Gatecrash smiled and continued, "The second purpose is the rating of the space. There are two other colors - actually, you know what, let me just show you. Here, head through this airlock with me."
We did so, the airlock cycling almost immediately to allow us access. In this area the carpeting was a dark green color.
"Green corridors and spaces like these are the safest parts of the ship. They're the areas you're supposed to travel in the most frequently, closer to the centre of the Forefort and vessel. You won't find any windows in green spaces - no potential points of exposure to vacuum, and there are fewer airlocks. This is the interior core of the vessel. The opposite of green spaces are the blue spaces - these are sections of the vessel that are directly adjacent to space, and where you'll find viewing windows and airlocks to the exterior of the ship. Grey spaces at the places inbetween green and blue spaces. So, in the extremely unlikely event I were to tell you there was a micrometeorite shower incoming in sixty seconds which we couldn't avoid, where would you go? Or if you heard an unexplained noise from the hull of the ship?"
"Green spaces?" I guessed.
"Correct! Which isn't to say that the blue or grey spaces aren't secure - they are. But by nature, those spaces closer to the centre of the ship have more protection. Follow-up question - if you were to assign a color to the skiff docking bay, what color would you give it?"
"Well, it's directly next to space, so blue?" I answered.
"Also correct. Which hopefully explains to you why the corridor we arrived in was grey. I may as well show you a viewing window. One final question - how many airlocks would we have to pass through to get from this green space into a blue one?"
"Two?" I guessed again. It seemed like the obvious answer.
"Very good! You've got the hang of it now. And hopefully now you see why this scheme is very widely adopted among outer system ships - it takes less than five minutes to learn and doesn't require you to know the design or layout of a vessel to know where the safest parts are. One final point of guidance - it's recommended that on long trips you should not travel into and out of blue spaces that frequently to prevent airlock wear and tear, as airlocks are safety rated for a certain number of operations between maintenance cycles. Though I don't think this is something you need to worry about - we're talking tens of thousands of operations. It's more advice that I would need to follow if I were to spend several years in the outer system. Given the length of our trip, you could head to a blue space every day and not significantly impact that number. Let's head to that viewing window."
We made our way through two airlocks and into a brightly lit, blue-rated, rectangular room. The interior was extremely plain, with nothing but the walls, handholds and blue carpet. Following the carpet, at the end of the room, was a bubble-like viewing window which extruded from the hull. I cautiously approached and as I did so, Gatecrash turned out the room's lights. The difference was immediate - the stars outside the transparent material took on a piercing clarity as I floated towards them. I held my hands above myself to slow myself down, my head now in the middle of the window. Once again, there was Earth - except this time I could see it clearly with my own eyes. Gatecrash drifted up next to me and we admired the sight for a moment.
"With views like this," I said, "I can see why so many people might choose to live in space."
Gatecrash didn't answer for a time as we enjoyed the sight, but then said, "I'm not sure if I'll ever go back to Venus, but if there's one thing I might say I miss from my time there, it was the view. The aerostats there actually float on the atmosphere of the planet, so you'd be much closer than we are to Earth here. On the right day you could just about see the flickering of lightning dancing among the clouds of sulphuric acid, and the roiling of gases blowing around in winds stronger than anything you or I could ever hope to stand in."
"That sounds intense," I said.
"It was," Gatecrash said, "It really was. In comparison, when I look at Earth, I think to myself how peaceful it looks. Clouds made of nothing but water, weather systems that you can mostly wait out in a cozy home. I might not be from Earth originally, and I might not even be human, but that sense of peace makes it home to me. Yet, I still find myself missing the storms of Venus. That primal and vicious sense of raw, unbearable power. If you ever find yourself in that part of the system, you should try to see it."
"I'd like that," I said.
We stayed there for a few minutes longer before Gatecrash gave me a tap on the shoulder and we moved to continue the tour.