![]() It doesn’t decide to drift across the room and out the window and go visit Elena over on B deck. For instance, if you put that brush down, it stays. But in space, it’s not only you that’s enchanted, it’s all your stuff too. Down here you have a whole planet hugging you. Extremely sexy, but it does take some getting used to. You might bump into something once in a while but you never, ever slam into the ground. You keep falling: Down, up, sideways, whatever. I’ll tell you the most amazing thing about weightlessness. Your body is as light as a whisper, free as air. I might’ve backed down right off if it hadn’t been for Elen-you know, the one with the clever toes? Then when you’re totally miserable and empty and disoriented, your brain sorts things out again and you realize it’s all magic. Meanwhile your face puffs up so that you can’t find yourself in the mirror anymore and your sinuses fill with cotton candy and you’re fighting a daily hair mutiny. For a week your insides are so scrambled that you’re trying to digest lunch with your cerebellum and write memos with your large intestine. The first thing that happens is you get spacesick. Still can’t, so how could I even think about becoming a breakaway? Everything is loose up there, okay? It makes you come unstuck. I temped for almost fifteen months on Victor Foxtrot and I never could decide whether I loved or hated it. They trained me and I was nobody, a business major. But if you can convince them you’re serious, they’ll find something for you to do. Oh, no, they like them young, just as long as you’re over nineteen. You are, are you? Jane honey, lots of people think about going to space but you’d be surprised at how few actually apply-much less break away. What did you say your name was? I’m Cleo. How about a little respect for the night? What, you think I’m going to walk around town barefoot? I’ll wait-except what’s with all these lights? It’s two in the morning and you’ve got this place bright as noon in Khartoum. I know they’re Donya Durands, but I’ve got a party in half an hour, okay? How long is that going to take? Why not just glue the heel back on? The thing was, Elena was so limber that she could bite her toenails. They’re people after all it’s just that they’re like no people you know. Are we people or chimps? She’d scratch her armpits and hoot. I used to kid her that maybe breakaways were climbing down the evolutionary ladder, not jumping off it. I had…have this friend, Elena, who could make a krill and tomato sandwich with her feet, but she had that operation that changes your big toe into a thumb. It’s hard because you lose fine motor control in micro gee. You can’t really walk much in space, so they’ve reinvented their feet so they can pick up screwdrivers and spoons and stuff. Temps who’ve been up awhile wear this glove thing that snugs around the toes. Sounds like paper ripping when you lift your feet. They make the soles out of that adhesive polymer, griprite or griptite. Series: The Tales of Gorlen Vizenfirthe. ![]() Series: From the Lost Travelers’ Tour Guide.People of Colo(u)r Destroy Science Fiction!. ![]()
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