[a day in your life you'd like to relive. But once you relive it, you'll
forget it forever]

Another entourage of scientists arrived that evening. Or at least evening by
the clock, though Alex had just woken. 21:00. He wondered how long the
bureaucrats had made the docking ship wait, just so that the boom of the
docking latch resonating through the hub met with the change of the hour.

He supposed this is what happens when you get a bunch of military brass
together to play their part in scientific progress.

There was a gentle breeze through the tube leading up to the hub, signaling
that the flight from Baikonur had arrived safely. He kept climbing, feeling
himself get lighter as he left the wheel. He was glad that he'd skipped his
eight o'clock brunch. He'd always seen the videos of astronauts floating
through space, gently moving like they're underwater, and had assumed that's
all there was to it. Somehow in all the briefing he'd had at Baikonur himself,
he'd missed the part where they said it was like falling, except you never
stopped.

He took another few steps, then stepped off the rungs of the latter and hurled
himself up the rest of the tube, popping into the hub and bouncing off the
opposite wall before his stomach caught up and threatened to reveal last
night's dinner for all to see.

This group was mostly American, though there were always Germans and Russians
along for the ride. A young woman wearing a "UCSD Life Sciences" shirt drifted
out of the hatch, looking a little green, followed by a couple guys built like
linebackers. Probably from Ohio he thought, until he could see the color of
their crimson tees giving away their Harvard educations. They were not looking
all too tough with their stomachs so unsettled, though, and if anything their
size made them seem a little silly.

"Good flight?" His sense of humor was returning, which was a good sign, he
supposed. He wondered if he was actually feeling better, or if he was just
getting used to the nausea.

He turned to watch the woman from UCSD, but he turned too fast and started
spinning and he nearly lost his lunch. Yep. He was going to have to be careful
of that. Not settled yet. Not by a long shot.

"If you grab onto the handholds, you'll stop drifting about the compartment,
and we can get your travelling companions out of the tube." He wasn't sure why
he was the greeting committee this evening, being pretty fresh off the
bus himself, but he'd cheerfully volunteered like a habitual kiss-ass,
forgetting that he'd already won so many favors to get here, he could relax a
little, and the others in the labs had heartily endorsed the decision.

Oh, well, the deed was done and he was here. Another few minutes and he could
get back to something that resembled gravity. He checked off names. Kimberly
Ree, UCSD. The linebackers Patrick Devin, and Devin Thurrott, Stanford. 

Another head popped out of the hatch, and he realized why they'd encouraged
his volunteering so heartily. Doctor Jennifer Palmer! Chief of the Cornell bio
labs, and to him, thesis advisor. He realized he hadn't paid any attention to
the roster. The station attitude about visitors was rubbing off. You weren't
anyone until you were here, and then you were obviously somebody, since you
were here. Even the janitors had graduate degrees up here.

"Dr. Palmer! Welcome!" He shook her hand, sending them both coasting into the
wall. She smiled, then caught a handhold gracefully.

Two more out of the tube before the door closed. A young black woman with
dreadlocks down to her waist, and another fellow he didn't know who didn't say
much.

He checked off another couple names. Ashanta Jackson and Jason Maxfield.
Portland State. He hadn't known anyone from PSU since Cascadia had declared
independence. So much tension around the border that not many people bothered
to cross it. Besides they were some sort of self-sufficient commune or
something. Why come to the United States or Europe if you have that?

"Catch a handhold. There's an elevator car if you want a ride, or you can
climb down if you want the scenic route." He gestured down the four tubes that
connected the hub to the wheel. "We're in three tonight, so if you'd like to
follow me." The two linebackers wimped out and got in the waiting elevator
car. Upside down, he noted, though the car moved slowly enough that once they
realized that, they wouldn't fall so fast as to be hurt. He let them discover
that on their own.

He pushed his feet down the tube and started to push himself down, even if he
felt like he was upside down, climbing a falling ladder. After a dozen steps,
though, the pull of the wheel was enough to right his orientation. It felt
like doing a somersault while standing still, that was the only way to
describe it. He smiled inwardly as he heard the grunt from the climbers above
him as they made the same discovery in the space between their biology and
brain.

It was a very long tube, but they could make ten foot leaps at first, the
faint pull from below was all that made their descent have a direction, then
as they got closer to the wheel, shorter and shorter, until it felt like a
regular ladder. He was glad the tube came in sections, since it was a couple
thousand feet and looking at it all at once was enough to make anyone sick.

They climbed down out of the tube at the same time the elevator car arrived. 

"Everyone have themselves right side up?" Alex cast a knowing glance at the
pair in the elevator and Patrick looked sheepish, confirming that he'd ended
up upside down. He wondered how often that particular practical joke played
out here.