Month 9 Day 17
0812 Hours
Smitty
Previously:
He took a deep breath , worked hard to gather all his will
power together. And hoped it was enough. “The idea is for you to watch and
listen to my explanation concerning the installation, possibly even to
participate to some measure.”
Her face lit up with pure pleasure. “Sounds like fun!”
He was surprised by her enthusiasm. It was an emotion he
didn’t remember seeing on her face before. “There’s a... panel at the head of
your bed, in the storage unit. Go ahead and open that. We’ll need to patch the
GR unit into the power grid.”
She was on her knees and had the panel open in under a
second. She doesn’t seem to be pretending
an eagerness to learn.
He lowered himself beside her, and handed her the small piece
of equipment. “This is a GR142. Not the smallest grav unit in existence, but one
of the smallest we keep on hand. If we need one smaller, we’d have to fabricate
it. Now, I know you aren’t familiar with grav units, but look it over. Can you
tell which side goes up and which goes down?”
Her brow furrowed as she looked it over. “Is this a grav unit
or an anti-grav unit?”
“Both, depending on how you set it up.”
She promptly held it out on one palm. “Since we want to add
to the existing gravity field, I think it should be set up like this.”
“Very good. You’re right. Now, a gravity field is generally
round, and it peters out after a certain distance. The smallest distance on
this size is 3 feet in 6 directions. I can tweek that a bit, make it 3 feet in
both directions on the x axis, 2 feet in both directions on the y axis, and 4
feet in one direction on the z axis.” He proceeded to show her how to manipulate
the 3 tiny sets of controls to get the configuration he’d spoken of.
She considered the size of the bed. “So, if I roll over in my
sleep, and a hand or foot winds up in a corner of the bed, it might feel like
it’s floating?”
“That’s right. And if you sit up of a morning without turning
off the extra gravity, you might get dizzy as your head emerges from the
gravity field.”
“Probably not,” she returned. “I’m pretty short. Compared to most
people.”
“Ahhhh...” The first several responses that came to mind were
highly flirtatious, and for the life of him, Smitty could not think of any
responses that weren’t. He felt his face go red and decided to concentrate on
the work at hand. “Okay, so this looks like about the center of this storage
area.” He laid the unit down and reached for a tool, only to find Colleen
handing it to him.
How did she do that?
I didn’t feel it leave my tool belt. How did she know what I’d need?
“Thank you. A few twists on each of these two anchors will fix it in place. And
then-“ He felt the next item tug lightly at his tool belt, wasn’t surprised
when she handed it to him. “Now we connect the power supply.” He shoved the
small connector on the length of wire into the receiving hole on the GR unit,
let her plug in the other end in the panel. “Computer, initialize and
coordinate the GR142 unit now attached to Colleen’s bed.”
“Command not understood,” the computer told him.
“Computer, initialize and coordinate the GR142 unit now
incorporated in MacDowell’s bed,” Colleen requested.
“Confirmed,” the computer agreed.
“Why did it balk when I asked it to do that?” Smitty
muttered.
“You used my first name,” she answered quietly.”
I did?
“The GR142 unit is now initialized and coordinated,” the
computer reported.
“Now we should test it,” he muttered, and stood up, intending
to put the mattress down where it belonged. “Computer, increase MacDowell’s bed
to Gaelunde standard gravity,” he instructed, and felt as if a weight had
landed on his back as he reached for the mattress.
“Computer, cancel gravity on MacDowell’s bed!” Colleen
insisted, sounding panicked.
Smitty looked at her as everything above his knees seemed to
suddenly be floating. He saw her reach for him, and then suddenly turn green in
the face. He forgot the mattress, reached down to grab her shoulders and shoved
her out of the newly-installed gravity zone, softening her fall with his arms.
“Are you all right?”
Green eyes stared at him in confusion. “I guess so. What
happened?”
“You canceled gravity in your bed. The computer took that to
mean all gravity.”
“No wonder I suddenly felt sick.”
“Why did you do it? I said we needed to test it.”
“You were moving into the gravity zone. I didn’t want you to
hurt yourself.”
“Okay, I may only be an Earthling, but even Gaelund gravity
isn’t going to make a mattress that
heavy.” Her face turned pink, and he marveled at how much more beautiful a
little blush made her. “Computer, return gravity to normal 1 G on Colleen’s
bed.”
“Command not understood.”
Space, I’ve done it
again. “I meant MacDowell’s bed. And in the future, if I ever
mention Colleen in this room again, I mean MacDowell.”
“Instruction understood. And achieved.”
“I like it when you use my name,” she whispered.
And I like laying
here next to her. Space, what am I doing? This is no position to be in with an
underling! He started to get up, ignoring the way her fingers seemed to
pluck at his uniform sleeves. “I’ll put your mattress back where it belongs,
and then we’ll test the field strength.”
He put the mattress to its usual position, and reached behind
him for another tool, only to find her hand already around it. He jerked his
hand away, and she brought the piece of equipment around in front of him. “A
grav field tester?”
“Right,” he agreed, took it from her and lay it in the middle
of the mattress, then turned it on. “Okay, Earth standard, as it ought to be.
But grav units are notorious for not being accurate when you first install
them. Only to be expected; they’re usually built under natural gravity, and
once they’re installed, they have to work in conjunction with other grav units.
Computer, adjust the gravity on Colleen’s bed to Gaelund standard.”
“Achieved.”
“That readout doesn’t look right.”
“It’s not,” he agreed. “Computer, adjust the gravity on
Colleen’s bed up by 1% of 1G.”
“Achieved.”
“That’s better.”
“Still not right.” Don’t
want her to start dreaming she can’t breathe. “Computer, adjust the
increased gravity down by .1%.”
“Achieved.”
“Down another .13%”
“Achieved.”
“Okay. That’s good,” he decided. “Computer, until instructed
differently, this is where you set the gravity field to produce standard Gaelund
gravity on this bed.”
“Understood.”
“Good. Standard gravity on Colleen’s bed.” He scooped up the
grav field tester and handed it to her. “The 2 fields that now cover your bed
area will take some time to adjust to each other. Keep this tester for a few
days. Each day, before you go to bed, test the double field and make
adjustments like I just did. Do you understand that?”
She stared at him for several seconds. “You trust me to do
that... on my own?”
“I’m beginning to think you pick up things a lot faster than
I gave you credit for.” Anything to keep
me out of her bedroom again. And I can always have Della double-check it in the
mornings before she reports for duty.
She gave him a slow smile as she accepted the tester. “Thank
you, Smit.”
“Okay, then. I’m done here, so you can get some sleep. And no
nightmares!”
“I’m pretty sure my dreams will be much nicer now,” she
assured him, laying the tester on the table next to her bed.
“Good night,” he told her, and forced himself to turn and
leave. No doubt my dreams tonight will be
hot and steamy!
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