[68840] FrederikSSV Ergo InfinitumClouds of disinfectant filled Ergo Infinitum’s airlock, then quickly dissipated as the boarding cycle neared completion. Flickers of light caught in the dissipating clouds as Io fidgeted with her cut knife sheath. She was idly pulling the glowing white-hot rhenium edged blade of her cut knife out of its charging holder. Frederik guessed it was not a nervous tick, but just a ploy to annoy Ergo’s cargo specialist Larsen.“Put that shit away,” Larsen said.“You were born to space, Eff,” Io slid it back into its sheath. “Tell him how dangerous it is out here and why we need things like cut knives. Explain why it’s good to check if they’re charged first.”Larsen clearly took this as a petty jab, based on the look of anger and disgust on his face. Of all the crew of Ergo Infinitum, Larsen was the most hyper-focused on safety, though it seemed more like a focus on unrealistic danger. Frederik looked over his shoulder and wondered if this was just a show Io was putting on to stress test their Absolute Horizon guest, who floated near the back of the airlock, and not about Larsen at all.Frederik scowled. “I doubt Larsen needs the lesson, Io. We’re all aware of the risks of space.”“Ye, well I don’t want to be responsible for a friend’s death because there was an air leak or a hydraulic system kept the airlock closed, and no one was there with a functioning and charged up cut knife to slice and cauterize!”Frederik locked eyes with Io, then made a tilt toward their guest. She got the hint, but still gave him a crooked smile as she slid the tool back into its sheath attached to her biosuit chest rig.“Oke, fine…I’ll stop fiddling with it…I was just making sure the batteries are still good.”“Ye, sure, Io,” Larsen said with a shake of his head.Frederik tilted his head down a little and glared until Io mumbled a quiet apology to Larsen, then turned his attention to their Absolute Horizons representative and guest. Opting for a cover name, Betty Blue had still verified her seal hash. No proper name, but Frederik knew she was who she said she was, and that made her one of the contract’s co-signers. Her seal hash also gave Frederik a rough age and pronouns, but that was about it. This practice was not uncommon and was, in fact, the whole point of the seal system—zero trust verification of identities and contracts. That did not make it any less unnerving to meet someone taking “zero trust” so literally.Larsen turned, gave Betty Blue a once over, and blurted out. “That’s one strange biosuit you have there.”Frederik winced. Io laughed. Larsen shot a nasty look at Io. Betty Blue didn’t react.What made a biosuit different from other forms of spacesuits—like the puffy, hazard yellow, soft suit the perpetually nervous and safety-conscious Larsen donned—were the form-fitting self-adjusting counter-pressure cords that created mechanical pressure against the wearer’s body. These straps kept the wearer pressurized without using a large, hard to flex balloon of air. Typically, a biosuit had an outer layer that was a combination of padding, sanitary system, thermal control, water reclamation, and fashion statement. Thick gloves and a large helmet connected to metallic O-rings, and the air, water, and power system strapped over the biosuit’s back. Biosuits were easy to use, easy to wear, easy to maintain, and in the hands of someone with an artistic flare like Io, they could even look quite good. Io’s biosuit, reflecting her artistic flare, featured a sleek and minimal outer layer in grayish cobalt blue, accentuating the form-fitting crisscross smart shape-alloy straps. She customized her helmet to create the illusion of her face popping out of a shark’s bloodied jaws. It was slim, angular, aggressive, and admittedly aesthetically pleasing. On the other end of the spectrum, Betty Blue’s biosuit had an outer layer like military-style fatigues—akin to a thick but loose coverall—that was printed with a garish triangular tile camouflage in blues, very dark grays, and a hazy orange. There were two large breast pockets with spaces for programmable ink displays, two more on her shoulders. A common look for biosuits, though Frederik had a strong distaste for the militaristic style. Fashion choices aside, the largest differences between Io and Betty Blue’s biosuits—and likely the details Larsen had latched onto—came down to the design of the helmet and life-support systems. Betty Blue’s helmet was an angular thing made of segmented plates of spinel ceramic that distorted and obscured her face. He saw she had notably fair skin, though she was tanner than Io, and had deep blue hair, but that was all he saw. Her helmet almost looked like it had telescoped out from the hinge-like metallic flaps on her chest and just behind her neck. Compared to Frederik and Io’s bulky EECMUs—Extended EVA and Crew Maneuvering Units or EVA pack—that provided them extra air, water, power, and a few reaction control rockets for EVA maneuvers, Betty Blue’s pack looked miniscule. Frederik’s EECMU was about the size of a large, filled rucksack, while Betty Blue’s system was barely larger than a four-liter water pack. It also had ports for reaction control rocket exhaust. It seemed to have everything Frederik’s EECMU had, only a fraction of the size.Compactness signified expense and danger. A smaller air tank meant higher amounts of compression, and Betty Blue’s air supply would have to be under an incredibly high pressure. And reliability meant everything from the regulators to EVA rockets to the tank itself had to be both incredibly precisely manufactured and super-strong.Larsen stared at Betty Blue expectantly. “Anything wrong, ohlowyeh?” Betty Blue asked.Larsen gestured with a puffy, hazard-yellow glove. “That getup can’t be good if you get caught outside for a few hours—or get anywhere near a power plant. Hardly any rad shielding.”Betty Blue braced against the side of the airlock and lifted her large black rucksack that floated near her feet, tapping one of the two large Whipple shield plates gecko gripped to the side. “What do you think these are for?”“Ye, but—”“Oke, let me officially welcome you aboard Spanning Worlds Independence Space Vehicle Ergo Infinitum,” Frederik said. “We’re almost done repressing the airlock, but sit tight, and keep your helmet on until our doctor gives you the all-clear, oke?”Betty Blue nodded with her hands. He looked at the inner airlock hatchway. “EAR network is open for guests—you can post a message if you have any questions. Io and Larsen can help you get squared away once we get inside.”“Got it, ohlowyeh.”The yellow-orange light above the inner hatchway to Ergo turned blue, showing the airlock had once again pressurized. With a loud click, the hatch cracked open. Frederik—anchored to the deck by unseen, microscopic arms on the soles of his boots acting like a million gecko hands gripping tightly to any surface his boots touched—waved his EAR and disengaged his gecko grip. Click click. He shoved off and free floated through the burgeoning gap in the airlock hatch into one of Ergo’s spin habs.Nicknamed hab zero-one since it was the first hab pod put together by Frederik and the other Obialos, he floated out into the middle of the spin deck hall, just outside the airlock. It was a disorienting transition. For a moment, the long hallway appeared to him more like a deep hole. The spin deck was a slightly curved rectangular box, designed to produce a more natural gravity, and subdivided into four sections bridged by a narrow hallway that spanned the deck lengthwise. Each of the four sections had a divot in the middle, allowing hatchways to open without blocking the hall. On the forward two sections of this spin deck, there was the medical bay and the airlock—where Frederik was. The aft two sections had four cabins. At the midpoint separating the fore-and-aft sections of hab zero-one were two elevator tunnels connecting this spin hab to Control, and on the other side of Control was the other spin hab, hab zero-two.Under spin, there would be a definite up and down, forward, and aft, defined by centripetal acceleration and thrust. In microgravity Frederik’s nervous system was screaming at him he was in danger, and that he was about to fall into a nearly thirteen-meter-deep hole and die when he hit the far aft bulkhead. He took a deep breath and looked for a weathered motif painted on a gray weave accordion door on one of the far aft cabins. At the furthest cabin, on the same side of the hull as the airlock, but at what Frederik perceived to be the bottom of the hole, was a collection of tan circles of differing sizes, each standing for a member star in the tenuous alliance known as the Homeworlds Federation. These circles were at the center of alternating gray, green, and purple beams in a rising stars motif, representing that loose federation of humanity’s first extraterrestrial habitats—the rising stars symbol had been their war flag. Elsewhere, this might be an aggressive symbol to display. On Ergo Infinitum it marked Io’s cabin. It was not aggressive to the rest of the crew, merely Io taking pride in her own culture. For Frederik it allowed him to remap sensory input.He oriented himself using the relative position of the colors of the flag. Under spin, purple star beams would be to his left, or antispinward, and green to his right, or spinward. This meant, under spin-gravity, down would be at his feet, and up was near his head. His perception of the world rotated, and he was no longer falling down a deep pit, but floating above the ground, looking down a hallway. He exhaled.Simple lines, light colors, soft-matte textures, and an overall minimalistic design. Io’s war flag, slight signs of wear along bulkhead joints, and the long plant and aquaculture wall along the spinward hall sections. This tidy, yet not sterile, hallway beckoning Frederik to the cozy, human spaces of the common rooms or cabins made him feel at ease. Frederik stretched his legs out, and gecko gripped them to the floor. Click click. He had forward momentum, and his ankles strained against his boots, but he held in place. His EAR told him hab zero-one’s atmosphere was nominal and his biomon gave him the all clear, so he grabbed the metal tabs protruding from the middle of the top of his biosuit’s helmet, a buzz in his gloves from near-field EAR devices told him his lock was ready to open, and he unlatched his helmet from its O-ring base.Click. Pfft. His biosuit helmet opened at the seam with a hiss of escaping condensation. Cool air flowed into his hair and beard, chilling his skin. He took a deep breath and hummed in happiness. Ozone from the fab, astringent from the med bay, and that sweet and musky smell of plants, dirt, and the aquaculture tank. It smelled reminiscent of Arco Lazuli’s rock faces after watering, though somehow cleaner.Frederik noticed the vibrations through the deck as someone landed next to him. Click click. Io tapped on his shoulder and nodded toward his EECMU. “Want me to help take your kit off?”He shook his head. “I’ll do it later…where’s Edouard?”“Skulking in the med bay, maybe. Go ahead, I’ll wait for the ‘doc to clear Betty Blue.”Frederik let go of his personal rucksack and let it float. “I hate to ask but—”Io rolled her eyes at Frederik. “Ye ye, I’ll store your shit for you too.”Frederik pulled Diya’s heirloom Martian shawl from one of his biosuit’s equipment pouches. “Could you take this too?” Io’s expression turned somber as she nodded. “No problem, Eff.”“Thanks, Io.”Io gave him a crooked smile as he floated a few body lengths down the hall. As he flew past, he gazed at the long, spinward side, aquaculture tanks filled with colorful fish that swam among the kelp and algae grow boxes. Some of these fish were pets, others cultivated for protein sources. He smiled at all the little creatures that called Ergo home just as he reached the large elevator tubes in the middle of the spin deck’s length. Each elevator had a simple, clear spinel ceramic airlock door lined in brushed aluminum that was large enough for two to three people. Under Ergo’s usual spin the elevator system allowed time for people to perform their arm and leg motions to calibrate their inner ear—since the gravitational effect became zero in the center of spin, it could be a disorienting and nauseating experience without these exercises since Ergo spun at relatively high RPM. It also allowed time for water to be pumped between spin decks and keep the delicate balance of Ergo’s mass distribution, preventing an out-of-control tumble. In microgravity, neither of them were necessary, so instead of using the slow, water pumping elevators, they left the top hatch open and used the elevator shafts as free-float tunnels connected to hab zero-one to the central Control deck, which was subsequently connected to hab zero-two.Frederik arrested his flight at one of the elevator shafts by grabbing a handlebar. He gave a look through the flimsy metal lattice and green foiled tunnel above, grabbed the handles on either side of the entrance, and launched himself to Control. Even after all these years, it was exhilarating to fly through the elevator shafts. Their AlKapThil lining was precariously thin, and at speed, he might easily puncture the side. Odds of the entire green-blue foil failing all at once—which would cause truly explosive decompression as the large spin hab pressure tried to exit out of the small holes of the elevator hatch—were low. But Frederik knew Larsen would opt to take the elevator.He let out the breath he hadn’t realized he was holding when he reached Control. Control was the rad hardened storm cellar, brain, and command deck of Ergo. A compact deck designed to keep sixteen people latched down and safe from radiation for several days, with minimal personal space. It also housed the central operations and control systems for Ergo Infinitum. If the need arose, Control was self-sufficient and totally isolated. It was not a backup, to be used in times of bad space weather. In fact, it was the only command deck. Disconnecting the spin decks would diminish none of the core functionality of Ergo—it would just make the trip far less pleasant.Inside, Control looked like a propcan—or a propulsion can—a cramped Newtonian rocket you weren’t supposed to live in for more than a few days at the very longest. The layout of up and down in Control was based on thrust, not spin. They maintained a cleared corridor for easy travel between hab zero-one and hab zero-two. The rest of the space was foldable acceleration flats, personal air supplies, large doors to reseal the storm cellar and isolate control, and near the front were the main computers of ergo, a microgravity water closet, and two acceleration flats beneath a massive ink display that were slightly sunk into the floor. Behind these two recessed acceleration flats there was a ceiling hatchway which led to the inflatable airlock access to the Angel’s seat, which was an interstitial space tucked between the fore water tanks underneath the communication system and the top of Control—and was completely in hard vacuum.A large ink display dominated half of the wall to Frederik’s left, currently displayed a schematic of Ergo Infinitum. Ergo Infinitum had a body a bit like a dragonfly, only instead of wings there were two flat, red-hot, triangular radiators attached along the length of the tail of the dragonfly. These radiators were wide near the front of the dragonfly and tapered to the fusion rocket at the rear. Ergo had nothing like legs, and instead of two compound eyes, it had two gimbaled radio dishes, and sensor systems, and communication lasers. Behind these artificial radio-wave eyes was the Angel’s Seat and beneath that was Control. Along the dragonfly’s neck, but perpendicular to the radiators, were eight melon-colored wedge slice-shaped cargo containers with four above the neck and four below. Lining these wedges were the two spin decks, which were shaped like the curved hull of a boat. Each spin deck extended as far away from the head of the dragonfly as possible, positioning their curved bottom almost flush with the edge of the radiators. Thick metal supports and a crisscross wire lattice held them in place, resembling two slightly curved bricks in an almost T-pose. This lattice also held the cargo containers in place, but unlike the cargo, the spin decks needed to be far away from the central axis to produce their spin gravity effects.Beneath the schematic, covered in blinking statuses and reports in one of the recessed acceleration flats, was Kirk. Kirk slouched forward in his acceleration flat, looking and pawing at an EAR display only he could see. Frederik floated to the half-wall that protected the two sunken acceleration flats and grabbed a ceiling handlebar to stabilize himself. He gecko gripped to the deck. Click click.“Hao fa, Kirk.”[49][Di Lingua]: Hey, Kirk. ↑Kirk nodded and grunted in response. “Uhn.”Kirk’s round and smooth face was curled by his stern glower. Wrinkles at the edges of his eyes betrayed his otherwise youthful appearance. He dressed in simple natural fibers that called back to a time before Earth had achieved interstellar travel. His white shirt even had polished metal buttons instead of clasps.Kirk was short like a well steh—someone born and raised in a near-Earth natural gravity as opposed somewhere like Skarda or the intermittent gravity stellah steh born on moons like Titan experienced because of extensive EVA time—but Kirk had lived in a comfortably constant near-Earth gravity on the twin stations of Marassa Jumeaux. Also known as Horizon’s Edge, the twin stations were a voluminous and sprawling complex where free space and constant gravity produced something like a well steh attitude and bone density along with large amounts of trade through the K-tube network to Earth.“What’s got you laser focused, Kirk?”Kirk swatted at the air in front of him before he looked up at Frederik. “Hmm?”“What are you working on?”“Oh, erm…just, uh, crunching some optimization numbers for our future hive.”Kirk was stolid, but Frederik heard the excitement in his voice, and it was infectious. After this job, they were going to build an addition to the Domot Get Grond Dey, and it would be as much theirs as was Ergo Infinitum.“Did you at least crunch the numbers for the contract first?”“Oh, of course, ohlowyeh.”“What’s the time frame for our main burns?”After scanning the ink display for the relevant info, Kirk flicked his hand to make the diagram of Ergo disappear and replaced it with an orbital map of Jin.“Lookin’ like half an hour before we are clear to burn and finish our passenger pickup. They’ll meet us on orbit with a propcan.”Frederik raised an eyebrow and wondered. “No docking tunnel? They don’t seem like a thrifty group.”Kirk nodded with a look of shared suspicion. “No docking tunnel, just a straight EVA like we would do. Their orbital elements are here,” with a flick, Kirk highlighted a few text elements on the large ink display above them.“Their propcan is in a very eccentric polar orbit.”“Ye, probably dumped in that orbit directly from a K-station.”The propcan, swinging in an extremely elongated ellipse away from Skarda, suggested that a fusion hauler likely dropped it off. This fusion hauler traveled between star systems using the elaborate network of stations and autonomous ERR–AL capable spacecraft that accelerated other spacecraft along the K-tube network through a spacetime wake effect, only using its large delta-vee from fusion thrust to cut away the rest of relative velocities between star systems. Their guests, and perhaps even Betty Blue, might have come from anywhere in inhabited space. Frederik was uneasy but had no reason to act on these concerns—so he moved ahead.“Looks like we can get to the propcan with just RCS?”“Ye, bit lucky, but it works out. I think we can get there in a few hours.”“Oke. As soon as Edouard gives the all clear for our first guest, nudge us on our way. In the meantime, I am going to catch up on some sleep.”Kirk chuckled. “Understood.”Frederik folded his arms, strapped himself tight into his flat next to Kirk, and tried to nap. Kirk’s chatter with orbital control and the subsequent bumps of acceleration from the reaction control systems prevented anything more than a partially successful nap. Over the next several hours, Ergo matched the orbit of their guests’ propcan and he caught nearly twenty whole minutes of uneasy sleep. “Passengers are all aboard,” Kirk announced on all Ergo’s channels.Frederik stirred in the flat next to Kirk, giving up on his attempts at sleep. “Who’s giving them the tour?”“Io and Taliya.”“Hmm,” he glanced at the time. “I think I should greet our guests personally.”“Sure thing, Eff,” Kirk looked over his shoulder as Frederik shoved out of his flat and headed toward the exit back to hab module zero-one. “Oh, and say hao fa to Io for me.”When he reached the airlock of hab zero-one, he waved open an EAR window to the airlock’s stream to watch and listen as Io and Taliya welcomed the guests. In the airlock, four guests squeezed together in biosuits identical to Betty Blue’s, each holding a matte black rucksack. Io and Taliya stood in front of the group, anchored with gecko grip.“Oiya![50][Spanning Words]: Listen up! ↑ Welcome aboard SSV Ergo Infinitum. My name is Arad, Taliya,” Taliya gestured to Io. “And this is Juhasz, Io. We will assist you—guide you—as you find your bearings on Ergo.”Guests mumbled perfunctory greetings which Taliya ignored.“Here’s what’s going to happen: in a few moments, a jet of disinfectant is going to saturate the airlock. You will keep your helmets on. Our good doctor Tsai-Adeyemi—Edouard to his friends—will show up to perform a quick medical check. You’re only allowed past that hatch when you’re cleared. Go through the exit and form an orderly line in the hallway. We will conduct roll call and orientation—each of you will receive an assignment to follow either me or Io. Follow your assigned guide directly to your berth on Ergo for the duration of our trip. Io?”“Thanks, Taliya. Oke, you can stow all personal effects in your assigned cabin’s stowage locker. After that, why not take a few minutes in your cabin, connect to Ergo’s EAR network, and familiarize yourself with Ergo’s code of conduct, etiquette, and emergency procedures?” “Ergo is not a passenger liner. Ergo is not a luxury liner. Ergo is a working craft,” Taliya said. “You do not get a private cabin. You will share space with a crew member. You are our guests, and we will treat you as well as we would treat any of our family. However, we are not here to serve you and accommodate your bad habits. Bad manners will cause problems and there’s very little space to get away from those problems on Ergo. We’re stuck here together for six days, and those six days will go a lot faster if you simply play along with our rules and don’t cause trouble.”“Go along to get along, right?” Io said.Taliya shifted her feet to be shoulder width apart, clasped her hands in the small of her back. In microgravity, her knees were slightly bent, and her helmet tilted downward—in a type of “at attention” microgravity stance. “Questions?”Guests shook their heads, shrugged with their hands, or waved to show they had no questions.“Oke,” Taliya waved at an unseen EAR window. “Let’s get started.”His EAR stream crackled with static as pillars of gas filled the airlock. The chemical disinfectant turned into a fine mist aerosol. Swirls of disinfectant oscillated back and forth in microgravity. Undulating blobs latched over the surfaces of biosuits and the stream camera before they evaporated into the airlock’s atmosphere.“Hao fa, Eff,”[51][Di Lingua]: Hey, Eff. ↑ Edouard Tsai-Adeyemi said as he landed besides Frederik with a click click.He nodded. “Hao fa.”[52][Di Lingua]: Hey. ↑Edouard was wearing a biosuit almost identical to Frederik’s and carried the dark gray bulk of a portable auto-doc diagnostic system. The spinel ceramic faceplate of his biosuit moderately distorted his face. Edouard had a long face set in a dower and a serious scowl that wrinkled his rich sable skin. Edouard was always in a sour mood—unless he was elbow deep in chaos and adrenaline.Once the mist thinned, Frederik opened the outer airlock hatch.“After you,” he offered. Edouard floated through with the auto-doc. The doctor planted himself in front of the guests on the ceiling with his boot’s gecko grip. He opened the case and pulled out wires connected to the portable auto-doc diagnostic system. Frederik watched from the hallway.“What biomonitor chips do you have in these ‘suits?” the doctor boredly asked. “Are they the same as Betty Blue’s?”A few guests gave each other glances before the one at the front replied. “I don’t know—something by AG.”Edouard gave a long, irritated sigh. “Tell me it’s at least full spectrum? Full coverage?”“Ye. Of course.”“Good. We can check two at a time,” the doctor shoved two cables toward the guests. “Plug one into your seal port, and I can interface with your biomon.”“Can’t we do this over EAR? Just send you the reports when we’re done?”“You don’t even know what biomon software your ‘suits are running—why should I trust you know what to look for?”“Is it that import—”“Yes. Is this your first time in space or what?”“No, but—” “First time in a bio-regenerative system, then? Well, word to the wise: loads of bacteria can cling to your suit in the hard vacuum—or hide on your skin—and some very specific variants can kill our fish or turn our algaculture into a toxic gas factory. Do you expect me to trust that your good intentions can protect us from choking to death on toxic algae gas in our sleep?”“Oke,” the guest angrily grabbed the cables, handed one to their left, and then plugged the end into a port near their left wrist.Frederik stepped into the airlock. “Edouard! Throttle back a little?” he asked.Edouard tilted his helmet to look back through the window at Frederik with a laser-like glare. “I’ll be less grouchy when they’re cleared to enter. You two are clear—next two!”All four of Ergo’s passengers received clearance to board. Without a word to Frederik, the grouchy doctor returned to skulk in the med bay across the hall from the primary airlock. Frederik shook his head and put a fake smile on his face.“Oiya![53][Spanning Words]: Listen up. ↑ You are all cleared to exit the airlock,” Taliya announced. “And remove your biosuits.”Io gestured at Frederik but looked at the guests. “The old man over there is our ohlowyeh, as you might say, but only because he’s the oldest one left onboard who actually helped put Ergo together from printed parts—it’s almost entirely ceremonial at this point.”“Thanks for that introduction, Io. Apologies for our doctor’s bad manners, but he is very good at his job and that can make him a little over serious. If you follow me into the hallway, you can stow any biosuit helmets, gloves, or AWP backpacks alongside our gear,” he floated to the stowage area, where Taliya was already putting away her own gear. “Anything you don’t want with you in your cabin can go in any of the unlabeled racks. Taliya and Io will send you to your cabins after we verify our manifest and send it off to orbital control.”Ergo’s guests floated, or gecko grip walked, into the hallway. Rapidly, each of the guest’s helmets split near the top of the helmet, forming a gap as spinel ceramic plates slid apart. Each half of the now partially opened helmets rapidly accordion’d along segmented plate seams and folded into the hinge-like flaps on the front and back of their biosuits. Frederik raised an eyebrow. It was a compact design, since it stored itself, and would deploy in a pinch, but all those seams were potential failure points—not ideal for a long spacewalk.He looked at the faces of the guests. The one with a gray mustache had an air of their ohlowyeh. One guest had wavy auburn colored hair. Another reminded Frederik of the people of Domot Get Grond Dey—tall, svelte, dark, and with sharp eyes. The last guest had dark stubble and dark eye circles from lack of sleep.He waved his hand in a wide circle with his palm up toward the ceiling. “Hao fa, my name’s Frederik.”With a hand stretched out, palm turned to the ceiling of Ergo, the gray mustached guest introduced the group to Frederik. “Hao fa, call me Gray Top,” he said. Gray Top pointed to the passenger with auburn hair with his palm angled toward his feet. “That’s Red Cap,” keeping his palm down, he pointed to the tall, dark-eyed, and possibly Grond myawn, guest. “That’s Vermillion Special,” Gray Top pointed, palm toward the ceiling, at the passenger with face stubble and exhaustion. “That’s Green Dragon. You already met Betty Blue.”More pseudonyms. Io and Frederik shared a knowing glance, but in the end, they had the critical information via their seals. Frederik might not know who they were, really, but they had a cryptographically provable right to be allowed into the Spanning Worlds and have freedom of travel in the Jin Orbital Jurisdiction via SSV Ergo Infinitum.“Where’s the mess?” Red Cap asked.Taliya removed her helmet, smiled with her eyes closed and pushed gray locks of hair behind her ear—her wrinkled skin pulled tightly against the deep V-shaped scar on her right cheek—and then pointed down the hall to the elevator tunnels. “Access to the second spin hab is through there. In microgravity, we keep the elevator tunnels open so you can just fly on through, but when we spin up, use the elevators, and I would suggest you perform spin acclimation exercises during transit.”“We have to go through the CIC to get to the mess?” Green Dragon asked.“It’s not a CIC,” Frederik said. “We’re not a military craft.”Green Dragon nodded.“Oiya![54][Spanning Worlds]: Hey! ↑ What’s that?” Io pointed to something Red Cap pulled from a rucksack. Frederik pushed himself toward the ceiling to get a better look, but it was hard to see with so many people crammed into the end of hab zero-one’s hallway.“It’s just my sidearm.”Io and Taliya froze in place.“Jaw mot dey![55][Di Lingua]: That can’t be! ↑Stop everything,” Frederik ordered. “Absolutely no firearms on Ergo Infinitum,” he pushed off from the ceiling and wedged himself in the middle of the guests.“You got to be fucking kidding me—” Red Cap said.Gray Top shot a look sharp as a cut knife at Red Cap and she stopped short. He smiled at Frederik.“We have every right to defend ourselves.”“Shey, ye, and I have every right not to let some wonda mo blast holes in the pressure hull.”“Eff,” Io said. “Anchuan shiyong, ye?”[56][Di Lingua]: Handle safely, yes? ↑ she tapped his shoulder gently.Gray Top’s smile faltered, and he held up his own sidearm holster. “Could be useful if someone else has already popped the air bubble.”“Someone else?” Frederik’s left eyebrow shot to the top of his forehead. “Are you expecting additional guests or threatening me?”Gray Top put his hands up and bowed his head slightly. “No, of course not, ohlowyeh.”Red Top slowly withdrew something from their rucksack. “So, I suppose we can’t have these either?”Frederik didn’t know what kind of weapon it was, except it was obviously some forearm-length hypersonic gun. A much more serious weapon.Di Lingua curses flashed through Frederik’s mind as his nostrils flared. His hands curled into fists. His chest heaved with anger.“So that would mean no?” Red Cap said with a chuckle.“Cut the shit, Red,” Gray Top said.Red Cap put the gun back into her rucksack and lowered her head. “Aye aye, Top.”“Oiya!”[57][Spanning Wolrds]: Hey! ↑Taliya used gecko grip and planted herself between Frederik and Ergo’s passengers. “Oke oke, that’s enough. Remember what I said about trouble?” Taliya tapped Frederik’s shoulder. “Goes both ways, ye?”“You can keep your weapons,” Frederik said, trying his best to regain his calm. “But they have to remain stowed when you’re in the hab spaces.”“Fine,” Gray Top said then he turned to Red Cap. “Apologize.”Red Top shot a look at her ohlowyeh, like she had just watched him evacuate his bowels in front of everyone. Gray Top held her stare, unmoved. With a sigh, Red Top anchored herself to the floor—click click—plastered her hands to her sides and bowed deeply in Frederik’s direction.“A gah chu’eh son dey,”[58][Di Lingua]: I am sorry (formal). ↑ Red Top apologized with a strongly Upblanda accented Di Lingua.Frederik accepted the apology, then bowed less deeply with his right hand on his abdomen. “Neva palava.”[59][Di Lingua]: No problem. ↑Frederik lingered as the guests got settled, carefully noting that they had stowed their weapons in a sealed locker. Everyone besides Vermillion Special carried a sidearm, something Io told him was called a SSCAW, and several magazines with projectiles and batteries. He let the guests keep their cut knives.“Cut knives are a life-saving tool,” he said to the incredulous faces of his guests.It was clear to Frederik that almost everyone, besides perhaps Vermillion Special, wanted to argue with him on this point, but he waved all their objections aside. He knew Io would probably argue with him about it in private later, and Taliya would complain about it to Edouard, but this was one rule he had no qualms about enforcing strictly and quickly. And while most of the Absolute Horizons guests seemed to disagree strongly, they were humoring him as ohlowyeh while they were onboard SSV Ergo Infinitum. But when Frederik left Io and Taliya to complete their tour and took up his duty cycle on Control to relieve Kirk, a sense of profound unsettlement washed over him due to what he had allowed onboard.