Children of the Fleet (Fleet School #1)(90)

“Is the station moving through space?” asked Monkey.

“Sí, Maestra,” said Dabeet. “And I want to keep moving with it at exactly the same velocity.”

“Rule Five.”

“How many rules do you expect your two-year-olds to memorize?”

“All of them,” said Monkey. “Rule Five. If you ever come loose from the ship, wrap your arms around any object that you come near. Do not use your hands to catch on to it. Wrap your arms around it.”

“Such a waste of opposable thumbs,” said Dabeet.

“The rule is actually simpler: Wrap your arms around it, not your fingers.”

“Because the hands of babies are too small to grab anything.”

“Because humans are deceived by their own weightlessness into forgetting how much mass they have, and therefore how much momentum.”

“I’ll think I can grasp something, but I won’t have enough grip strength to hold it.”

“And there’s no guarantee that with the slight vision distortion of even the best-made spacesuits your eyes will guide your hand to the exact spot. It’s been a long time since our lives depended on being able to grab branches.”

“These are good rules,” said Dabeet.

“Rule Six.”

“Good thing I can count to six.”

“Don’t walk. Don’t run.”

Dabeet immediately thought of a little girl running along the outside surface of a ship and launching herself into space with the first step. “You learn to walk and run inside ship’s gravity, but none of that works on the outside surface.”

“Most ships these days have hulls covered with nanooze. Besides self-sealing any punctures in the hull, the nanooze grips human feet. But you don’t run—the nanooze won’t let go fast enough and you’ll fall over. You don’t even walk, because that implies a steady rhythm of movement. You carefully pry up one foot and set it down in the new location. You give the nanooze a moment to grip, and then you pull up the other foot and put it in a new place. That isn’t walking.”

“Very wise.”

“Tell me the rules,” said Monkey.

“One. Don’t let go of one thing till I’m holding something else that’s attached to the ship. Two. The ship is always above me. Three. Before I move from my present position, I name out loud the thing I’m reaching for. Rule Four. Find where my target is attached to the ship and say it out loud. Five. If I ever come loose, wrap my arms around any object I come near. No hand-grasping. Six. Don’t walk, don’t run.”

Monkey looked at him oddly. “You didn’t even have to try.”

“I don’t forget things.”

“Knowing the words won’t help you unless you do everything the rules say.”

“I’ll do them, Monkey. And thank you for teaching me this much.”

“Follow these rules, Dabeet, and you’ll live. Don’t and you won’t.”

“Got it.”

“Good luck, Test Boy.”

And that was it. She jogged off down that uppermost corridor and was almost immediately out of sight behind the curvature of the ceiling.

She had really meant it. Just tell him the rules and he was on his own.

But this would be better, wouldn’t it? He had discovered in his first attempts in the battleroom that, unlike the way he could learn any words or numbers or sounds or images that he encountered, he had a hard time getting his body to do what he wanted.

No, his body did everything he wanted. What was hard was figuring out where his body actually was, and what movements followed each other in a sequence.

I’m not a dancer, that’s what it is. I can’t learn sequences of movements easily. And I’m about to trust my survival to my ability to acquire new habits of carefulness.

But that’s what these rules are for, thought Dabeet. If I’m obeying them, then I’m not acquiring habits of anything. Each movement is methodical and new. Not part of a sequence—a single movement. Reaching for a named, attached location. Or wrapping my arms around an object.

If I ever have to wrap my arms around something, it’ll be because I’m loose from the ship. A drowning man, flailing around, panicking. That’s why I can’t trust my twitchy fingers. Too frightened to be functional. When a drowning man attaches himself to his rescuer, there’s no brain involved. Just clutching. But Rule Five gives me a plan to recite. Overcome my panic. No flailing. Just arm-wrapping. These are good rules.

Because I’m going to panic.

Not that he was ever afraid in the battleroom. Why would he be? He was wearing armor in an enclosed space with plenty of atmosphere.

Out there, though. He had read about it—the awareness of a huge universe of downward movement. A place without horizons.

Rule Two. The ship is upward. I’m holding on so I don’t fall forever into that nothing.

I can do this. Forewarned is forearmed.

Dabeet got into a spacesuit and felt it compress in the limbs and neck to fit his small size. The gloves also tightened. But not enough. They were still almost as fisty as mittens. Another reason not to imagine he could grasp anything that was flying past in a blur. The gloves were supposed to augment his grip—but he had to aim his hand exactly right so the object he wanted to hold would be in the crease of his palm. Now, wearing gloves, would that mean the crease of the glove’s palm, or of his hand inside the—