Heber laughed. “You’re right. But I didn’t mean right here. We have a nursery for getting people started.” Without waiting for a reply, he addressed the man in the chair again. “We’re moving on, Dean. I’ll probably not be back today. We’ll talk tomorrow.”
“See you, Eric,” Dean acknowledged. They left him talking arcanely again with his companion.
“It needs practice,” Heber explained as they made their way between benches and cubicles to another part of the lab area. “The physics is strange at reduced size. Your weight gets smaller at a much faster rate than you do. Gravity becomes insignificant. Surface forces have more to do with how things move—or won’t, as the case may be.”
They came to a partitioned space where a man and a woman were in two more similar chairs. Michelle guessed them both to be in their late twenties. Another chair stood empty. The man was frowning, seemingly concentrating on something. The woman, who had yellow curls and was a little on the chubby side, laughed delightedly. Another man, dark haired, bearded, wearing a plain navy shirt and jeans, stood by the equipment behind them, surrounded by screens, checking readouts and adjusting settings on the chair panels. He looked up as Heber and the others approached.
“This is Doug Corfe, our chief technician,” Heber said. “Doug—Michelle Lang, from the firm that takes care of Ohira’s business legalities and other things that I don’t understand. Doug’s an associate of mine from the old days.”
Michelle extended a hand, and Corfe shook it. He had clear dark eyes and a lean, sallow face that didn’t immediately smile too much. Corfe nodded at Ohira, who grunted an acknowledgement. “Eric’s here with a couple of visitors,” Corfe informed the two people in the chairs.
Heber indicated a large table. On it was a system of wooden terraces at various levels, connected by ramps and steps. Michelle thought it looked like a model of an ancient pyramid construction site. Tiny mechanical assemblies and other objects that Michelle had difficulty making out were scattered about on it. There were more magnifiers on pivot arms along the table’s edge. Curious, she moved one of them to look through it at a white, squarish shape standing atop several broad steps. “I don’t believe this,” she muttered.
“Why not? What’s the best way of learning how to work with objects?” Heber said. “Build things!”
It was the shell of a miniature frame house, partly constructed. There were stacks of sheet and strip, piles of white “bricks” that must have been smaller than salt grains, even ladders and working platforms. Michelle picked out more mecs, standing motionless . . . and then, up on one of the raised platforms, one that was doing something. It seemed to be trying to fit a sliver of some material several times its own length into the unfinished structure overhead. From behind Michelle came the voice of the girl who had been laughing.
“This is weird. I didn’t think I’d be able to pick it up, it looked too huge. But it’s like nothing. You keep overcompensating—anticipating forces that you think ought to be there, but aren’t.”
Heber positioned another lens to watch. “You think it’s easy to understand when someone tells you, but it’s a different thing when you actually experience it.”
“So I’m finding out.” No sooner had the woman spoken when something happened suddenly, causing the mec that Michelle was watching to shoot off the platform and go skidding across the floor. “Eeek!” the woman in the chair screamed.
“But materials still retain their springiness, so you have to be careful,” Heber commented, smiling.
The mec went through a few contortions and managed to right itself. “At least you don’t break anything,” the woman muttered.
“That’s one of the benefits of losing most of your weight, Bel,” Corfe said to her.
Bel sighed from her chair. “If only it were that easy.”
Heber spoke to the man in the other chair. “John, how are you doing? Should we be able to see you somewhere?”
“Okay, I think.”
“John’s in the pipe maze.” Corfe pointed to another part of the layout, at what looked like a patch of fuzz made up of hairs. On repositioning the magnifier, Michelle saw that it was a tangle of microscopic plumbing. There was another mec there, but with no movement discernible. “It’s an assembly exercise,” Corfe said. “A good way to teach motor skills.”