The “bed” was a mesh sleeping bag hung against one wall of the compartment. It could be zippered up, and there was a restraint band for the head. In microgravity the pressure of blood surging through the carotid arteries produced a gentle but persistent head nod when a person fell asleep. It awakened most people, nauseated some.
“Three and two-thirds cubic meters of living space,” announced Jeffries as he peeled back the accordion door of an empty compartment. “That’s one hundred twenty-eight cubic feet for the Americans in the group. Sounds like a lot, huh? The typical telephone booth is only a little over one cubic meter; forty cubic feet. Well, sometimes it feels like a lot and sometimes it feels smaller than a phone booth. Depends on your mood.”
The newcomers hovered in the narrow aisle. Jeffries demonstrated the light switches, the power outlets, the sleep restraints, and how to prevent small objects from spewing out of the compartments when you opened the doors.
“Velcro, Velcro, Velcro,” he said. “By the time you return to Earth, I guarantee you that you will never want to see another strip of Velcro again. And if you do happen to lose anything, check the nearest ventilator intake grid. They’re located just above the floor along each wall. Everything ends up there sooner or later.”
Jeffries then turned a dial on the back wall. The image on the screen changed from waves breaking at Waikiki to wheat fields waving in a summer breeze to an aerial view of snow-capped Mount Rainier.
“Any pictures of the Bronx?” asked Freddy.
“Not in this sequence. If you want it, we can arrange it,” said Jeffries. “That ends the grand tour. I assume all of you learned how to operate the Whit and the showers back on Earth.”
“I didn’t,” said O’Donnell.
“Well, my man,” Jeffries grinned, “you are going to be in rough shape pretty fast without a lesson. Anybody else?”
The others answered that they were completely familiar with the personal hygiene facilities. Jeffries assigned each person a compartment, then led O’Donnell to the Whit.
“How does somebody come up here without learning this?” he said.
“I was a late addition,” said O’Donnell.
“What the hell does that mean? Did you wander onto the shuttle just before lift-off?”
“You might say that.”
“Damn. Things sure have changed since I started to fly. Time was they wouldn’t let anyone onto a shuttle without teaching you more things than you ever needed to know. Now they send people up who can’t take a shit when they got to. Pull yourself in here.” Jeffries opened the door of the Whit. The interior was a confusing array of tubes, levers, and siphons that looked like a piece of farm machinery designed at MIT. “We’re going to start with number one. You remember number one from grammar school?”
O’Donnell entered the Whit and inserted his booted feet into the loops on the floor. Jeffries closed the door all but a crack.
“You’re a Trikon scientist, right?”
“Right,” said O’Donnell.
“Now unzip your flight suit. You know what happened a few days ago?”
“I heard.”
“I thought with you being a late addition, maybe Trikon sent you up to keep an eye on these scientists.”
“Not me.”
“They can use a transfusion of common sense, the whole damn bunch of them.” Jeffries saw that O’Donnell was out of his pants and closed the door completely.
“Okay,” he called through the door. “You see that funnel right in front of yon? Pull a urinal cover out of the dispenser on top of it and put it on the end of the funnel.”
“Uh-huh,” came O’Donnell’s voice.
“Now turn that yellow switch on to start the fan and the centrifuge. Otherwise you’ll end up with a pint-sized ball of piss on your crotch. Now stick your pecker into the funnel…”
“You sure this is safe?” O’Donnell asked over the whir of the fan.
“Are you Jewish?”
“No, and I don’t want to be.”
Jeffries laughed. “You’ll be okay. We haven’t lost anybody yet.”
Feeling more than a little wary, O’Donnell did as Jeffries instructed. He relieved himself and felt the urine being whisked away by the airflow from the vacuum fan.