In order to reach the command module, Martin had to look upward when he stood in front of the WHC. The hatch leading to the hub of the habitat module was open. He pulled down the ladder. To do so, he needed to overcome an initial resistance, and then it fell into his hand automatically. As the habitat ring was rotating, everything tried to move outward. He, however, wanted to go inward, and that took some effort. Martin climbed the ladder, which became easier with every step.
Then the wind started. Shortly before this spoke met the hub, Martin had to push through a flexible membrane everyone jokingly called ‘the fly screen,’ and which reminded him of a condom. It consisted of thick rubber lips that extended from the edge of the center and normally closed off the corridor completely. Due to this, the air circulation system did not have to overcome the inertial force that not only pressed the astronauts against the interior wall, but also against the air molecules of the station. Without the four fly screens, the air in the hub would have been much thinner than in the outer sectors. Since there was still a difference in air pressure between the two sides of the hatches, Martin faced a draft while he squeezed himself, like a worm, headfirst through the rubber barrier.
In the center—the hub—there was no gravity. He would spend his eight-hour shift here, as the psychologists had decided, so that work and leisure would be clearly separated. There were no technical reasons for working in the command module. Martin could have accessed all the information in his room, and the actual control functions were handled by the AI, which possessed a whole arsenal of sensors to connect with the exterior world. It, or rather he, as Watson had asserted himself here, took over the analysis and translated everything important for the astronauts into results that appeared on the monitors. The task of the crew consisted of giving its blessing to decisions already made.
Yes, they could change course or even cancel the entire mission. The psychologists had insisted on giving the astronauts that much autonomy. Nevertheless, due to the negative effects of zero gravity, half of the work day consisted in physical exercise to counteract the damage that would not have occurred if they had stayed in their cabins all day long.
Martin had been thinking about this ever since they had launched. In the beginning, the others were eager about meeting for meals, watching movies together, or reminiscing, but now, this only happens rarely. Martin had not been surprised. Even after three weeks they had no longer managed to agree on a movie to watch, even though their entertainment system had digital copies of all films produced since the early 20th century. Afterward, they had still met, but all of them were watching their own movies on private headsets. This practice ended when the pilot Francesca arrived late one time and started laughing at the scene of five people immersed in their own worlds.
At around the same time, Marchenko’s supply of pure alcohol, which they had diluted with water and fruit flavoring, ran out. Mission Control on Earth was probably glad about it, as the WHC sensors had registered any sins of this kind, of course. The crew had totally ignored the commotion down there because Earth could not do anything about it. In space, they were completely self-reliant. Martin disliked that Mission Control was always referred to as ‘down there,’ even though Earth was not located below them, but behind. After all, we are flying toward our far goal in the ecliptic plane, where Earth also moves. He had nevertheless given up correcting the others concerning this aspect. Because of this, Marchenko, the ship’s doctor and a fan of science fiction, had jokingly called Martin ‘the android on board.’ Martin only got the joke when they watched some ancient movie about an alien monster during one of their film evenings.
After that, their evening meetings together as a group had become increasingly rare. Now and then the commander, Amy, tried to surprise them with something new, and she was very inventive about it. Martin was surprised how many ways there were to make a fool of one’s self. Only a week ago the commander had revealed to him that she had learned half of these ideas in a special team-building course. The fact that she came up with the other fifty percent filled Martin with awe—and horrified him at the same time.
The first person who no longer appeared at their evening events was Hayato. The quiet, always friendly Japanese man gave no reason for preferring to stay in his cabin. The commander had asked him, but all she could tell the others was he had ‘personal reasons’ for it. Martin liked Hayato, not least because he knew almost as much about computers and software as Martin himself. Hayato had brought an ancient tube radio aboard, but that was not all; after launch he had managed to build a transmitter for it from spare parts, which changed the sound of the ceiling loudspeakers to the long wave spectrum. Martin remembered how once all six of them had sat in his cabin listening to the crackly, warm sound of the tube radio playing a concerto by Gustav Mahler. Hayato loved German composers.
Thereafter, Amy felt responsible for paying special attention to Hayato, as she told them at a communal evening, without mentioning details. Jiaying suspected their commander had fallen in love with the Japanese man, but Martin rather believed Hayato was suffering from depression.
This meant there were only four of them left. Martin generally refused to agonize over past decisions he would handle differently, looking forward from today’s perspective. However, later on he was annoyed that he had not spent more time with Hayato in the past. Could I have changed the unavoidable this way? He did not know. Perhaps then the commander and the navigator would not have fallen in love, as Jiaying correctly suspected. Martin, who until now had regarded love only as an avoidable misfortune, had been really surprised that love could have such concrete effects on a rationally planned mission and on all their lives.
The whole world was turning, and only he stood still. Martin had reached the center of the hub. The engineers had managed to preserve this illusion perfectly. The two hatches to the adjacent sections, which were normally closed, had been constructed and decorated in a rotation-symmetrical fashion. Martin placed his finger on the metal. He felt the movement, but he did not see it. It had taken him weeks before he no longer felt nauseous when he moved from the spaceship to the rotating habitat module. As soon as he pressed one of the Open buttons placed in 90-degree intervals on the bulkhead, and he would have to do that soon, he might suffer a relapse.
The hatch opened. Martin closed his eyes and catapulted himself through it. He knew where the position-stabilization handles were situated, and he grabbed them. From ten revolutions per minute to zero—that sounded harmless, but human beings were obviously not built for it. He breathed in hard and avoided getting nauseous, even though he now also deeply inhaled the machine and oil smell of the central modules. Martin knew how badly spaceships could stink. The air circulation on ILSE was working reasonably well. Shortly before launch, a private university had supplied a new kind of filtration system. Still, when each cubic centimeter of breathable air had passed through the lungs of the crew several times already, even the best recycling system no longer helped. The stench could be suppressed for a while, but no longer than a few weeks.
Martin looked toward the bow and then the stern. The hatch for the hub of the ring had remained open. That was also a clever engineering trick. When he had pressed the Open button, the rear hatch had also opened. Martin now could look back through the corridor, all the way to the entrance of the garden module. Everything seemed fixed. Here, one did not notice the rotation, even though the hub was still turning around its axis ten times a minute.