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Swan said, “We have to tell them immediately, of course, but the Venusian leadership is notoriously opaque. How soon will they reply? And what do we do in the meantime?”

The captain was still frowning. He glared at Swan, as if because she had brought up the problem, it was her fault. “Let’s prepare to abandon ship,” he said unhappily. “We can stop at any point if it seems right. But if we confirm that we need to do this, we don’t have much time.” He stared at the screen and said, “We need to accelerate hard to make that rendezvous. Tell everyone to prepare for another flip. Mobile, what speed will it take in terms of g-force on the passengers to get to this convergence point in time?”

The AI spoke a string of numbers and coordinates, which the captain listened to closely. The captain then said, “We have to flip right now, then accelerate at a three-g equivalent for the next three hours, while angling slightly out of the plane, to a spot above the edge of the sunshield.”

This was bad news; suiting up in three g was hard, rarely attempted except in emergency drills.

“Tell everyone on board rated for spacesuits to please get started getting into them,” the captain ordered, then scowled. “Everyone else into the ferries. We need to accelerate immediately on making the flip.” Then, after looking around at his people on the bridge, he went to the intercom and began to explain the situation to the passengers himself.

This proved more complicated than he had perhaps anticipated, and Wahram and Swan left for the locks on their rooms’ floor before he was finished. Compensation for the ship would no doubt be a matter of ordinary Swiss insurance, and indeed it might come directly from the Venusians; some reward for their sacrifice was practically guaranteed, the captain was announcing as they took the elevator down; in any case it looked as if it was going to be necessary to abandon ship. The ship’s ferries and hoppers could hold all ten thousand people on board, but those qualified could and should make their escape in individual spacesuits, all of which had long-term supplies. In fact anyone who preferred suits to ferries could leave in a suit immediately on suit integrity check. All locks were available. They would be picked up within hours, he hoped, and it would become no more than an inconvenience, which would be regarded as heroic because it would save Venus. Only good things could follow from that. There was a necessity for speed to give their aid effectively, so unfortunately they would all be forced to operate under a three-g equivalent for the duration of their time on board. The inconvenience was greatly regretted, and assistance from the crew would be provided to all who requested it.

The announcement as it went on and on in its convoluted Swiss way was causing an uproar throughout the ship, which Swan and Wahram became aware of when they left their elevator on their floor. As they entered the lock room they heard voices calling out, seemingly throughout the ship, and they gave each other a look.

“Let’s stick together,” Swan said, and mutely Wahram nodded.

T his flip was somehow more disorienting than usual, as if knowing it was anomalous made it into something like space sickness, or a dream in which one’s body floated away to disaster.

The bad feeling fell into another kind of nightmare when they got going again and the weight of their bodies fairly rapidly tripled. This was enough to drive everyone to the floor. People cried out at the shock of it, but the situation was understood, and after the first few moments most of the passengers rolled into a crawling position and did their best to crawl or roll or slither. Different methods were being tried, and some people were clearly having no success at all, lying there struggling as if pinned by an invisible wrestler.

In g like this, the differences in mass between people became striking and important. Smalls weighed three times as much as they usually did, like everyone else aboard, but that still left them at weights that human muscles had evolved to handle. This was made quite tangible by the sight of all the smalls on board still on their feet and walking around, some crouched like sumo wrestlers or chimpanzees, others strutting like Popeye, but in any case, upright and moving, and most of them working hard in impromptu teams to help their prostrated larger fellow passengers. Many of the most immobilized people littering the floors were of course the talls and rounds, who were now weighing in at more than four hundred kilograms and were often completely pinned by their weight. It was taking teams of three or four smalls together to roll these bigger people onto their backs and then grab them by the arms and legs and drag them toward the locks.