Schismatrix plus - Bruce Sterling [31]
The stern deck had been ripped clean to the padded walls. The pirates used it for exercise and free-fall combat practice. They also slept there, although, having no day or night, they were likely to doze off anywhere at any time.
The next deck, closer to the bow, held their cramped surgery and sick bay, as well as the "sweatbox," where they hid from solar flares behind lead shielding. In the "broom closet," a dozen antiquated spacesuits hung flabbily beside a racked-up clutter of shellac sprayers, strap-on gas guns, ratchets, clamps, and other "outside" tools. This deck had an airlock, an old armored one to the outside, which still had a series of peeling operations stickers in green Cyrillic capitals.
The next deck was a life-support section, full of gurgling racks of algae. It had a toilet and a food synthesizer. The two units were both hooked directly to the algae racks. It was an object lesson in recycling, but not one that Lindsay relished much. This deck also had a small machine shop; it was tiny, but the lack of gravity allowed the use of every working surface. The bow deck had the control room and the power hookups to the solar panels. Lindsay grew to like this deck best, mostly because of the music. The control room was an old one, but nowhere near as old as the Consensus itself. It had been designed by some forgotten industrial theorist who believed that instruments should use acoustic signals. The cluster of systems, spread out along a semicircular control panel, had few optical readouts. They signaled their functions by rumbles, squeaks, and steady modular beeping. Bizarre at first, the sounds were designed to sink unobtrusively into the backbrain. Any change in the chorus, though, was immediately obvious. Lindsay found the music soothing, a combination of heartbeat and brain. The rest of the deck was not so pleasant: the armory, with its nasty racks of tools, and the ship's center of corruption: the particle beam gun. Lindsay avoided that compartment when he could, and never spoke of it. He could not escape the knowledge that the Red Consensus was a ship of war.
"Look," the President told him, "taking out some feeble old Mech whose brain's shut down is one thing. But taking out an armed Shaper camp full of hot genetics types is a different proposition. There's no room for feebs or thumb-sitters in the Fortuna National Army."
"Yes sir," said Lindsay. The Fortuna National Army was the military arm of the national government. Its personnel were identical to the personnel of the civilian government, but this was of no consequence. It had an entirely different organization and set of operating procedures. Luckily the President was commander in chief of the armed forces as well as head of state. They did military drills in the fourth deck, which had been stripped down to the ancient and moldy padding. It held three exercycles and some spring-loaded weights, with a rack of storage lockers beside the entrance port.
"Forget up and down," the President advised. "When we're talking free-fall combat, the central rule is haragei. That's this." He punched Lindsay suddenly in the stomach. Lindsay doubled over with a wheeze and his velcro slippers ripped free from the wall, shredding loudly. The President grabbed Lindsay's wrist, and with a sinuous transfer of torque he stuck Lindsay's feet to the ceiling. "Okay, you're upside down now, right?" Lindsay stood on the upward or bow side of the deck; the President crouched on the sternward side, so that their feet pointed in opposite directions. He glared upside down into Lindsay's eyes. His breath smelled of raw algae.
"That's what they call the local vertical," he said. "The body was built for gravity and the eyes look for gravity in any situation; that's the way the brain's wired. You're gonna look for straight lines that go up and down and you're going to orient yourself to those lines. And you're gonna get killed, soldier, understand?"
"Yes sir!" Lindsay said. In the Republic, he'd been taught from childhood to despise violence. Its only legitimate use was against