Space station

I was visiting a niece on one of many space stations that circled the earth. Being much older and not used to floating around I was making a pretty clumsy mess of it. I did get to my room, however, and was looking for a way to keep my telescope from drifting away when J arrived to take me to dinner.

She managed to round up my telescope and stuck some sort of rubbery stuff to the bottom of the tripod legs. It then stuck quite handily to the "floor." I use the quotes there because I would discover when visiting her suite later, that many of the permanent residents had completely done away with the floor ceiling and wall convention, their entire quarters were comprised of walls.

She had prepared a delightful meal. To make it easier to eat, we were in a rotating common room that she shared with seven other suites. Nearly everyone from her suite was there. Dinner was entertaining, and I did as much talking as listening, as there were a lot of questions about the "old days" back on earth.

After dinner I visited J's rooms, and was stunned and a little disoriented to discover that there was really no up or down, even in the bedroom. She had taken and cut out the pages from a book of paintings I had sent and used them to decorate nearly every flat surface large enough to hold them. I found the center part of the book intact, it had wide graph paper margins, and she'd been using them to make various calculus calculations.

"Taking new classes?"

"No, those are a friend's, mine are the recipes." she flipped back through the book and changed the LED lights to a different hue, showing her notes, and calculations.

I noted that both sets of calculations seemed related to rationing schemes and optimizing resources. It dawned on me that this habitat was thinking of seceding and heading out into space like so many others. I suddenly understood why my quarters looked so permanent.

"This isn't just a visit for me, is it?"

My niece looked distressed, "I told them you would figure it out right away. Please, we want you to come with us. Don't snitch..."

I told her I wouldn't snitch. I wasn't sure I wanted to go with them, either, but was pretty sure I wasn't going to have a choice in the matter.

Ad astra per technica,
FF