The Henry Hudson was not actually docked at the gate, of course; it's hard to make a hundred-thousand-metric-ton interstellar spacecraft move daintily in tandem with a revolving space station. As with the colony transports, it maintained a reasonable distance while supplies, passengers and crew were transported back and forth by rather more manageable shuttles and barges. The Hudson itself was stationed a few miles out and above the station, not the massive, unesthetically functional spoked-wheel design of the colony transports, but sleeker, flatter and, importantly, not at all cylindrical or wheel-shaped. I mentioned this to Harry, who nodded. "Full-time artificial gravity," he said. "And stable over a large field. Very impressive."

"I thought we were using artificial gravity on the way up," Jesse said.

"We were," Harry said. "The beanstalk platform's gravity generators were increasing their output the higher up we went."

"So what's so different about a spaceship using artificial gravity?" Jesse asked.

"It's just extremely difficult," Harry said. "It takes an enormous amount of energy to create a gravitational field, and the amount of energy you have to put out increases exponentially with the radius of the field. They probably cheated by creating multiple, smaller fields instead of one larger field. But even that way, creating the fields in our beanstalk platform probably took more energy than it took to light your hometown for a month."

"I don't know about that," Jesse said. "I'm from San Antonio."

"Fine. His hometown, then," Harry said, jerking a thumb toward me. "Point is, it's an incredibly wasteful use of energy, and in most situations where artificial gravity is required, it's simpler and much less expensive just to create a wheel, spin it and let that stick people and things to the inside rim. Once you've spun up, you only need to put minimal additional energy into the system to compensate for friction. As opposed to creating an artificial gravity field, which needs a constant and significant output of energy."

He pointed to the Henry Hudson. "Look, there's a shuttle next to the Hudson. Using that as a scale, I'm guessing the Hudson is 800 feet long, 200 feet wide and about 150 feet deep. Creating a single artificial gravity field around that baby would definitely dim the lights in San Antonio. Even multiple fields would be an amazing drain on power. So either they have a power source that can keep the gravity on and still run all the ship's other systems, like propulsion and life support, or they've found a new, low-energy way to create gravity."

"It's probably not cheap," I said, and pointed to a colony transport to the right of the Henry Hudson. "Look at the colony ship. It's a wheel. And Colonial Station is spinning, too."

"The colonies are saving their best technology for the military," Jesse said. "And this ship is just being used to pick up new recruits. I think you're right, Harry. We have no idea what we've gotten ourselves into."

Harry grinned, and turned back to look at the Henry Hudson, lazily circling as Colonial Station turned. "I love it when people come around to my way of thinking."

Our apparatchiks presently herded us up again and got us in line to board the shuttle. We presented our identity cards to the CU official at the shuttle gate, who entered us on a list while a counterpart presented us with a personal data assistant. "Thanks for being on Earth, here's a lovely parting gift," I said to him. He didn't seem to get it.

The shuttles did not come equipped with artificial gravity. Our apparatchiks harnessed us in and warned us that under no circumstances were we to try to unlock ourselves; to make sure that the more claustrophobic of us didn't do just that, the locks on the harnesses would not be under our control during the flight. So that solved that problem. The apparatchiks also passed out plastic hairnets to anyone with hair long enough to warrant them; in free fall, long hair apparently goes everywhere.

If anyone felt nauseated, we were told, they were to use the vomit bags in the side pocket of their seats. Our apparatchiks stressed the importance of not waiting until the last second to use the vomit bags. In weightlessness, vomit would float around and irritate the other passengers, making the original vomiter very unpopular for the rest of the flight and possibly the rest of his or her military career. This was followed by a rustling sound as several of our number readied themselves. The woman next to me clutched her vomit bag tightly. I mentally prepared myself for the worst.

There was no vomit, thankfully, and the ride to the Henry Hudson was pretty smooth; after the initial shit, I'm falling signal my brain shot out when the gravity gave way, it was more like a gentle, extended roller-coaster ride. We made it to the ship in about five minutes; there was a minute or two of docking negotiations as a shuttle bay door irised open, accepted the shuttle, and closed again. This was followed by another few minutes of waiting as air was pumped back into the bay. Then a slight tingle, and the sudden reappearance of weight; the artificial gravity had kicked in.

The shuttle bay door opened and a wholly new apparatchik appeared. "Welcome to the CDFS Henry Hudson," she said. "Please unlatch yourselves, gather your belongings, and follow the lighted path out of the shuttle bay. The air will be pumped out of this bay in precisely seven minutes—to launch this shuttle and allow another shuttle to dock—so please be quick."

We were all surprisingly quick.

We were then led to the massive Henry Hudson mess hall, where we were invited to have some coffee and donuts and to relax. An official would be along to explain things. While we were waiting, the mess hall had begun to fill up with other recruits who had presumably boarded before us; after an hour there were hundreds of us milling about. I had never seen so many old people in one place at one time. Neither had Harry. "It's like Wednesday morning at the world's biggest Denny's," he said, and then got himself more coffee.

Just about the time that my bladder was informing me that I had overdone it with the coffee, a distinguished-looking gentleman in Colonial diplomatic blues entered the mess hall and made his way toward the front of the room. The noise level in the room began to subside; you could tell that people were relieved that someone was finally there to tell them what the hell was going on.

The man stood there for a few minutes until the room was silent. "Greetings," he said, and we all jumped. He must have had a body mike; his voice was coming through speakers in the wall. "I'm Sam Campbell, Colonial Union adjunct for the Colonial Defense Forces. Although technically speaking I am not a member of the Colonial Defense Forces, I have been empowered by the CDF to manage your orientation on its behalf, so for the next few days, you can consider me your superior officer. Now, I know many of you have just arrived on the last shuttle and are anxious to get some rest; others have been on ship for up to a day and are equally anxious to know what comes next. For the sake of both groups, I will be brief.

"In about an hour, the CDFS Henry Hudson will break orbit and ready for her initial skip to the Phoenix system, where we stop briefly to pick up additional supplies before we head to Beta Pyxis III, where you will begin your training. Don't worry, I don't expect any of this to mean anything to you now. What you need to know is that it will take us a little more than two days to get to our initial skip point, and during that time, you will be undergoing a series of mental and physical evaluations at the hands of my staff. Your schedule is now being downloaded into your PDA. Please review it at your convenience. Your PDA can also direct you to every place you need to go, so you should never worry about getting lost. Those of you who have just arrived on the Henry Hudson will also find your stateroom assignments on your PDA.