"The sickness is super common for people who aren't born spacers. It usually doesn't keep happening after enough practice. Helps to keep your head still. If you feel like you're gonna actually vomit then you can ask me to stop, holding still for a couple minutes usually fixes it."

"Keeping my head still never fixed it before but maybe twenty-five years on solid ground hath had a salutary effect."

"Maybe!" Oh man, they're going to kick him out just for motion sickness, and then he'll have to leave his husband, and she'll never get to learn anything about what earth was like three hundred years ago, and everyone will be sad. "Helps to focus on your breathing, too. Some of the other people probably have better tricks, we can ask them when we get back, OK?"

"It is everywhen worth a try."

As Sher helps Vel along the corridor, Vel can be heard muttering, "wherefore in the twelve heavens did that goddamned psyon make me a spacer?"

- ah.

Hm.

OK.

If Parael thinks it's important then Imrainai is going to get them through this. Somehow.

"You'll get zapped if you talk about people's decisions like that," she observes, and then leads them into an open room with padded walls. There are holes in the padding with hooks set into them, so you can secure yourself but you can't ram into them at high speeds very easily. Imrainai secures the end of her tether to one and then lets herself float. There's an Alte at the other end of the room, standing on one of the walls with the help of his magnetic boots. He's got a full biosuit on - this is still a zone that's optimized for human habitation, so it's full of toxic oxygen. She can't bow in zero G (that's one good thing about space, people are way less insistent about bowing), so she salutes, touching two fingers to her closed mouth.

     "You're on time," blinks Narana, through his suit. "You're 97816?"

"Yes, sir. 572061 couldn't do it, she's already on sixes and seventeens." She signs it, because you always sign Confederate One when you're communicating with Alteri.

     "I see. Is there some reason you chose not to measure them or explain biosuits when they were on the lower decks and could change into them without their materials floating off?"

Shit. Because she woke up less than twenty minutes ago, and because she didn't have time to consider it before she went to sleep, because she needed to sleep or she'd be impaired, because she'd done so little of the sleeping she was supposed to do earlier, because - "Because I'm an idiot, sir."

It's not a bad zap, all things considered - less than a second and definitely not full intensity, practically a firm handshake, the sort of thing that Mathrael or Parael would take without even blinking. But she's bad at being zapped, so she whimpers. She thinks that might be worse than the zap itself.

     "At least we know what we're working with," blinks Narana.

Sher's eyes are wide. He imitates Imrainai's salute.

Vel salutes as well.

"You will show them how to secure their biosuits after this session; tomorrow they will have them at the start. How much experience do the two of you have in zero gravity conditions?"

"None whatsoever, sir," he signs.

"Some, when I was a child, sir."

"That seems a logical place to start, then. Tether yourselves to the wall."

Vel takes a second to figure it out-- either Alteri ships work differently than Elaran, or they've changed the method in the past few hundred years-- but tethers himself pretty quicky.

Sher, of course, has no difficulty at all.

Narana takes them through a series of relatively basic exercises, making sure that they can successfully move from one wall to another at appropriate speeds and at appropriate angles, calling on Imrainai to demonstrate. 

Vel creeps through the exercises, reciting as a mantra in his head don't throw up, don't throw up.

Sher does exactly two basic exercises the way he was supposed to. After the third exercise is demonstrated, he instead travels from one wall to the other by doing sixteen somersaults. 

"That is incorrect, 73264. Repeat the exercise correctly. If you feel at any time that the exercises are too simple, you can request that the training be accelerated, but a second deliberate departure from instructions will result in punishment."

"Yes, sir." It is fairly difficult to be sarcastic in Confederate One, a language which for humans mostly involves holding up different numbers of fingers, but somehow Sher manages. 

From then on he executes every single exercise flawlessly.

Vel only vomits once! So that's good. 

"Excellent job, 73264. 83462, you seem likely to have difficulties with this work. My commanding officer has confirmed the initial recommendation to train you for spacer work, so you will make another attempt tomorrow, but if the motion sickness does not subside within a week then I will pursue a transfer to a more suitable assignment. The three of you will report to Room 455 at 0650. 97816, I hold you responsible for teaching them basic use of their biosuits and core tools by that time; I trust that I am not overestimating your abilities?"

"No, sir."

They are given leave to return to the lower decks, and Imrainai leads them back.

"You're lucky we had Narana," she says, climbing the ladder head-first again. She flips herself around with no trouble when she reaches the area of the ship that has apparent gravity. 

Sher does not even do a single backflip. 

"What is Vel going to get transferred to?"

"It's not a certainty. I'm not going to give up on training either of you until they make me."

"Thou shouldst give up on training me unless thou hast some miracle cure for motion sickness I have not heard of ere now."

"I am skilled at zero g! --Which was a complete surprise to me, I assure thee. Wherefore did I have to spend so much time on exercises?"