Read Farmer in the Sky for Free Online Page A

the Bifrost was not. It got as quiet as the inside of a bag of feathers.
    There was nothing to do but lie there, stare out at that black sky, try to breathe, and try not to think about the weight sitting on you.
    And then, so suddenly that it made your stomach turn flip-flops, you didn't weigh anything at all.
4.    Captain DeLongPre
    Let me tell you that the first time you fall is no fun. Sure, you get over it. If you didn't you would starve. Old space hands even get so they like it—weightlessness, I mean. They say that two hours of weightless sleep is equal to a full night on Earth. I got used to it, but I never got to like it.
    The Bifrost had blasted for a little more than three minutes. It seemed lots longer because of the high acceleration; we had blasted at nearly six g. Then she was in free orbit for better than three hours and we fell the whole time, until the Captain started to maneuver to match orbits with the Mayflower.
    In other words we fell straight up for more than twenty thousand miles.
    Put that way, it sounds silly. Everybody knows that things don't fall up; they fall down.
    Everybody knew the world was flat, too.
    We fell up.
    Like everybody, I had had the elements of space ballistics in grammar school physics, and goodness knows there have been enough stories about how you float around in a spaceship when it's in a free orbit. But, take it from me, you don't really believe it until you've tried it.
    Take Mrs. Tarbutton—the woman who wanted breakfast. I suppose she went to school like everybody else. But she kept insisting that the Captain had to do something about it. What he could do I don't know; find her a small asteroid, maybe.
    Not that I didn't sympathize with her—or with myself, I guess. Ever been in an earthquake? You know how everything you ever depended on suddenly goes back on you and terra firma isn't firma any longer? It's like that, only much worse. This is no place to review grammar school physics but when a spaceship is in a free trajectory, straight up or any direction, the ship and everything in it moves along together and you fall, endlessly—and your stomach darn near falls out of you.
    That was the first thing I noticed. I was strapped down so that I didn't float away, but I felt weak and shaky and dizzy and as if I had been kicked in the stomach. Then my mouth filled with saliva and I gulped and I was awfully sorry I had eaten that chocolate.
    But it didn't come up, not quite.
    The only thing that saved me was no breakfast. Some of the others were not so lucky. I tried not to look at them. I had intended to unstrap as soon as we went free and go to a port so I could look at Earth, but I lost interest in that project entirely. I stayed strapped down, and concentrated on being miserable.
    The stewardess came floating out the hatch from the next deck, shoved herself along with a toe, checked herself with a hand at the center stanchion, and hovered in the air in a swan dive, looking us over. It was very pretty to watch if I'd been in shape to appreciate it.
    “Is everybody comfy?” she said cheerfully.
    It was a silly remark but I suppose nurses get that way. Somebody groaned and a baby on the other side of the compartment started to cry. The stewardess moved over to Mrs. Tarbutton and said, “You may have breakfast now. What would you like? Scrambled eggs?”
    I clamped my jaw and turned my head away, wishing she would shut up. Then I looked back. She had paid for that silly remark—and she had to clean it up.
    When she was through with Mrs. Tarbutton I said, “Uh-oh, Miss—”
    “Andrews.”
    “Miss Andrews, could I change my mind about that drop-sick injection?”
    “Righto, chum,” she agreed, smiling, and whipped out an injector from a little kit she had at her belt. She gave me the shot. It burned and for a moment I thought I was going to lose the chocolate after all. But then things quieted down and I was almost happy in a miserable sort of way.
    She left me and