John Victor Peterson

“ Gladys said, September Morn-ing, and hurrying, dishevelled and forlorn, out the front door. I heard her car start up as Helene came up from the basement.
I ruefully surveyed the shattered visio amid the other debris.
"Null-grav," I said. "Real null-grav. Jim's got to know—but the visio's ruined. I've got to go out and call him."
"Oh, no, you don't!" Helene burst. "Null-grav and Jim O'Brien can wait until tomorrow!"
She kissed me tenderly then.
"How right you are," I said, getting re-oriented fast.
Now you must excuse me; I've got to degravitize the living room. ”

“ Someday I'll duplicate the null-grav over at the Project—Jim O'Brien and I have nearly got the circuitry licked—and we'll have the living room all to ourselves. Jim and his blushing bride—Gladys—come over almost every evening after the Cadets are through. We play null-grav polo, orbital chess and some other games we've adapted. Our favorite, though, is "Pick Your Planet" where we take turns imitating the orbit of one of Sol's planets, planetoids, moons or visiting comets, and pantomiming other clues.
Funny, but most often Helene or Gladys chooses Venus. With them, poor cold old Pluto's out. ”

“ Sure, you can let your conscience be your guide but what can you do when you're helplessly warped into a collision orbit with one of the loveliest women in the world, a welcoming planet in a closed system of your own peculiar manufacture?
The visio started buzzing then and I wondered agonizingly if it were Helene. On the other hand, it might be Jim O'Brien wondering why Gladys hadn't come back. With no answer, he might come over, but I doubted it. Jim's a bachelor and somewhat of a hermit. ”

“ But I did, after all, carry Helene across the threshold. Can I help it that, as I was fetching her a toast, I just happened to glance up at the sun-chandelier in our cathedral-ceilinged living room and got reminded of the Project and decided I just had to go down into my lab in the basement and change one little bit of circuitry? When you're working on something as elusive as anti-gravity, you've got to seize upon every minute of inspiration. ”

“ I sat on the chitchat bench, felt sorry for myself for a second and then got concentrating on the starchart on the ceiling above the sun-chandelier and decided that if man was to start exploring upward I'd better continue my exploring downstairs. ”

“ She did; then she went wandering off to aphelion in her orbit and momentarily out of my line of sight. When she came back toward perihelion with the chandelier, I said, "Now, look, wriggle around a little axially if you can—"
That did it. Helene exploded into a verbal nova. "You lecherous beast!" she cried. "It isn't enough for you to dally with this shameless blonde hussy on our wedding night. Not enough for you to float along looking like a blissful ogling ogre, making mental mockery of your wedding vows. ”

“ Wright, sweeping close to Gladys' orbit at perihelion, made a vicious swipe which neatly tore away a considerable portion of the upper part of Gladys' sunsuit, which portion went fluttering away on a bat-like trajectory of its own. ”

“ Could one of us somehow reach the sun-chandelier and short it, thereby shorting the machine downstairs? Mentally reconstructing the house's electrical circuitry, I concluded that my lab was on a separate circuit.
Hey! I am confused, I thought. Helene's handbag! I'd thought of it before. Of course! Women carry all sorts of things. ”

“ I went up the stairs but when I got to the top I didn't—couldn't—stop. I kept going up, making climbing motions and touching nothing at all until my head ricocheted off the curving ceiling and I bounced down upon my contour chair. ”