B says We had to leave quietly in a hurry without attracting attention
so she booked us out at the Hotel _hours_ ago and she and Ram have
been hanging around waiting for me ever since.
I point out that the scope-trace of an Unidentified Flying Object will
occasion a lot more remark than a normal departure even at midnight.
At this Ram smiles in an inscrutable Oriental manner and B gets nearly
as cross as I do, seems she has mentioned this point before.
We have not gone into it properly when the cabin suddenly shifts
through a right angle. B and I go sliding down the vertical floor and
end sitting on a window. There is a jolt and a shudder and Ram mutters
things in Hindi and then suddenly Up is nowhere at all.
B and I scramble off the window and grab fixtures so as to stay put.
The stars have gone and we can see nothing except the dim glow over
the instruments; then suddenly lights go on outside.
We look out into the hold of a ship.
Our ten-foot teardrop is sitting next to another one, like two eggs
in a rack. On the other side is a bulkhead; behind, the curve of the
hull; and directly ahead an empty space, then another bulkhead and an
open door, through which after a few seconds a head pokes cautiously.
The head is then followed by a body which kicks off against the wall
and sails slowly towards us. Ram presses a stud and a door slides open
in the hopper; but the new arrival stops himself with a hand on either
side of the frame, his legs trailing any old how behind him. It is
Peter Yeng Sen who graduated the year I did my Field Work.
He says, Gopal, dear fellow, there was no need for the knocking, we
heard the bell all right.
Ram grumbles something about the guide beam being miss-set, and slides
out of his chair. Peter announces that we have only just made it as
the deadline is in seven minutes time; he waves B and me out of the
hopper, through the door and into a corridor where a certain irregular
vibration is coming from the walls.
Ram asks what is that tapping? And Peter sighs and says The present
generation of students has no discipline at all.
At this B brakes with one hand against the wall and cocks her head to
listen; next moment she laughs and starts banging with her fist on the
wall.
Peter exclaims in Mandarin and tows her away by one wrist like a
reluctant kite. The rapping starts again on the far side of the wall
and I suddenly recognize a primitive signaling system called Regret
or something, I guess because it was used by people in situations they
did not like such as Sinking ships or solitary confinement; it is done
by tapping water pipes and such.
Someone found it in a book and the more childish element in College
learned it up for signaling during compulsory lectures. Interest
waning abruptly when the lecturers started to learn it, too.
I never paid much attention not expecting to be in Solitary
confinement much; this just shows you; next moment Ram opens a door
and pushes me through it, the door clicks behind me and Solitary
confinement is what I am in.
I remember this code is really called Remorse which is what I feel for
not learning when I had the chance.
However I do not have long for it, a speaker in the wall requests
everyone to lie down as acceleration is about to begin. I strap down
on the couch which fills half the compartment, countdown begins and at
zero the floor is suddenly _down_ once more.