one mindless hobby to occupy himself with, and I had several.
Daddy asked, “Where have you been?”
“Up on the Sixth Level,” I said. “What do we have on hand to eat?”
“There’s some Ham-IV in the kitchen, if you want that,” Daddy said.
“That sounds good,” I said.
I liked Ham-IV very much. It comes from one of the two or three best meat vats in the Ship, though some people find it too strong for their taste. Gamey, I think they say. Still, they have to put up with it because it’s one of the best producing meat cultures on the Ship. It doesn’t hurt to like the inevitable.
I started for the kitchen and Daddy followed.
“Isn’t the Sixth Level completely shut up?” he asked. “I didn’t know you could still get up there.”
“It’s not that hard,” I said, and started getting food out. “Just why did they tear everything out the way they did?”
“Nobody has ever told you why they closed it down?”
I said, “Before today, I didn’t even know that there was a Sixth Level.”
“Oh,” Daddy said. “Well, it’s simple enough. At the time they converted the Ship it was pretty Spartan living here. We had more space than we needed with the colonists gone, but not enough of everything else. They stripped the Third and Sixth Levels and used the materials to fix up the rest of the Ship more comfortably. They changed the Third to as near an approximation of Earth as they could, and closed the Sixth down as unnecessary.”
“Oh,” I said. That seemed to make sense out of the tomb that we had seen.
Daddy said, “I guess I’d forgotten how barren the Sixth Level is. If you want to find out more about it, I can tell you where to look it up. Right now, though, I have to be on my way or I’ll be late.”
Before he got out of the kitchen, I said, “Daddy?”
He turned around.
I said, “I changed my mind today. I think I’d like go with you next weekend after all.”
Daddy smiled. “I was hoping you’d change your mind if I gave you a little time. You make your share of mistakes, but most of the time you show good sense. I think you did this time.”
Daddy is nice, so he wouldn’t say, “I told you so,” but I was certain that he thought that it was seeing the Sixth Level and not getting stricken dead for it that had changed my mind. It wasn’t, though. I think I changed my mind on the ladder—there are times when you have to go forward whether you like it or not, and if Zena Andrus could do it, as scared as she was, so could I. That’s all.
I smiled and said, “Do I get unfrozen?” I was at least half-serious. For some reason, getting Daddy to say so was important to me.
Daddy nodded. “I guess you do. I guess you do.”
I was still smiling as I sat down to eat. It was just about time I started to do a little growing. It was then that the thought struck me that if I did start to grow, in not very long at all I wouldn’t be able to squeeze my way into the ducts.
Well, you can’t have everything.
Chapter 5
WHILE I THINK OF IT, I WANT TO EXCUSE MYSELF in advance. From time to time, I’m going to say terribly ignorant things. For instance, when I come to speak of boats shortly, anybody who has ever sailed will probably find reason to laugh and shake his head at my description. Please forgive me, I’m not writing technical descriptions, I’m simply trying to tell what I saw and did. When I felt the need to grab onto something, I didn’t grab onto a “gunwale,” I grabbed onto the plain old side of the boat. That’s what it was to me.
In any case, through the week before we went to Grainau, my spirits slid down again. Having decided to go on Sunday, if I had left on Monday I wouldn’t have felt bad at all, but unfortunately I had a whole week to mull things over, worry, and imagine. Friday night, the night before we were to leave, I lay awake for hours, unable to sleep. I tried to sleep on my stomach, but bleak possibilities came into my head, one after another. Then onto my side, and imaginary conversations. Onto my back, and thoughts of all the things I might be doing tomorrow instead, if only I could.