The CHANGI BULLET

Chapter 24 - Spinning Vortex

Charles had brought up a box of his finest tomatoes and cabbages for the kitchen. Alexander checked them over with a hard Russian eye, before smiling his approval. Charles laughed with relief. Farrah was resting in a chair, with coffee and a sandwich, having spent the morning running routine checks in the engine room. Dr Ghosh was having a late breakfast of muesli and tea, after dealing with a minor cut to Toto's hand, and then checking her medical backpack for the upcoming exploration trip off the Izzati. She was nervous. There had been a bit of banter from Dr Haller, which took her back to her medical school days, as he pretended to be insulted not to be chosen to go out. The only other person in the Mess was Cerys, on the running machine.

Shiro ambled in, paused to look about him. Who are these people? He moved towards his personal chair. All eyes watched him; he kept up morale, and he was so handsome. Then he just slipped over onto his side. His left legs had somehow given way. He tried to get up, but went over again.

'Shiro!?' cried Farrah, rushing towards him, and almost falling over, herself.

Charles joined her at the stricken Shiro, and they both felt dizzy. Farrah managed to carry Shiro to his chair, where he settled in for a sleep, perfectly happy and non-the-worse for his wobble. Charles had to hold onto the back of the chair.

'Charles?' asked Cerys. 'Are you okay?'

Then Cerys lost her balance and was ejected by the machine onto the floor. She found herself uninjured but incapable of getting up, so she crawled to a seat. Dr Ghosh walked around the people who were behaving very oddly, seeking to give medical help, but she herself started to feel like that she was about to fall over, so retook a seat.

'This is not good at all,' said Charles.

'What's happening?' asked Farrah.

Medina entered the Mess on his hands and knees, having been stricken on the corridor. 'I think we've started to spin. Slowly, and in huge arcs, but we are going around.'

'Oh, my God,' said Cerys.

She and Farrah held hands. The moment felt a lot more serious than even the alien attack.

In his cabin, Ezra was woken by the sensation of seasickness. He put it down to another space dream. But then he was unable to locate the floor, so woozy was he. After resting back for a moment, he was able to get off the bunk and crawl for the door. There were no alarms sounding. No shouting. Just a sensation of being on a very weak fairground ride: fairly weak because of the huge size of the Izzati and the distance of space that she was beginning to rotate through.

It was painful on the knees, but Ezra crawled to the cockpit. Ari and Inggrid were frantically running computer checks and trying to manually correct the spin. Ezra made his presence known without interrupting them.

'Ezra,' said Ari. 'This is something new and strange. We are passing through some force field that is exerting centrifugal pressures on us.'

'How long for, do you reckon?'

Ari looked down at Era, his expression so solemn as to suggest it might be until the day they died.

'I prefer the other side of the universe, Ari, mate.'

Professor Birney crawled into the doorway, keen to discuss the situation with Ari. He started to suggest they were passing through some kind of cosmic whirlpool, but then he turned away and threw up in the corner. Ezra retreated, and crawled and scrabbled all the way to the Mess. Everyone had made it there, by then. He managed to stand up and wobble his way to a seat. Several people asked him what was happening, so he repeated what Ari had told him, leaving out the negative ending.