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. Bloch)
To reach the office of Budget Jets we had to go around the end of the
spaceport waiting room and into it at the axis, then directly to Budget's door.
The waiting room was crowded- the usual lot, plus Shriners and their wives, most
of them belted to wall rests, some floating free. And proctors-too many of them.
Perhaps I should explain that the waiting room-and the booking office and
the lock to the passenger tunnel and the offices and facilities of Rental
Row-are all in free fall, weightless; they do not take part in the stately spin
that gives the habitat its pseudo-gravity. The waiting room and related
activities are in a cylinder inside a much larger cylinder, the habitat itself.
The two cylinders share a common axis. The big one spins; the smaller one does
not-like a wheel turning on an axle.
This requires a vacuum seal at the outer skin of the habitat where the two
cylinders touch-a mercury type, I believe, but I've never seen it. The point is
that, even though the surrounding habitat spins, the habitat's spaceport must
not spin, because a shuttle (or a liner, or a freighter, or even a Volvo)
requires a steady place in free fall to dock. The docking nests for Rental Row
are a rosette around the main docking facility.
In going through the waiting room I avoided eye contact and went straight
to my destination, a door in a forward corner of the waiting room
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