Skating on Air

If you think it involves wearing blades on your feet and using them to propel yourself as fast as you can against the direction of spin, then you got it in one. Spin weight is about 0.1 now. This is just enough to be annoying without being useful, but about right for EMF Eddie's crazy new game.

He came by my ship with ice-skates, and dumped them next to my sleep harness where I wasn't sleeping. Paula must have let him in.

"Let's go," Eddie said.

"Where?" I asked, looking at the skates suspiciously.

"Frozen Alpha One," Eddie said unhelpfully. That's what we called the entire level below the soon-to-be-not Tangent Track. The place was covered in ice, which explained the skates. "I'll spot you 100 meters."

"I'm not putting those things on," I said, attempting to settle in my sleep harness with almost no weight to settle.

"150 meters."

"For what?"

"The tangent."

"Go away, Eddie. I'm depressed today, and I like it that way."

"Not a chance. Right now is the only opportunity I will ever have to beat you at Skating for the Tangent."

"You're crazy. Go away."

"Are you forfeiting the game? I was hoping for a challenge."

"Forfeit?" I grumbled, stiffening. "I didn't agree to play your silly game."

"Off course you did," Eddie said cheerfully. "If I remember correctly, your complaint went something like this: 'I would do anything to get away from these tedious zero-gee exercises for just one day.'"

He did a horrible impression of me, but I guess I had said something like that while running a stupid treadmill the other day.

"Fine," I said, struggling out of the harness. "But you agreed to spot me."

"Do you want that all on the first run, or spread out over multiple races?" Eddie asked with a grin.

He beat me seven out of twelve in Tangent Skating, but I beat him five out of six racing the other direction. We are already scanning the station designs to find a place for our new skating track.