"You do that. Come on, I'll show you your quarters."
Blair led the way up the ramp and into the lighter. The bottom half of the ship was engine and fuel-space, and most of the upper half was cargo hold, leaving only two levels at the top for human occupancy. The uppermost level was the control room, with passenger space on the level beneath.
The three engineers, Ricks in the lead, followed Blair up the inside ladder to the second level, a smallish circular room with twelve bunks, in tiers of three, around the walls. The center space was empty.
"There's only four of us," said Blair, "so we can all take middle bunks. The middle's best; there's less noise and vibration."
"Beds for the babies, is that it?" said Ricks.
Blair grinned at him. "You wouldn't want to be standing up when we blast," he said. "Now, you lie face down in these bunks. This indentation is for your knees, and this pillow up here is for your chin. You hold onto these handles here, in front of the pillow, and you brace your feet against this bar back here. Just before we blast, you dig your chin down into that pillow hard. If you have your mouth open, you're liable to get up to the Station minus a few teeth. In front of each bunk here, you see these three lights. The green one means you can relax, talk if you want to, readjust your position, whatever you want. The orange one means a blast within one minute, and the red one means a blast within ten seconds. The red one stays on throughout a blast. Okay?"
Ricks said, "The company had us play with these cribs. They filled us in pretty good."
"I'm glad to hear that. I'm always pleased to get my human cargo to the Pod alive. Let's get into the bunks now and get ourselves ready. Blast is due in a couple minutes."
Blair saw to it that the three engineers were properly situated in their bunks, and then he crawled into the one nearest Ricks. He had the feeling that young man would be needing his hand held in just a few minutes.