"Couldn't see much of it, must have been ten miles away, maybe. But, with the time we're making it was just there she comes and there she goes."
"Can you see the Earth?" Matt squirmed toward the port.
"Natch." Tex gave way and let Matt slide into his place. The frame of the port cut across the eastern Atlantic. Matt could see an arc extending almost from the North Pole to the Equator.
It was high noon over the Atlantic. Beyond it, bright in the afternoon sunlight, he could make out the British Isles, Spain, and the brassy Sahara. The browns and greens of land were in sharp contrast to the deep purple of the ocean. In still greater contrast stood the white dazzle of cloud. As his eye approached the distant, rounded horizon the details softened, giving a strong effect of stereo, of depth, of three-dimensional globularness-the world indeed was round!
Round and green and beautiful! He discovered presently that he had been holding his breath. His nausea was quite gone.
Someone tugged at his leg. "Don't stay there all day. Do you want to hog it?"
Regretfully Matt gave way to another cadet. He turned and shoved himself away from the port and in so doing became disoriented. He could not find Tex in the helter-skelter mass of floating bodies.
He felt a grip on his right ankle. "Let's get out of here, Matt."
"Right." They worked their way to the hatch and moved to the next deck. Being without ports it was not heavily populated. They propelled themselves toward the center of the room, away from the traffic, and steadied themselves on handholds. "Well," said Matt, "so this is it-space, I mean. How do you like it?"
"Makes me feel like a goldfish. And I'm getting cross-eyed trying to figure out which side is up. How's your gizzard? Been dropsick?"