"Three and a half minutes, sir."
"Begin a countdown at minus thirty seconds. One count every five seconds until minus five seconds, one count per second from there to zero. Lift at zero."
"Yes, sir."
We got everything settled, made sure there were no loose tools lying around, and sat down in the lounge chairs to wait for the lift. Pretty soon, McGuire said: "Minus thirty seconds." Finally, he said "Five ... four ... three ... two ... one ... zero."
And we all sank down in the chairs, under the pull of a full Standard Gee of acceleration—one thousand centimeters per second squared.
Ceres fell away from beneath us and slowly receded in the vast blackness of space.
I got up and stretched my muscles, and the others began doing the same. It takes time to get used to a full gee again after spending time in the Belt. Even in a flitterboat, you're in a bucket seat, lying on your back; you can't do any walking around in a flitterboat.
The change in Ellsworth Felder was remarkable. All that chubbiness that had ballooned out under the low gravity of Ceres and made him look like the Cheerful Cherub was pulled into sagging folds under the pull of the ship's acceleration. It made him look fifteen years older. None of the others seemed to be bothered much.
Felder kept his good humor, though. He didn't seem to know that there'd been any change in his appearance. He rubbed his hands together and said: "I, for one, always get hungry when the gravity goes up. May I suggest an early lunch?"