Zak managed a small chuckle to himself at Ragboy’s expense.
He realised that if Mars was in front of the ship, then Earth must be behind it. He turned right around to make his way up to the rim of the cone. He clambered along using the handholds, shifting past a still petrified Ragboy clinging on.
He reached the rim, and the barrel of the ship came into view, its long thin body stretching into the distance. It was rotating clockwise, and joined the rim almost perfectly, such that Zak could reach out and let it brush his hand as it swept past. There was not a sound. Zak’s mind saw a mass of moving machinery, so the lack of noise made him feel as if he had gone deaf.
In the distance, just to the right of the line of the ship, he could see a small blue crescent, Earth, and alongside it a tiny white crescent, the Moon. From this angle, the Sun was to the left. Because it was much further away than Earth, it only lit up the leftmost arc of the planet.
He watched for a few seconds and then started to feel dizzy, due to a combination of weightlessness and the steady rotation in front of him. He made to turn around but the dizziness overwhelmed him and he became completely disorientated. He swiped at another handhold, but missed it, causing him to go head over heels. He was still gripping a handhold with one hand, and as he tumbled, his arm jolted and went taut. This time he had to use his strength to hold on, and a wave of horror pulsed through him. But quickly, his body came to rest. He heard a terrified whimper, but it had come from the communication link. He looked around, and found himself upside down, watching Ragboy clambering back into the hatch.
It was a strange sensation. There was no up or down due to the absence of gravity, but his eyes told him he was hanging from a ceiling. His moment of panic subsided and he pulled himself back towards the ship, grabbing on with the other hand.
Zak found that despite that scary moment, he was enjoying this immensely, and didn’t want to go back down. But he had to keep in mind that he was only one slip away from certain death.
