I float back up to the cockpit and flip through screens on various consoles. As each one fails to be what I want, I move to the next. Finally, I find it. The “Centrifuge” screen. It was hiding out as a subpanel in the Life Support screen.

It looks simple enough. There are yaw, pitch, and roll readouts, showing the current state of the ship, just like the Navigation panel has. A separate readout is labeled “Crew Compartment Angle” —that must be the turning-around bit. Each one reads “0° per second.”

Below those is a button labeled “Engage Centrifuge Sequence.” Underneath that are a bunch of numbers related to rotational acceleration rate, final speed, spooling rate, estimated g-force at the floor of the lab, four different screens for spool status (I guess there are four spools, two on each side), which emergency protocols to follow if there’s a problem, and a lot more stuff I won’t pretend to understand. The important thing is all those readouts have values already in them.

Got to love computers. They do all the thinking for you so you don’t have to.

I do take a closer look at the emergency protocol mode. It just reads “Spin Down.” I tap the readout and a dropdown appears. Looks like my options are: “Spin Down,” “Halt All Spools,” and one in red labeled “Separate.” I’m pretty sure I don’t want to do that. I suspect “Spin Down” will slowly decelerate the ship’s spin if there’s a problem. Sounds good, so I’ll leave it set to that.

I’m about to engage the centrifuge, but then I pause. Is everything tied down? Is it safe to suddenly have a bunch of force acting on the ship? I shake it off. The ship was accelerating constantly for several years. It has to be comfortable with a little centrifuge action, right?

Right?

As hundreds of astronauts have done before, I place my faith and my life in the hands of the engineers who designed the system. Dr.Lokken, I guess. Hope she did her job.

I push the button.

First, nothing happens. I wonder if I even pressed it right, or if I just fumbled at the screen like I have so many times on my phone in the past.

But then the alert chimes throughout the ship. The piercing triple beep repeats every few seconds. There is no way for any crewmember to miss a signal like that. A final warning, I guess, in case the crew had a failure to communicate.

Over my head, the Petrovascope screen changes to lock-out mode. That confirms my earlier suspicion that the ship’s maneuvering engines are Astrophage-based. I mean, it’s kind of obvious when you think about it. But I wasn’t sure until now.