The beeping stops and nothing really happens. Then I notice that I’m closer to the Nav panel than I was before. I drifted to the edge of the room. I put my arm out to steady myself and get back to normal. And then I drift toward the Nav panel again.

“Ohhh,” I say.

It’s begun. I’m not drifting toward the Nav panel. The whole cockpit is drifting toward me. The ship is starting to spin.

Everything veers off and changes direction. That’ll be because as the ship spins, the crew compartment is also turning around. This could get complicated.

“Uh… right!” I kick off the wall and into the pilot seat.

I tilt. Or, rather, the room tilts. No, that doesn’t make sense. Nothing tilts. The ship is spinning around faster and faster. It’s also accelerating the acceleration. Also, the front half of the ship has detached from the rear, and it’s rotating around those two big hinges. When it’s done, the nose will be pointed in toward the rear half of the ship. All of this is going on at the same time, so the forces I’m feeling are really weird. Extremely complicated stuff, but also not my problem. It’s up to the computer to deal with.

I watch the Centrifuge panel. The pitch rate reads 0.17° per second. Another readout labeled “Component Separation” reads 2.4 meters. There’s a little beep and the “Crew Compartment Angle” readout blinks. It shows as 180° . I assume this whole sequence was worked out well in advance to minimize shock to the system and/or crew.

I feel a slight pressure on my butt as the seat pushes up against me. The transition is very smooth. I just… experience more and more gravity in what feels like a tilting room. It’s a weird sensation.

I know, logically, that I’m in a ship spinning around. But there are no windows to see out of. Only screens. I check the telescope screen that’s still pointed at the Blip-A. The stars in the background do not move. It’s accounting for my rotation somehow and canceling it. That bit of software was probably tricky, considering the camera probably isn’t at the exact center of rotation.

My arms grow heavy, so I put them on the armrests. I have to start using my neck muscles again for the first time in a while.

Five minutes after the sequence began, I experience a little less than normal Earth gravity. A quadruple beep announces the end of the sequence.

I check the Centrifuge screen. It shows a pitch rate of 20.71° per second, a total separation of 104 meters, and a “Lab Gravity” of 1.00g.