THE SUBORBITAL PLANE launched straight up into the sky, pinning them all back against their seats. Tom turned his head toward the window, feeling like his brain was sloshing around in his skull, the landscape shrinking beneath them, whirling in his vision in a sluggish way as they jolted higher and higher, the blue of the sky draining to black.

And then, abruptly, they came to a halt, utter silence enveloping them as the engines cut off. Every molecule of his being seemed to be weightless, and Tom realized he truly was weightless. He opened his mouth and gasped in shock and amazement, feeling his stomach flipping fantastically. He caught Vik’s eye and grinned.

Vik moaned loudly. “I don’t feel so good.”

“Oh no, not here, buddy,” Tom urged him, just as loudly.

“I . . . I feel . . . I feel so . . .”

“Oh God, is there a bathroom on this thing?” Tom cried.

“Help me. Someone help me!” Vik pleaded.

“I’ll help you, buddy!” Tom pledged, ripping off his seat belt.

Tom bobbed up into the air, and the officer shouted, “Sit down!”

“But my friend is sick! So sick!” Tom proclaimed.

Vik began making a gagging noise. He was also tugging off his belt.

“He’ll puke,” Tom insisted, pulling Vik along with him. “He’ll vomit all over the place!”

Wyatt panicked. “No! It’ll float everywhere! Why doesn’t this suborbital have barf bags?”

The words rang up and down the aisle as trainees repeated it. “Barf bags, barf bags . . .” Tom could see frantic scrabbling of hands, as people searched for something to contain what Vik was about to do.

“We can’t get puke all over us,” Jennifer Nguyen pleaded. “It’ll get in my hair!”

“Fine,” the officer shouted. “Bathroom in the back. Go!”

Tom hauled Vik from his seat, and for a moment, they forgot to act as they bobbed up and impacted the ceiling. He and Vik exchanged a crazy grin, then Tom remembered to screw his face into a frightened look.

“Don’t spew on me, Vik.”

“Hurry, Tom. Hurry, or I’ll spew on everyone!”

The “ews” rippled down the aisle, and vanished from their ears only when Tom and Vik floated into the aft cabin and shut the door. They didn’t go into the small bathroom beyond, though. They floated there, their faces looking a bit strange without gravity to pull on their skin at all, their hair floating in all directions.

“Doctor,” Vik informed him, “we are in outer space.”

“We are in outer space.” They couldn’t stop laughing.

VIK MADE LOUD vomiting noises over the next minute, making them louder every time someone knocked on the door.

“Oh, oh, that’s hideous,” Tom shouted loudly, flipping around again and again. “In the toilet tube, buddy! Not on me!”