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"I said why does every one of you have his feet in the air and his head toward the ground!"
Wiggin didn't look at Bean in particular, and this was one question Bean didn't want to answer. There was no assurance of which particular correct answer Wiggin was looking for, so why open his mouth just to get shut down?
It was a kid named Shame -- short for Seamus -- who finally spoke up. "Sir, this is the direction we were in coming out of the door." Good job, thought Bean. Better than some lame argument that there was no up or down in null-G.
"Well what difference is that supposed to make! What difference does it make what the gravity was back in the corridor! Are we going to fight in the corridor? Is there any gravity here?"
No sir, they all murmured.
"From now on, you forget about gravity before you go through that door. The old gravity is gone, erased. Understand me? Whatever your gravity is when you get to the door, remember -- the enemy's gate is down. Your feet are toward the enemy gate. Up is toward your own gate. North is that way" -- he pointed toward what had been the ceiling -- "south is that way, east is that way, west is -- what way?"
They pointed.
"That's what I expected," said Wiggin. "The only process you've mastered is the process of elimination, and the only reason you've mastered that is because you can do it in the toilet."
Bean watched, amused. So Wiggin subscribed to the you're-so-stupid-you-need-me-to-wipe-your- butts school of basic training. Well, maybe that was necessary. One of the rituals of training. Boring till it was over, but ... commander's choice.
Wiggin glanced at Bean, but his eyes kept moving.
"What was the circus I saw out here! Did you call that forming up? Did you call that flying? Now everybody, launch and form up on the ceiling! Right now! Move!"
Bean knew what the trap was and launched for the wall they had just entered through before Wiggin had even finished talking. Most of the others also got what the test was, but a fair number of them launched the wrong way -- toward the direction Wiggin had called *north* instead of the direction he had identified as *up*. This time Bean happened to arrive near a handhold, and he caught it with surprising ease. He had done it before in his launch group's battleroom practices, but he was small enough that, unlike the others, it was quite possible for him to land in a place that had no handhold within reach. Short arms were a definite drawback in the battleroom. On short bounds he could aim at a handhold and get there with some accuracy. On a cross-room jump there was little hope of that. So it felt good that this time, at least, he didn't look like an oaf. In fact, having launched first, he arrived first.