A Present 4

Unfortunately, alongside the increased enlightenment he felt, there was an increased scent of urine. Without the background of chemical scents like bleach and oil, Don could very clearly tell that the smell was urine. Apparently, his quip about somebody pissing was closer to the truth than he had thought.

"Haaaaaa," the captain let out an exhausted sigh, "Damn thing's leaking again."

"What's leaking?"

"Your gift. Ah fuck! Its all over the wall!" He looked like he might cry.

Indeed, if Don followed Thompson's gaze he would find a dotted line of yellow along the otherwise pristinely white walls. Walls being the appropriate term for all faces, there not being a way to distinguish down.

This led to a fairly unique set-up to the room. Chairs, screens, and even tables were not limited to a conventional layout. That being said, there was veeeery little open space, this being on purpose so that nobody would find themselves 'stranded' out of reach of an object they could use to move themselves around.

Concurrent with his exclamation over the state of the room, a soft yet high pitched yapping found its way out of one of the six corners of the room.

"Stay here, let me go get it." As he turned and launched himself towards the source of the sound, Don caught him mutter something about a box under his breath.

Don took this time to admire gravity, both is presence and absence. He found it incredible that the simple matter of something being heavy, albeit colossally so, was enough to draw things toward it. At the same time, being anywhere in the middle of an evenly distributed hollow sphere would result in there being no gravitational pull.

That meant that, theoretically, it was possible to go from experiencing tremendous amounts of gravitational force to absolutely none at all in the matter of an instant naturally!

Currently, being vaguely around the center of mass of the ship, he was experiencing a similar phenomena.

Granted, this was completely irrelevant. Despite how massive this carrier was, it was nowhere close to being able to compete with a true celestial body in terms of gravitational pull.

Even if someone were to 'stand' in the spot of a dreadnought's exterior that would grant the highest value of gravity in the direction of it's center of mass, the gravitational acceleration they would experience would be closer to a billionth of Earth's surface gravity than a millionth. Keep in mind this was a dreadnought, the most dense ship of the line.

Even if someone where to stand over a mass of solid steel of a similar radius, for calculation's sake 250 meters, they would find themselves only experiencing a whopping 0.00002 percent of Earth's surface gravity.

Keeping in mind that volume (and therefore mass) increases cubically with relationship to the radius of a sphere whereas the gravitational force induced by an object only atrophied quadratically with distance, increasing the size of a sphere would increase gravitational pull. It was only because of this relationship, something he recalled to be called the square-cube law or otherwise similar, that massive natural bodies floating through space were allowed to form.

There were other places where this law reared its head in less beautiful ways, the acceleration potential of a ship being previously discussed and the fact that terrestrial lifeforms could not exceed a certain volume because their bones would not be able to take it.

He remembered horses being used as a microcosm of this effect. Their leg bones, uncharacteristically thin for an animal of their size, were prone to breaking more often should they ever become overweight.

However the animal, yes, animal, that Captain Thompson emerged from behind the sterile white sofa with was not a horse.

It was a puppy! A cute little bundle of of brown and black fur that radiated a pungent musk of urine and shit. Even Thompson, a man Don considered to have considerable grit (even if he was a bit kookie in the head) was holding it by the scruff and covering his nose.

"Heer zhe iz." He sounded ridiculous with his nose covered. "Take it."

Suddenly faced with a panicking sack of fur headed his way, Don seized up, and the dog 'fell' into his chest.

The situation was only made worse when he caught it. In immediate hindsight, not the best idea. Just as it smelled, it was drenched in it's own piss. He could immediately tell he was going to share the its fate of smelling horrendous for the immediate future. A future which Thompson was laughing at on his way back to an area where he could clean himself and his new pet.

He probably could have put the poor thing down to walk, but for expediency's sake he decided to transport it to the decontamination center while pulling it tight to his chest.

He was already covered in the smell usually associated with dehydration and unflushed toilets, he wouldn't mind being associated with that stench a little more if it meant he could be rid of it that much quicker.