It’s terrifying at first, of course—all that spangled blackness, and the sense of disorientation. Your guts never get used to sustained free fall, and you feel, when you look out, that every direction is up, which is natural, or that every direction is down, which is sheer horror. But you don’t stop looking out there because it’s terrifying. You stop because nothing ever happens out there. You’ve no sensation of speed. You’re not going anywhere. After the weeks, and the months, there’s some change, sure; but day to day you can’t see the difference, so after a while you stop looking for any. Which, of course, eliminates the viewports as an amusement device, which is too bad. There aren’t so many things for a man to do during a Long Haul that he can afford to eliminate anything. Getting bored with the infinities outside is only a reminder that the same could happen with your writing materials, and the music, with the stereo and all the rest of it. And it’s hard to gripe, to say, “Why don’t they install a such-and-such on these barrels?”
