Dierd asks F'tibb if they would like to team up with him. He went to sargassos to gather wrecked ships to bring them back so their materials could be used. He also captured asteroids for sale for their valuable minerals. The low-grav was no problem with the special suit he wore, and there were areas of his ship at normal grav for him to exercise in so he could retain muscle tone.
https://peakd.com/fiction/@internutter/challenge-03541-i253-meet-cutie -- Anon Guest
If there is one rule about anywhere people go, it's "There's always something that needs tidying up." Life makes mess. People throw away things. They abandon things. Sometimes, natural things get in the way of people's needs.
Thus, sargassos were re-created. Areas of space that were otherwise seen as useless and therefore utilised as a dumping ground. Stars with only asteroids in their orbits. Patches of otherwise empty space that were, effectively, dead ends in the wormhole chains. There, more wasteful souls dumped whatever they deemed useless.
Centuries later, other people come back to find treasure amongst the trash.
In a place like this, where gravy drives are afraid to go, that someone like F'tibb can have a very useful skill set.
F'tibb had an instinctual acclimatisation to the self-spooling lifeline, and with leaping from firmament to firmament, orienting themself accordingly. F'tibb could not get as disoriented as someone far more used to higher gravity fields.
Meanwhile, Dierd could keep track of F'tibb in a confusing environment, and warn hir of incoming threats.
Grappling and herding good finds into one knot was another bonus of being a giant, intelligent spider.
For shipboard life, there were assorted gravity zones, and the company of the Nae'hyn family working with the gravy drive. Zero gravity in the loading bay. Microgravity for F'tibb's ideal habitat, and a built-in exoframe for F'tibb's livesuit to help hir move around and socialise in one Standard Gravity[1].
The surprise was that the Humans and Nae'hyn alike joined F'tibb in microgravity to socialise as well. Sometimes inventing games and sports they could all play together.
One day, F'tibb would learn why they kept referring to it as 'Calvinball'.
[1] That's ten standard distance units per second per second fall acceleration.
[Photo by Dustin Humes on Unsplash]
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