Canopy Charges

I drifted lazily with the canopy crew, tapping back and forth and trading stories. Between the occasional spin-kick and surprise nudge, I scanned ahead looking for someplace interesting. The crew, however, was new to scanning. It was a difficult to describe technique, since to scan you had to relax, and these charges weren't laggards. The first time I relaxed to scan, I got kicked spin over spun, and nearly lost my orbit.

I was just a bit miffed, but kept my composure. With nine or more of them, I would not last long in a major disagreement, and the last thing I wanted to do was go drifting in the soup. Besides, if they did disassociate with even one Electron, they'd be charge handicapped, since the Seven was already in a positive state. At two charge units in the positive direction, the Synchro-Drive would be crippled.

I kept tapping nicely, regardless. It was all in good fun, and they were just showing me how they maintained their top rank in the canopy competition. With motivation like that, It is easy so see how they have managed to rack up a dozen doublings of wins. During the discussion I introduced them to counting by doublings, and was pleased when they quickly accepted the concept.