by C. Litka
01
I turned to Trin. 'It looks rather frail, don't you think? Are you certain this will get us to Windvera?' I asked, after inspecting the Bird of Long Feathers.
'It has in the past.'
The Bird of Long Feathers was a typical local trading ship - a broad beamed, almond shaped vessel, perhaps 20 meters in length, built of light wood and bamboo covered with canvas. It had the usual array of steering wings, rudders, and sails along with a pedal-driven propeller, whose intricate metal gearing displayed Windvera's strange standard of impressive mechanical ingenuity without actual engines. While steam engines, copied from captured barbarian raiding ships existed, they were not widely built nor, apparently, needed due to an abundance of workers, and the light gravity.
Its passenger lounge was a cozy triangle in the bow of the ship. Its fittings consisted of a couch set around the edge of the hull and a low table in the center. Thin white canvas was stretched tight over the upper hull's bamboo grid to protect passengers from the elements but it could be partially rolled up for ventilation and a view. The sleeping quarters consisted of two sets of three hammocks stacked one above each other, separated from the lounge by a canvas screen. Passengers slept in shifts or napped in the lounge. A narrow deck on either side of the ship led past cargo hold amidships to the crew quarters where the galley and sanitary facility were located. The crew consisted of eight - Captain TarVeydi, a cook and six hands to man the ship and pedal the propeller when needed.
'But will it this time? It looks rather overburdened. And without wings, how does it land?'
'I've sailed aboard similar ships a dozen times without any alarming incident, Captain. Captain TarVeydi is an experienced captain. I wouldn't worry. As for wings it has them, when it needs them. The side sails are triangular, attached to the mast (which on the ground was folded in) and that second mast, the boom alongside the hull. When sailing, the boom is angled down as a sail, and when a wing is needed, it's angled nearly horizontal to convert the sail into a wing with the propeller providing the forward motion. Landing on Windvera is mostly a controlled spiraling glide down.'
I considered the Bird for a while longer. KaRaya had made a similar makeshift wing to land our captured Vantra dragon boat on Daeri, so I could see it working. Still, the Vantra boat was smaller and far less heavily laden than the Bird of Long Feathers.
'I don't suppose we have any other choice?' I asked.
'No,' said Trin.
'Right,' I said, with a sigh.
We booked passage.
We had sailed from Daffa Island with a large shipment of daffa in crates destined for their Windvera warehouse. It had been an emotional parting. Trin's crew knew that they owed not only their current prosperity, but their lives largely to Sub-captain Trin, and they showed their appreciation and love for her. She may've shed a tear or two herself.
After loading our cargo on board, we went food shopping in the marketplace. Bird of Long Feathers provided two rather plain meals per round for the four to six round passage. Experienced travelers brought along their own supply of food to supplement the ship's fare.
We were on board the following round, when the Bird of Long Feathers' crew pedaled the boat aloft and then set her sails and steered for Windvera.