Both of his guests looked somewhat confused, and the other sailors sat back with anticipation and pleased smiles on their faces. "No, Captain," said the monk. "There are so many nautical concepts and rules that I have yet to learn, and I fear that this one hasn't been brought to my attention. Doctor, do you know of which our good Captain speaks?"
"Nay, sir," replied Elphinstone with an enchanting smile. "Pray, tell us."
"Well," said Melville, "of these two here, trying to hide under my plate, which would you be inclined to choose?"
"I would guess the larger," replied Brother Theo, "or perhaps the faster, or perhaps the only good one is a dead one?"
"All excellent guesses, but the truth is my friends, that in the navy you must always select the lesser of two weevils."
The guests laughed appreciatively, but the sailors laughed with even more delight. It was an old, old joke, come alive and afresh each time it was inflicted on the uninitiated, establishing the kind of heritage and tradition that they deeply valued.
Eventually their talk turned to one of the oldest of all subjects in the navy: the mystery and wonder of Flatland. Several discussions were flowing freely back and forth when a conversation between Petreckski and Valandil caught the attention of the group. Petreckski was speaking of the nature of the Keel. "A mechanism that provides entry into two-space, with a side effect of heat, that would almost be what you expect."
"Yes, and what of the gravity?" asked the Sylvan ranger as he leaned back in his chair.
"That probably comes from Flatland, representing the gravitational pull of the galaxy. Which is also what you might expect. All of this is acceptable to the rational mind. But a life-form that just happens to provide light and air? Light and air tailored precisely to our needs? It defies imagination, sir. It is just too much. So bizarre that we had to 'invent,' or anthropomorphize some godlike creature to create it. They say that Lady Elbereth gave it to us as a 'gift,' just as the ignorant Greek peasants could only understand the sun as a chariot in the sky brought to us every day by a god. No, the Elbereth Moss is too much to ask a reasonable person to accept."
"And so?" asked Elphinstone with keen interest.
"So, my lady, we've proven that it doesn't and cannot exist."
This was greeted with wry grins, groans and expressions of polite disgust.
"Or!" continued the monk with a grin on his cherubic face, "it is intentional. A symbiotic life-form. It's alive, and intentionally adapting to us, just as we adapt to it. The reason why it's exactly what we need is because that is what we need. A sentient life-form is trying to provide, to the best of its ability, just what we could have wished for."
"Now that really does defy imagination!" interjected Mr. Barlet with a raised eyebrow and a friendly grin on his ebon face.
"Does it, my worthy Master Gunner?" replied the monk, returning the smile. "Does it indeed? We live, we've found it. It lives, and it has found us. That's what life does. It finds what it requires for existence. Furthermore this theory explains one other mystery. Why is the Ship sentient? Perhaps it's a colony, a vast colony of life- forms, working together to give us what we need. When the captain or the carpenter 'talks' to the Ship, he isn't talking to a creature, he's talking to a whole vast nation. Or, perhaps, to the elected representatives of that vast nation."
"Aye," said their carpenter. This was his area of expertise, and he warmed to it. "It has been proposed before. That would explain why the larger the amount of moss the more intelligent it is . . . and the slower it is. The little bit on a rifle or pistol's Keel barely musters a purr, like a tribble. While the cannon is like a dog. The cutters are like children and the Ship, why the Ship is every bit as intelligent as us, yet slow and ponderous in her thinking."
"Could that 'life-form' be what caused the Crash?" asked Crater.
"That's the dominant theory," the monk replied. "The reason why the Elder King's Gift was able to destroy Earth's Info-Net was because the 'virus' was two dimensional. Inside the computer world it could exist, even thrive, in three-space—as a living body makes it possible for a virus to survive and thrive. It got into the computer brought into two-space by the first explorers. They brought it home and it reproduced exponentially, destroying everything in its reach. Brought into three-space, this two-space life-form became a parasite or a virus when it found a suitable environment. Like any deadly virus, as it destroyed its host, it also destroyed its habitat. In the end, both the virus and the host no longer exist."
"But," said Melville, intrigued by the direction the conversation was taking, "in nature a virus continues to exist because it can move on to other hosts. It's communicable."
"Yes, sir, but who says this virus isn't communicable? Most other civilizations that have entered two-space report having similar experiences. 'Spores' of the virus appear to be out in two-space. If you're foolish enough to bring a computer into two-space, and then bring it back home and connect it to a network, it will do what any virus does. Reproduce, live, thrive in one great blaze of glory, and then die, pulling its host down with it."
"Okay," said Melville, "back to the Elbereth Moss. What could be the purpose of the 'symbiosis' with us? What do we give to it?"
"Perhaps travel?" interjected Elphinstone. "As a cocklebur would attach itself to a dog, to be transported and planted miles away?"
With a grin Melville added, "Or a flea, or . . . maybe a bedbug. An anonymous ditty comes to mind:
"The June bug hath a gaudy wing,
The lightning bug a flame,
The bed bug hath no wings at all
But he gets there just the same."
There were appreciative grins and chuckles all around, then Elphinstone continued. "So, it could get transportation. Or, like a flea, or bedbug, it might get sustenance from us. Perhaps it gets companionship, as thou wouldst get from a dog or a cat. Maybe it gets shared information and knowledge, like a fellow sentient species might give to us. There are four viable options. Mindless transport, sustenance, friendly companionship, and equal partnership. Or possibly some combination thereof. Or something completely different."
"Indeed," said Petreckski. "On Old Earth there is something called a slime mold. It exists as individual cells when it's in a favorable environment. Yet when things start to go bad, some of them put out a chemical signal, which is picked up by the others. They group together and form a multicellular animal, a worm of sorts, which crawls out of the drying slime, up to the highest point around. It grows a stalk on top, which forms a bulb of spores that launch themselves into the wind, in search of a better home. Our 'moss' might have a similar lifestyle, traveling from planet to planet in two-space. Given enough time, it seems to have developed into an intelligent creature."
"Aye," said Melville as he handed a tidbit up to his monkey. "An intelligent creature that has become our friend and companion. If some superior alien species should ever judge us, perhaps we have this to our credit, that we could become friends with something so very strange. The bottle stands by you, Mr. Crater."
As the wine bottle came round to Melville, he made a formal cough and said, "Mr. Fielder, the Queen."
"Ladies and Gentlemen," said Fielder, "the Queen of Westerness," and they all drank deeply.
Valandil added, "Sisters, brothers, the King of Osgil," and they drank again.
"Aye," added Melville, "God bless them both. And may I propose a toast to our fallen comrades, and to the good Ship Kestrel, which although gone, still lives on.
"Bind her, grind her, burn her with fire,
Cast her ashes into the sea, —
She shall escape, she shall aspire,
She shall arise to make men free;
She shall arise in a sacred scorn,
Lighting lives that are yet unborn."
"Well said, sir," replied Lady Elphinstone, turning to Melville when she'd done her loyal duty to both rulers and Kestrel. "That was a delightful dinner, but before we go, wouldst thou permit me to give a toast? To the dea
r Fang, and may she long continue to bite the queen's enemies."
"Hear her, hear her," said one and all, as they drank. Then, led by Melville's spontaneous act, they all splashed a dollop of wine onto the deck of their ship. To their amazement it quickly disappeared, like blood soaked up by the Elbereth Moss.
Chapter the 9th
Forging a Weapon:
Beat Out the Iron, Edge It Keen
O dreadful Forge! if torn and bruised
The heart, more urgent comes our cry
Not to be spared but to be used,
Brain, sinew, and spirit, before we die,
Beat out the iron, edge it keen,
And shape us to the end we mean!
"The Anvil"
Laurence Binyon
Her Majesty, the Queen of Westerness' 24-Pounder Frigate, Fang, sailed westward into a "pleasant illusion of eternity." The days flowed by with quiet sailing under a perfect, unchanging sky. They sailed constantly toward a golden horizon that blended into a band of purple twilight. A horizon that remained perpetually ahead, never nearer. Above them the starry galaxies hung.
Below them the plane of Flatland flowed past. Flatland was a deep, dark blue, except when they passed a star or planet. Then, beside them or beneath them would flow the vast brilliant yellow, white, red or blue glow of a star, the huge expanse of an orange gas giant, or the reds, browns, whites, blues and blacks of uninhabited planets. Rarest of all was the swirling blue, green and white that indicated a world which might support human life. In this region of the galaxy there were many stars and many planets, but none of them were known to be inhabited. The first inhabited planet would be Pearl, a Stolsh colony that was their destination.
The great twenty-volume biography of Captain Jack Aubrey, one of the most famous mariners of Old Earth, was preserved on one of the military data nets that survived the Crash. Like the volumes of the magnificent Hornblower biography, only the raw text was loaded in, and even the names of those great writers were lost. They were lost to the ages even more surely than Homer or Shakespeare, ever to be a source of controversy and academic discussion. But that great, nameless writer of the Aubrey biography had gained immortality like few men among the sailors of Westerness, and he wrote well and true when he spoke of this illusion of eternity.
"The immemorial sequence of cleaning the upper decks in earliest morning . . . piping up hammocks, piping hands to breakfast, cleaning the maindeck, piping to various morning exercises, the solemn observation at noon, hands piped to dinner, grog piped up [or, in this case, Guldur beer], the officers drummed to the gunroom dinner, the afternoon occupations, hands piped to supper, more grog [or beer!], then quarters, with the thunderous roar of the great guns flashing and roaring in the twilight." This timeless ritual, "punctuated by bells," was indeed "so quickly and firmly restored that it might never have been broken."
The passing of the weeks was marked by religious services on Sunday mornings for those so inclined, led by Brother Theo and consisting mostly of a few favorite hymns. On Sunday afternoon the crew would assemble for the captain's inspection formation, followed by his formal inspection of the ship. These endless days could almost have been an idyllic time if not for the fact that they'd recently lost so many comrades. And every one of the ship's company knew that the hosts of hell were following at their heels.
Their Guldur prisoners were being used as parolees, or trustees, for various duties throughout the ship. A careful eye was kept on them, but it soon became clear that there was no evil in them. As a final assurance of their trustworthiness, the Ship herself vouched for their good intentions. Their bare paws padding about on her decks couldn't lie to her, and the warriors of Westerness trusted their Ship's judgment. At first the crew held some resentment toward their former enemy, but the Guldur's willing spirits and eagerness to please soon won over their shipmates.
The Guldur were of no use in the rigging, but elsewhere they were dispersed among the crew. Melville would have liked even more hands to bring them up to strength, but with the Guldur fully integrated into their crew he felt like they had a fighting chance if they met another enemy scout ship of this class.
The baby monkeys continued to appear mysteriously, turning up on the shoulders of more and more crewmen, and they were warmly welcomed. Many of the sailors' tasks were solitary. On lookout high up in the rigging or on watch in the wee hours, it could get lonely, and the monkeys were welcome companions. The senior officers viewed the situation with concern but no real alarm since they were accustomed to dealing with alien pets and bizarre life-forms as passengers and cargo. Just as their earlier, earthly counterparts had dealt with parrots, apes in the rigging, and a host of other pets. Both Swish-tail and Fang had vouched for the little creatures' goodwill, but Melville was certain that there must be more to the monkeys than met the eye. His primary concern was to rope them in and bring them under navy discipline as soon as possible. Everyone enjoyed the monkeys' antics, but on one occasion they stepped across the line. Melville took the opportunity to assert his authority and make them full, trustworthy, obedient members of the crew.
The monkeys loved to ride on the dogs' backs, and after some initial adjustment to the idea the dogs seemed to enjoy the experience. The dogs chased each other around the decks, their monkey jockeys screeching with joy and egging them on as canine ears flapped and tongues lolled out in joyful doggy grins.
The cats, on the other hand, had absolutely no patience for the monkeys. And the little eight-legged creatures seemed to delight in tormenting their feline fellow travelers. On several occasions the monkeys dropped from above onto an unsuspecting cat's back, where they'd ride the tormented creature like a bucking bull. The cats were having a hard enough time without this abuse, since the Guldur Ship was infested with a wide variety of exotic vermin that made the usual cockroaches, mice and rats seem mundane. It was the cats' job to hunt down all vermin. They'd been bred and selected across the centuries for this ability, and they took their job, and themselves, quite seriously.
No skylarking was ever permitted on the holy quarterdeck. The ship's cats, dogs, and boys all learned this lesson at an early age. The monkeys seemed to immediately understand the limits of what they could get away with. But off the quarterdeck their antics could be a source of pleasant entertainment for all.
So it was that Melville was standing his watch on the upper quarterdeck. A big tomcat was taking a well deserved nap on the green-side railing down by the waist. Hans' topmen were crawling about the rigging like huge spiders, most of them with a smaller spider upon them. Melville's twisted sense of humor brought to mind an old ditty that he shared with Hans:
"Big bugs have little bugs
On their backs to bite 'em,
And these bugs have smaller bugs,
And so on, ad infinitum."
Hans grinned, "Aye, sir. If you think of Fang as bein' alive, which she is, then that 'as par-tic-u-lar appleecation."
Hans and his lads were putting the finishing touches on a set of studding sails, small sails that extended out on booms from the sides of their regular sails. Hans' royals were answering well. And the spritsail-topsail, which was another, smaller, square sail further out the bowsprit, was adding its extra thrust. Now with these studding sails aloft and alow, they were moving at almost thirteen knots. All of these were quite rare in the ships of two-space, and their combination together on one ship was unheard of. As the speed of the ship increased, the tones of the rigging (the stays, shrouds, backstays and cordage) rose and rose to a triumphant pitch that seemed to harmonize joyfully with the strange, constant background music of two-space.
The crew was universally pleased and excited about these additions and Hans was talking to Melville about how "those massy yards and damn'd stout sticks'l bear it, by the Lady," when suddenly a monkey dropped from above onto the back of the sleeping cat. The sailors had a rough sense of humor, and everyone grinned as the startled cat howled and leaped up. But the situation stopped being fun
ny when the tormented cat launched itself off the end of the rail and into the blue plane of Flatland. The monkey on its back ejected up into the rigging, but the poor cat sank and then bobbed up once, its head popping out with a desperate "Wrrarr?!" Then it disappeared into the depths of interstellar space. From the bottom side of the ship a few startled observers watched an upside-down cat pop feet-first out of Flatland, and disappear.
"Bugrit!" swore Hans.
On the top side the crew all watched in silent dismay and Melville knew that he needed to take immediate action. He pointed up at the monkey and called out, "Whose monkey is that?" The monkey fled up into the rigging to crouch on the back of a topman. "Izra Smith! Is that your monkey?"
"Aye, Cap'n," the sailor called back timidly.
"You, your monkey, and your division officer report to my cabin immediately." Melville moved down the quarterdeck steps and turned into his cabin. Various options flashed through his mind as he waited. This was an accident. It was horseplay gone awry, with no evil intent. Indeed, he felt that it was partly his fault since he hadn't taken action earlier when the monkeys first began to tease the cats. He was sitting at his writing table when Smith, accompanied by Midshipman Aquinar, was shown in by the marine guard at his door. Smith stood wringing his hands while his monkey peered cautiously over his shoulder. Aquinar stood beside him with a worried look on his face as his monkey peered over his shoulder.
"Smith," began Melville, looking at the unfortunate owner of the miscreant monkey, "what do you think this ship would be like if all the monkeys got out of control and drove their fellow crew members over the edge?"
"Aye, Cap'n, it'd be bad. Parful bad," said Smith, looking at the floor.
"Aye, indeed. So you agree that we must ensure that our new crew members exhibit proper navy discipline?"
"Aye, Cap'n."
Two Space War Page 20