His forbidding features looked like they were preparing for another verbal thunderstorm. “I know who you are,” he growled. “And I don’t appreciate being saddled with the likes of you. I’m a busy man.”
“You’re a very rude man,” Elsa told him, deciding that frankness would be more effective than bowing and scraping. She gestured with the hand she was still holding out for a handshake. “Let’s maintain some courtesy, please. You shake my hand, you tell me your name and what I’m supposed to do, I work hard for you and do my best. That’s how it works.” Not for nothing had she worked with Bruno all these years. I know all about crotchety old men, she thought, eyeing him. “You don’t scare me.”
He blinked at her, mouth still slightly ajar. He slowly raised his hand, shook hers, and let his fall back to his side. “I’m James Alvolus,” he said gruffly. He harrumphed. “Um. Sorry.” He turned quickly to the machinery at hand, obviously wanting to be done with the conversation. “This is your station for today.”
He gestured at a panel, and Elsa was relieved to see that at least a few things looked familiar.
“Monitor energy flow using the headset, and if any of these rates exceed safe limits,” he continued, pointing to a couple readouts, “call for me or one of the other engineers. We’ll show you what to do from there, but it’s basically a process of evenly distributing the energy coming in from each sail.” He leaned over the panel, looking around the large cables across the wide space. He whistled, sharp and piercing, and a head popped up from underneath another panel.
“Yeah?” called the engineer to which it belonged, a lanky red-haired fellow.
“Keep an eye on Vogel over here, okay?” Alvolus bellowed. “First day. Going to need a hand in a bit. And will you hurry up? You’ve been working on that blasted console for an hour. I won’t have any hair left by the time you finish, you sorry lump!” The bellow was practically a roar.
Elsa raised her eyebrows, but the red-haired engineer just flashed a grin, undisturbed. “Sure thing, Hon,” he called back before ducking under his panel again.
Elsa assumed she had misheard the name, but a glance at Alvolus’ rapidly reddening face told her she had not. He didn’t say anything more, though—just left her to her work with a curt nod.
She decided that dealing with surliness was marginally preferable to dealing with nausea. As the head engineer stalked away, she put on the headset. Engineering schematics materialized in the air in front of her, the flow of energy from the sails denoted by a warm yellow glow. The tracery of energy from the sails was beautiful, a tree-like network of veins and capillaries. She could bring up each individual sail or view them all as a whole, and she could zoom in to see the individual cendrillon filaments if she so desired. She could see now how Bruno knew where to send riggers to recalibrate individual filaments. She explored a bit, finding where the alerts would come in if there were any issues and how work orders were dispatched to the bosuns whenever anything requiring external work on the sails popped up.
After almost half an hour, she noticed a spike in one sail, and an alert materialized. She dimmed the projections on the headset so that she could see her surroundings better. The red-haired engineer was nearby.
“Hey!” she called. “Er, you! I’m sorry, I don’t know your name.”
The engineer came over, his long legs giving the motion a shambling effect. “Holt, ma’am.”
“Pleased to meet you, Holt. What do I do about such a thing as this?” She pointed to the alert.
Holt’s fingers flew across the panel, and she had to ask him to slow down and explain it twice before she got it all, but she was finally able to shift power herself. “It’s a bit of an art form,” Holt said, puffing out his chest slightly. “You get the feel for it over time, until you can balance things out before an alert even pops up. If any of these pop up, though,” he said, gesturing to a different category of alarm, “it means that filament needs to be isolated until a rigger can get to it. Be sure to notify the bosuns when one of those crops up.”
Elsa nodded, trying to remember everything. “Thank you for your help.”
Down the way, the engineering doors slid open, and a tall, dark-haired woman strode in. “Hey, Hon!” she hollered. Alvolus bellowed something indistinguishable back and began making his way up from the lower deck of the section.
“Why,” Elsa wondered aloud, “does everyone in here insist on shouting at each other?”
Holt chuckled. “Those two started it.”
Elsa looked at the woman with renewed interest. “Who is she?”
“That,” the engineer said, “is Hon’s wife.”
Elsa’s eyebrows rose. He had managed to be civil long enough for someone to agree to marry him? “Why does everyone call him Hon?” she asked, bewildered. “I don’t see how you get a nickname like Hon out of James Alvolus.”
Holt snickered. “You’ve met him—he looks terrifying. He may be crusty on the outside, but the man’s a complete pushover. Let him yell all he wants; he’s a teddy bear when it counts. Sings kids’ songs and has a few albums out, actually.”
Elsa grinned, eyes wide. “Really? Oh, that’s perfect.”
Holt nodded. “His wife calls him nothing but Hon. Short for Honey. You’d never know from listening to her that the man even has another name. So we all call him that too. It takes some of the fire out of his sails when he’s rampaging about something or other.” Holt winked. “I heard you earlier, laying down the law with him. You’ll do fine.”
Hon and his wife were approaching, and Holt glanced up with a hint of guilt. “I best skedaddle. Don’t tell him I told you about the kids’ songs.”
“My lips are sealed,” Elsa whispered. Holt shambled back to his panel.
The woman approached Elsa with a wide smile and an outstretched hand. “Hello!” Her chipper voice contrasted strongly with Hon’s thunderous expression. “I’m Louise Alvolus, ship’s geologist.”
“Pleased to meet you,” Elsa replied, relieved that Louise seemed to be less mercurial than her husband. She introduced herself since Hon didn’t seem inclined to do so.
“I don’t have a good reason to be here,” Louise admitted. “I just came by to watch us set sail. I’m usually in the geology lab, and mineral samples are far less exciting than space sails, I’m afraid.”
Hon snorted. “Oh, yeah, it’s such a drag, being stuck in a lab all day. Says the person who’s on nearly every surface team. How many planets have you set foot on in the last year?”
Louise counted silently. “Eight,” she said serenely. “No, nine,” she amended.
“Spoiled,” Hon grumbled. “Have I ever been planetside in the ten years I’ve been board?” He glared at Louise. “Well, have I?” he demanded.
Louise sighed with a longsuffering air that made it clear this topic was oft-discussed. “Hon, you’ve been planetside on New Gaul.”
“Uh huh. For shore leave. On the first colonized world in existence. That’s about as tame as it gets. I’ve never yet been on a surface team for a new world. Nor have any of us poor saps,” he added, gesturing to include the entire engineering section.
Elsa blinked. “None of the engineers have ever been put on surface teams?” The dismay was evident in her voice, so much so that Louise turned to look at her strangely.
“No, dear,” she replied. “Why would they be? Surface teams are usually composed of an officer, scientists for gathering samples, and maybe security forces if there’s a perceived threat on the world.” She jerked a thumb towards herself. “Now, me, for instance, I get to go onworld all the time since I’m a geologist. Almost every planet needs some kind of mineral samples taken.”
Hon mimicked her. “ ‘Oh, I get to go onworld all the time.’ Rub it in, why don’t you.” He crossed his beefy arms.
Louise gave him a tolerant smile and patted him on his hairy forearm. She opened her mouth to reply, but Karl Tsarevich’s voice came over the engineering commline, interrupting her.
&nbs
p; “All hands, prepare for sailspace.”
Hon went back to his panel, keying in commands. “The bosuns will recall any riggers on the sails,” he tossed over his shoulder, presumably to Elsa since she was the only one ignorant about the process.
“What happens if a rigger is on the sails when we go into sailspace?” she asked, trying out the new slang word. Sailspace was more properly known as hyperspace, but she had noticed the Sovereign’s crew used the informal term more often. “Wouldn’t the shields protect them?”
“If someone were caught out on the sails,” Holt said from his panel, “the shields wouldn’t help. Shields protect the ship from outside radiation, debris, and what-have-you, but the danger would come from the Sovereign herself. Everything about the sails is designed to channel energy, and that includes every halyard, every spar. When that energy pulls the Sovereign into sailspace, so much power is coursing through every fiber of the sails that a rigger couldn’t touch any of it without getting fried.”
Elsa repressed a shudder. Godfrey hadn’t mentioned that little detail in the training, although she supposed he hadn’t had reason to do so; this was the first time the Sovereign would go into sailspace since her training began.
Hon looked up from his work. “Ever seen a frigate set sail?” he asked Elsa.
She nodded. “Oh yes, many times.”
“Ever seen it from inside the ship?”
“Well, no,” she admitted. When the Sovereign had left Aschen, she had still been in the process of registering with the Fleet and hadn’t been able to reach an observation area. Once they had arrived at the star bell, they hadn’t had occasion to use the space sails again.
Hon grinned, which only made him look more fearsome. The mammoth cables in the engineering section began to thrum with power, a gradually building vibration that hovered on the edge of audibility. Hon entered a command and brought up a projected display of the mainmast cameras, a projection that extended nearly from the floor to several feet above their heads. “The view would be better still on the bridge,” he commented, “but this is still pretty impressive.”
Elsa caught her breath. Indeed it was. The camera’s position allowed the watchers to see the edges of the foremast sails to either side of the center of the screen. She could just see the faint pulse of the star bell’s light off to the side. The engine thrum was a sound so deep she could feel it vibrating in her bones. The sails shifted in color as their edges were rimmed in silver, then in white, before the brightness overwhelmed the observers’ ability to see the sails themselves as the ship shot into sailspace, leaving the star bell behind. The projection was pure light, enough to make them all squint. The sound of the engines filled Elsa’s ears, making it difficult to focus on any other sound. It took her a moment to realize Hon was talking.
“I’m dimming the camera input so that you can see sailspace,” he said. His voice, modulated so differently from the engines, cut through the noise surprisingly well once Elsa zeroed in on it.
“What do you mean?” she asked, realizing too late that she was practically shouting. The ear-filling noise of the engines gave the false impression that she had to yell to be heard above it.
“The normal camera feed shows us what we would see with the naked eye, were we out on the hull right now,” Hon said, tweaking controls on his panel. “But the light coming off of the sails is too bright for us to see any detail of what’s beyond them. When I dim the feed but keep the contrast, you can see—”
“Sailspace itself,” Elsa breathed, gazing at the projection.
The Sovereign looked as though it were swimming through a vast chasm. Mountain-like formations rose on either side of the ship as it sped through the center. Striations ran through the mountains in parallel lines, reminding Elsa of the layers of ice in a glacier.
When Elsa looked too closely at the striations, her eyes felt…itchy. She didn’t know how else to describe it. “What are those stripes?”
Hon shrugged. “What’s any of it? We don’t really know. The formations don’t register as matter or energy on any sensors we’ve invented, but nevertheless, there they are.” He gestured at the projection. “What color would you call those stripes?”
Elsa opened her mouth to answer, but realized she couldn’t. “I—I don’t know,” she said, puzzled. “Whatever it is, it makes my eyes feel strange.”
“Scientists have theorized that it’s a color we can’t identify, but it shows just enough into our spectrum for us to detect,” Louise said.
“Fascinating,” Elsa said, staring until her eyes began to feel the strain. “And it looks like this the whole time?”
Hon nodded. “Pretty much. The formations and striations are always different, of course, but it always looks like we’re flying through a canyon.”
The sight was beautiful, but Hon returned to work, leaving Louise and Elsa to gaze undisturbed. Elsa soon realized Hon was right; sailspace was gorgeous, but after a time it all began to look the same, and human vision tired of the exercise. Louis finally shut off the projection.
“Time for me to get back,” she said. “I like to watch it for a few minutes, but my brain gets sick of it after a while. What did you think?”
Elsa wasn’t sure what to think. “I think it’s exciting but wearisome,” she said finally.
Louise laughed. “That’s the best description of life aboard this ship I’ve ever heard.”
Elsa left engineering at the end of her shift, torn by felt like half a dozen emotions. Using her propulsion skills had felt good. She could do the work fairly well, and that made her feel useful, unlike when she was out on the sails.
But the knowledge that her pursuit of this line of work meant she would have very little opportunity to set foot on new worlds was disheartening. She didn’t know what she had expected; of course there was no reason for a propulsion engineer to be part of a surface team. She was beginning to have the uncomfortable realization that she was essentially pursuing a childhood goal—from a child’s perspective. If she had gone into the fleet at nineteen as she had planned, she would’ve been confronted with the realities of what her chosen line of work actually meant much sooner. Her nine-year stint as a cinder had preserved the dream for far longer than was reasonable.
Now that she knew what that dream really entailed, did she still want it?
“Elsa!”
She heard running footsteps behind her and turned to see Karl jogging towards her. How was it that he was always around at the end of her shift?
“Either you have impeccable timing, or you’re sneaking peeks at my duty roster,” she teased, folding her arms.
He grinned, slightly breathless. “If my timing were impeccable, I wouldn’t have had to jog half the length of the ship to catch you. I wanted to ask: how would you like to join us tomorrow?”
Elsa blinked. “Where?”
“Oh, sorry. On the planet. We’ll reach our destination tomorrow.”
Elsa ignored the stab of hope in her chest. “But…I talked with Hon—I mean, with Engineer Alvolus. He said propulsion engineers never go on surface teams, and I’ve never heard of any riggers assigned to them either. I don’t want any…” she hesitated for a moment, unsure of how to say it. “Any special treatment shown to me just because you and I are—are friends.”
Karl grinned again. “No special treatment. You once told me I might need a cinder out here one day, and you were right. The planet has volcanic activity towards the north, and we’d like you to collect lava samples. Seems right up your corridor, doesn’t it?”
Elsa allowed the hope some permission to blossom just a bit. “It does, I confess. I don’t suppose you have a mining coach here, though?”
Karl shook his head. “Afraid not; one of the geologist skiffs will have to do. But the principles are fairly similar. I don’t think you’ll have any trouble. We’ll meet at the shuttle bay at the beginning of the day cycle.” He gave her a casual, two-fingered salute. “See you dark and early tomorrow.”
Elsa waited until he left to punch the air in triumph. She would finally have her chance to explore, to see a world no one else had ever seen. She flew back to her cabin, trying to figure out what she would need to bring with her in the morning. She ran her fingers along the sleeve of her spacesuit thoughtfully. It was nicer than the cinder suits she was used to, but fundamentally the same, aside from the Fleet insignia on the shoulders. Should she wear it tomorrow? Did the geology skiff have life support? She should probably wear it anyway, just in case they had to land for some reason. Who knew if the planet had a breathable atmosphere? Her thoughts sped like a ship through sailspace.
She turned from her closet, and the model ship caught her eye. What would her mother have thought of this?
“I think she would be proud,” Elsa whispered, running one finger along the sail of the miniature sloop, adjusting its position. Too bad being a rigger and working on a real ship’s sails wasn’t as easily managed. Maybe tomorrow’s mission would give her a chance to prove her usefulness in a different venue.
Elsa arrived at the shuttle bay early in the ship’s morning cycle, before any of the other surface team members. She swung her helmet in one hand, twitchy with eagerness.
Marraine’s voice reached her from around the curve of the corridor. She was singing to herself, something Elsa had never heard her do before. It was beautiful—and completely incomprehensible. The human ear didn’t know what to do with the sounds it was hearing, and Elsa certainly couldn’t begin to replicate them. She wondered if anyone had made a serious attempt at learning the fay language. Likely not, since their world had been off-limits for so long. Marraine was an oddity among her people: one of very few to leave the planet, and the only one to be in the Fleet.
Marraine gave her a sunny smile as she approached. She was also in her spacesuit.
“Are you joining us too?” Elsa asked, surprised. Karl hadn’t mentioned it, but then they’d only had a moment to talk.
Marraine nodded. “We’re not so far from Hayzeltry, and apparently this planet has some similarities, including higher radiation levels. I was asked to be on the surface team due to my increased radiation resistance.” She bounced on her toes just a bit as her smile widened. “I’ve never been so glad to possess that ability.”
The Star Bell (The Cendrillon Cycle Book 3) Page 7