The Mystery of the Solar Wind

by Lyz Russo

  *

  “Land ho!”

 

  Paean jolted awake with a headache. The Unicate was banging on the door, sirens and flashing lights…

  Turquoise light glittered and danced on the ceiling. She clung to the mattress. How she could have thought she might be in her bed back home in Molly Street… it showed that she was getting used to the constant rolling of the ship, that she could even forget about it at times when she slept.

  Her blinds were pulled all the way up, all the white and blue morning sunlight flooding her cabin. She remembered. She had left them like that, watching the moonlight last night, and the red sea turning black, until she had fallen asleep. She’d been awake again for the midnight shift, the ‘graveyard watch’ as the crew called it, and back in her bunk at four when the early morning irrepressibles had come on duty. It was waiting for her too; she’d already had to take one early morning watch.

  She swung her legs over the side of the bunk, sitting up. Except for her violin case under her bunk and the built-in white compounding chest that held her few clothes, the cubicle she slept in was bare. Frugal. No old toys lying around; no books, no music; none of her own herbal pharmacopoeia she had been steadily collecting in Molly Street. Her old friends the dolls, Shawney’s collection of squishy jelly creatures in jars… all left behind. A small storage space for one small Donegal, female.

  And someone banging on her door. She groaned.

  “Come on, sis! Wake up! All hands on deck!”

  Ronan. Taking a moment to see that his younger sister didn’t get into trouble for oversleeping.

  “Thanks, Ro,” she called and slipped into her beaten-up old jeans and hand-me-down, faded red T-shirt. She wouldn’t even have had a change of clothing if Ronan hadn’t packed for her, that day.

  “Land ho!”

  It was Shawney’s high-pitched yell that had awakened her. It cut through the ship’s intercom a second time. Land jolly ho? Where the Heyerdahl did he get that expression?

  She moved into the day’s duties, out of her cabin and up the first set of steps – companionway, the sailors called it – to the upper crew deck, shooting a wary glance all the way down the passage towards the galley, where that rainbow monstrosity of a gypsy cook was usually based. Lurking there ready to pounce on anything that had hands and give it a lot of work to do.

  She had located him, that day. The wild man from the docks who had introduced them to the First Mate who had subsequently assigned them cabins. It had taken her the entire day to find him; she’d wanted to say thank you. When she’d eventually discovered the galley and realized he was based there as the person who mixed the gumbo – in itself an idea to get used to – and she’d started to say thanks for bringing them aboard, instead of an acknowledgement he’d abruptly cut her short and given her pots to scrub. Her favourite chore! - not.

  She didn’t appreciate his brusque order; a request would have done the same thing in a heartbeat. And his chronic sense of humour that went with his psychedelic dress code, felt forced to her. And a bit too morbid.

  Paean quickly moved up the second companionway, to the outer deck, ready to call her little brother back out of the Crow’s Nest – which modern ship had a Crow’s Nest? Honestly, a practically forgotten concept; gone long before the ships that had supposedly floated on water with a hull made of metal – another tall tale! Ha, and she knew why Shawn hid up there: Because he knew she’d not be climbing up there after him! So he could play ocarina while others worked!

  She emerged from the hatch to the outer deck, and stopped for a moment, to stare at the incredibly beautiful blue day out there. The sea, azure; the sky nearly the same. She breathed, and started to relax, feeling the morning sun warm on her skin, drawing out and evaporating the stress from her. She closed her eyes for a second, revelling in the sunshine. That jolly bloom had passed, thank the Infinite. And there was a nice breeze, but it was warm. That was welcome! They’d had a miserable winter in Dublin; and before it could properly be Spring, they’d had to flee.

  Perhaps Shawney was right. Perhaps things really would be alright; all she needed to do was trust. Nobody. Trust nobody. But have faith that the world itself would take care of her; that somehow, they were safe. Nobody had asked them any pointed questions at all. Maybe on this ship it didn’t matter and they could start anew.

  And then she froze. On the horizon right ahead, a thin green line. Land. They were sailing straight towards it.

  What had she thought? That they’d be at sea forever? Land ho. Port Hamilton. Now she understood. Why was Shawn so infuriatingly chirpy about it?

  2 - Stabilizers

 

 

  Port Hamilton in sight! Shawn watched in fascination from the Crow’s Nest. His alert-cry had electrified the whole crew into frenzied activity, fussing with ropes – sheets, they called them – and tweaking the sails the way the automated systems couldn’t. He plotted stealthily to shout “Land ho” in the middle of the ocean next time and see if it had the same effect.

  And then his enthusiasm dipped for a second – Ronan was planning for them all to go ashore here, to start life over. But… maybe he could be persuaded to let them travel a bit further? After all, they were fed and had a roof over their heads – a deck at least; and you got used to all the work. There was really no rush.

  Early this morning the great Genoa sail had been unfurled, to add speed to the mainsail and foresail. He had been there to watch and help, too. He had thought then that no ship could possibly go faster than she had been sailing; but now her speed picked up even more, so much that he only wanted to hold on and enjoy the rush. The Solar Wind was a Zephyr, the fastest class of ship available to traders today. She sailed lightly, like a yacht; but with a lot of added power from the enormous area of her self-tuning sails. Shawn squeezed as much information as he could out of the older sailors, whenever they had time. Particularly his countryman, old Sherman Dougherty, took time to answer his questions; and so did Federi, the gypsy cook with the illegal colour sense. That one was especially forthcoming, with information, entertainment, friendship and a never-ending load of work. The Donegals hadn’t only been hired to play Ceilidhs!

  The Solar Wind was an aero-solar driven Zephyr, the fastest class of ship available to traders today. The secret of her speed lay in her huge sails. Hundreds of minute sensors, smaller than freckles, optimised the angle and furl of the semi-translucent white cloth to capitalize on every slight change in wind pressure and light. The sails of the hundred-and-fifty-footer were of a practically indestructible, lightweight silicate-neosilk hybrid weave. There were miniature tensors all over those sails, tightening or slackening a tiny area of sail each, in a process involving the silk protein and artificial muscle fibrilloids. The combined effect of the electronic reefing and tacking from the CPU, and the tensor action, was that the sails were tuned in a hyper-responsive way human hands could not achieve. And still, every so often Captain ordered his sailors to do something manually with the sails that seemed illogical; and every time it turned out that he’d only pre-empted the wind changing.

  The iridescent solar cells spread out like fern leaves from the axes of the two larger sails, their hair-thin goldthread connections leading the gathered electricity back to the mainmast and foremast, from which it was channelled down into the machine room to fuel the solar drives, which added just that extra bit of push and direction from under water. Shawn was burning to find out what those solar drives looked like. But the machine room was strictly off-limits for all new crew.

  Military ships ran on fuel cells, he had angled out of Federi. Those were combustive drives. They had quite a bit more power than the solar drives. On civilian vessels those and all other combustive devices were prohibited. This did not bode well for the Solar Wind, since the boarding of Paean and her temper. Shawn grinned and wondered if that temper could be harnessed for drive po
wer.

 

  Ronan peered up at the Crow’s Nest between the glittering sails and snorted impatiently. Couldn’t his two unruly siblings grow up a bit?

  “Shawney!” He planted himself at the bottom of the foremast, cupping his hands to his mouth. “Come down, you lazy lout! All hands on deck!” Shawn could hear him perfectly clearly, he knew it.

  They had to be ready! When the instruction came that crew was dismissed, they would have to be packed and ready to go, because this was Hamilton – their destination. He was eager to find them a place to stay, with what wages he’d earned on the ship.

  They’d probably have to drag Paean off the ship by her ears, because she had gone into burrow mode, hiding away when she was off duty, and talking to no-one when she was on. He didn’t know his sister like that, but he guessed she had reason. But didn’t she see? The longer they stayed in one place – the ship in this case, the larger the danger that they were found out. They had to keep moving. Go to ground in Hamilton for a month or so, then find another ship and travel on, perhaps to Cuba.

  Radomir Lascek was suddenly behind him.

  “You Donegals stay aboard.”

  Ronan stared at him, eyes wide. He didn’t dare to ask why. That put an end to his plans! But he didn’t dare disobey the Captain.

  How on Earth had Captain discovered that they wanted to leave?

  Radomir Lascek moved away to speak to Jonathan Marsden. Ronan’s eyes followed him. There went a man who could easily be a fleet commander of some sort in the Unicate Navy. Tall, straight, authoritarian. A man to admire. Ronan had been considering a career in the Navy, perhaps even the Marines himself before everything had started going so badly wrong. And now Captain had discovered something. He was sure of it! The man to admire had become a man to fear.

 

  They were nearing Hamilton harbour, the Solar Wind plunging through the early morning swells towards the white line of the breakwater.

  “Shawn!”

  Erw! Caught dreaming! Shawn grinned guiltily at the gypsy, and back at the knot he was pretending to tie into one of the tensioning lines. He was really just looking busy; and Federi saw straight through that.

  “Drop that excuse of a rope,” the Romany commanded. “Crow’s Nest, lookout duty!”

  Shawn dropped the knot with a huge grin. He clambered back up into the Crow’s Nest at top speed. He didn’t want to miss this landing, and he had been hoping for some lucky break so he could get back up here, where one could see everything. Lookout duty! Honestly! As though the Solar Wind with all her advanced nautical equipment needed a lookout post!

  He peered at the sails that were luffing in the wind. Locked in irons, he thought; wind directly from ahead. Didn’t see that often! They ought to tack that rigging by just about thirty degrees, approach the port at an angle… Funny how the ship could go so fast despite the wind resistance of the whole rigging…

  Hey! It was completely wrong! Those sails were supposed to be the force that pulled the ship forward, not a resistance that held it back! What were they doing? If the sails weren’t pulling the ship, what was? Whales on a leash? Why weren’t they tacking? The ship was actually going straight into the wind, at full speed! And the solar drives with their bit of push could never be enough to achieve such speed against the actual natural forces… Shawn peered at the wake of the ship. What was that rising out of the water? Bubbles? Steam -?

  He glanced down at Federi, who was following him into the rigging. He’d ask him. The gypsy was peering intently at the harbour, scowling.

  Shawn liked Federi, despite the man’s relentless way of creating work. Federi stuck out vividly, dressed like the Pied Piper. He could have been an entertainer; an actor, or a puppeteer, because no sane person would put themselves into such loud colours on purpose. Today Federi shone brightly in a light-green flared shirt with a loud orange embroidered waistcoat that looked archaic and Eastern European to Shawn. He wore this impossible set over the oldest, most faded jeans Shawn had ever seen, and topped it off by wearing a purple scrap tied around his head, from which the whole contents of a cheap jewellery stall dangled on little hooks. Like a jolly Christmas tree, thought Shawn. He wondered if Federi did it to entertain himself or others, or the younger crew, or to annoy the Captain. And he play-acted too! Once he had climbed about in the rigging with a bread knife between his teeth, grinning. This had impressed the ends out of Shawn. It impressed even more ends out of Shawn when the Captain had ordered Federi to take that darned knife out of his mouth – and the gypsy had complied instantly.

  “Say, Federi – why is the ocean behind the Solar Wind boiling? We’re running on fuel cells, aren’t we?”

  Federi threw his head back and laughed.

  “And fuel cells are illegal,” added Shawn pensively.

  “If you say so,” agreed Federi.

  I don’t say so, thought Shawn. They are! I happen to know my stuff! A little of the strangeness of the Solar Wind had suddenly become clear to him. He grinned.

  “Okay, Federi, I won’t tell anyone. But why don’t we just furl those sails? They’re breaking our speed!”

  “Because,” said the gypsy, “if we close them while we approach the port, they will know, won’t they? Can’t furl the sails! The real question is, why is Captain going so blasted fast?” He turned thoughtful, peering at the harbour.

  “Won’t they figure out that the wind is blowing them the wrong way round?” asked Shawn.

  “Nah,” said Federi. “That’s not the problem. They never look that closely – they’ve got their sensors and electronic binocs, with that they only see what they want to see. But we should have...” He lifted a pair of small electronic binoculars and gazed through them.

  “Federi,” asked Shawn, “that stuff in the harbour there that looks like black caviare. What is that?”

  “Reason we’re up here,” replied a voice out of Federi that was altogether foreign. A quiet, dangerous voice. The clown in him disappeared completely and was replaced with something feral. Shawn watched this sudden change with bewilderment. The problem was, this was probably not a guise. The change ran deep, through the entire being of the wiry, under-tall man.

  Shawn glanced back at the strange black specks – boats, he realized – that littered the harbour’s waters like a hatch of spider’s eggs. And suddenly he knew what they were.

  “Twenty-eight!” muttered Federi, hissing through his teeth. “Whole jolly nest! Yoy…” He glared darkly at Shawn. “Stay up here, Donegal! That’s an order. Don’t let your brother call you down again. Watch those craft!”

  The binoculars vanished into his pocket and he slid down a rat-line back onto the main deck. Shawn saw him heading for the bridge.

  Quietly as a whisper, the Solar Wind turned her sails and moved away from Hamilton harbour.