Every Wind of Change

by Frank Tuttle

  Numb, Meralda just nodded.

  “Daughter,” said her mother, her tone bemused. “The craft awaits.”

  “Yes, of course.” Meralda marched toward the ramp, Donchen at her side. Her mother took the lead, holding her spark-lamp high. Mug buzzed beside her, his eyes swiveling wildly about.

  They reached the foot of the ramp. It was dented and scratched, stained all over its surface with years of heavy use. The words CAUTION VARIABLE GRAVITY were barely legible beneath the grime. Further up the ramp, the warning was repeated, along with a caution that maximum load height was twenty meters.

  “What’s a meter?” Mug asked.

  “No idea.” Meralda’s boots made no sound as she stepped onto the massive sheet of steel.

  Her mother stomped ahead. “They built to a somewhat generous scale, did they not? I do hope there’s a decent kitchen aboard.”

  Meralda quickly followed. Her mother vanished into the shadows of the craft. “Wait!” Meralda shouted. “We must stay together.”

  “Oh my,” her mother called down. “It’s amazing!”

  Mug soared ahead, his coils humming. Meralda and Donchen broke into a trot and reached the top.

  Her mother’s spark-lamp lit a cavernous steel chamber. The walls were tall and straight, set at every hand with closed bulkheads and stacks of wooden crates, most of which were smashed and obviously empty. The floor was littered with odd debris – bottles, boxes, and containers of every shape lay strewn about. The bright colors reminded Meralda of a field of flowers, if something enormous and heavy had just finished stamping every blossom flat.

  A sheet of paper caught Meralda’s eye. She picked it up, only to realize it was not paper, but something just as thin. On it the words Cordwinder and Cavern’s flashed, changing from red to yellow to a bright purple as she watched. A dragon flew back and forth across the letters, spraying bright fire as it flew. Acrobats and jugglers danced across the page, as a tall man in a top hat lifted a bullhorn. The words “come one, come all,” emerged from his bullhorn. “Wonders of the ages, a delight for young and old!”

  Mug whistled. “Somebody left here in a hurry,” he said. He flew close to a bulkhead, turning all his eyes upon it. “More writing, Mistress! It says, ‘restricted entry, tech only.’ The next one says ‘vacuum door, keep sealed.’”

  Donchen knelt. When he stood, he held a bottle made of some thin flexible substance that he crushed easily in his hand. When it popped back out into shape, he held the label up for Meralda to see.

  On it, a smiling face was depicted. As Meralda watched, the face winked, and the words SPARKLING APPLE JUICE moved clockwise around the label.

  “Now this is interesting.” Meralda’s mother stood in front of an enormous steel door at the front of the chamber, playing her lamp over the words inscribed on it.

  Each letter was easily ten feet tall. Together they read simply MAIN ENTRY.

  Donchen dropped the winking bottle back among its fellows. Meralda folded her animated waybill and put it in a pocket.

  “Indeed,” Donchen said, kicking the remains of a crate out of Meralda’s path. “Main entry to the rest of the craft, don’t you think?”

  Meralda nodded, even as her heart fell. We could pry at those doors forever, she thought, and never move them an inch.

  Mug flew back and forth across the entryway. “Shut up tight,” he called back. He paused shoulder-high just to the right of the entry. “But look here. Some kind of mechanism.”

  Meralda rushed to his side.

  There, rising out of the steel wall, was a panel. Upon it was a series of buttons, each labeled with one of the numbers zero through nine, and the letters A through G. Above that was a pair of small lamps.

  The red one was lit. The green one was dark.

  Her mother scowled at the panel, and before Meralda could react, Miss Bekin reached up and stabbed the top row of buttons.

  The red light brightened briefly and then resumed its previous intensity.

  “Mother!” Meralda snapped.

  “It’s obviously a doorknob of sorts. We just have to find out what turns it.”

  “It could also be a big nasty mousetrap,” Mug said. “I’ll thank you for keeping your hands off it.”

  Skoof came tapping up to inspect the panel himself. “A simple combination keypad.”

  “Simple, is it?” Mug said. “Then you can open it?”

  Skoof tilted his dome. “I could. Although doing so, given the number of possible combinations presented, might take six of your years. Assuming the door mechanism is even still operative, of course.”

  “Well aren’t you a ray of sunshine.”

  Donchen frowned, leaning close to the edge of the door. “Curious. There appears to be something written here. The light, if you please.”

  Meralda’s mother gave him her spark-lamp. Donchen took it and held it close to the steel surface of the door.

  Meralda moved to stand beside him. There, hand-written in faded ink and in letters so small they were nearly invisible, was a phrase. A sloppy arrow underlined the words and pointed toward the panel.

  “Thus quoth the – something – nevermore,” Donchen read.

  Meralda leaned closer. “Raven,” she said. “Thus quoth the raven, nevermore. What does—”

  Some ancient engine in the hull groaned and squealed to life. The massive doors shuddered, shaking off dust. As Donchen yanked her back, Meralda saw the doors begin to move.

  “The departing occupants must have left that phrase in place as a vocal override,” Skoof said. “Quite clever. No other species would have been able to decipher the text and speak it properly.”

  Lights flared all around. The dark chamber was suddenly bright as day. Everywhere, other panels flared, other devices began to hum and alight. The doors parted in the middle, opening into an even larger chamber that also filled with lights and sounds.

  “Well pickle my gourds,” Mug said. “Mistress, you did it.”

  “She is, after all, my daughter.” Meralda’s mother marched through the opening and into the ship with the air of an empress.

  19

  Mister Mug’s Musings, Sunday, January 23rd, 1971

  We are now housed aboard the good ship Celestia, and, gentle readers, even in her wounded and flightless condition, she is a wonder to behold.

  The Celestia has lights and air and despite numerous warnings to the contrary, stable gravity. We have explored most of the forward sections in the last week, a process facilitated by the ship’s hospitable cooperation and easy acceptance of the strange phrase written on the main doors. Just uttering it has opened every bulkhead we have encountered, allowing us free access to every part of the ship we’ve tested thus far.

  Mage Meralda has moved her laboratory from the old Gow lab to a brightly lit space that was once the commissary of the Celestia. Our little band has taken up residence in the crew’s quarters, which feature amenities including bathrooms, private baths, and best of all, according to my shipmates, proper beds.

  The day the kitchen was discovered was our happiest day aboard. While the departing crew apparently took most of the ship’s stores, they did leave quite a few delicacies behind – including a hermetically sealed bin of coffee that Meralda greeted with open tears.

  Donchen has installed himself as ship’s cook, a role to which he is eminently suited. I am told his meals are nothing short of breathtaking, and a most welcome change from the bland fare of the generous tree. Skoof observed this hullaballoo with considerable amusement.

  I am just glad to see Mistress happy. I am also pleased to see the landing ramp retracted at night, thus making our new home at least as secure as the Gow’s vessel was.

  The complex thinking machine that once controlled the Celestia is either dead or dormant. Skoof calls this machine a computer, and though Meralda has spent hours on Celestia’s bridge trying to revive this computer, she has thus far been unsuccessful.

  However, what she has achieved remains
impressive.

  We must no longer rely on sticks and clubs to defend ourselves, should the Mag find us out. Mistress found a device that emits a powerful beam of light, one intense enough to blind and burn on contact. It takes power from a suitcase-sized box, to which she has added straps, so that it may be worn on one’s back. I should not like to face its beam, was I some outlandish insect.

  I must be just and admit Miss Bekin has also made some few small contributions to the exploration of the ship. She located a series of hand-written ledger books in one of the crew cabins, and from this, she has determined the Celestia once boasted a crew of ninety, with another 48 listed as ‘performers.’ Despite the whimsical moving illustrations on the handbills and many of the pictures that adorn Celestia’s corridors, all have perfectly normal names. So, unless the circus once employed a dragon named ‘Bruce’ or ‘Elizabeth,’ I fear we shall discover no legendary beasts tucked away in a corner.

  Our explorations this week shall move to the aft end of the ship, where the engine and storage compartments are located. Each door is helpfully labeled, which prevents us from blindly wandering.

  On a more somber note, the crows have twice sighted Mag intruders within the anomaly. Neither were close, and indeed both were moving in the wrong direction, but their very presence may indicate our foes grow impatient.

  Mistress clams she is confident some technological remnant of the ship will provide us a means of traversing the Hub toward our home spoke. I retain every confidence in her, and I am happy to report morale within our little group of castaways is still high, no doubt in large part due to my effervescent wit and talent for quiet encouragement.

  I only wish, in the dark of this eternal night, there was someone present to encourage me….

  20

  Meralda sat alone on Celestia’s bridge and imagined the ship as it once must have been.

  Was the glass before me filled with stars, she wondered? How many strange skies did this craft ply? How many worlds did it visit, before it came to this wretched place, and was grounded forever?

  Arrayed in a half-circle about her, just below the viewing screens, were banks of complex devices. Panels, most of them dark, were nestled among rows of switches and knobs. All were labeled, though the words were at best vague hints to some grander design. ALT DIS, read one. COMP NAV. STOR VAC.

  Meralda realized her finger was poised above one of the switches, and she pulled her hand back, sighing with regret.

  The screens that were lighted showed graphs and charts as confusing as the control markings. The most prominent display showed an outline of the entire ship, with what Meralda assumed were various machines lit in red, yellow, or green.

  Most of the indicators toward the front of the ship were green, with a few yellows.

  Nearly all the ones toward the rear, where Meralda surmised the flying engines were located, were red.

  “That can’t be good,” Mug had commented, upon first seeing the panel. Meralda had silently agreed, and now she was sure that the Celestia would never take to the heavens again.

  Beneath the central display, an oil painting hung. Mounted in a simple silver frame, it depicted a dark-skinned woman in a gauzy gown, poised in flight before a backdrop of stars.

  The brass plaque below it read ‘Celestia, Quantum Class Hypership, Storm and Dirge, Shipwrights.’

  In the odd spaces between displays, someone had mounted pictures in every available space. They all showed the same thing – Celestia’s hull and landing feet, resting on some strange turf. Her crew gathered, waving and smiling, beneath her.

  Some wore the plain gray overalls found left behind all over the ship. Some were circus performers, clad in outlandish and sometimes quite risqué costumes, posing dramatically for the image.

  The sky changed from picture to picture. So did the terrain. In one, it might be dusty and baked and barren. In another, lush and green and wet. But the faces remained the same, and Meralda wondered just what had become of them, why they fled, and to where?

  Two of the images still perplexed her. In the first, the Celestia was absent, and the crew was gathered on a bright green field. Each stood in the shadow cast by something unseen – something Mug swore was a dragon, with outstretched wings. The second image was of a series of cards, laid out in a pattern. Each card bore a sinister drawing, and symbols Meralda couldn’t read. Something about that image disturbed Meralda, and she believed that the picture’s placement, partially hidden behind some darkened screen, must have disturbed the original crew as well.

  In addition to the pictures, there were other garish items of décor all about the ship. One cabin, which was quickly claimed by her mother, was entirely covered in drapes and rugs and a hanging canopy of sheer red silk. The bed itself was a monstrous affair, carved from some otherworldly black wood shot through with blood-red veins that glowed faintly in the dark. The carvings on the posts and headboard were so explicit Meralda had left the room quickly, ignoring her mother’s chuckles as the door clanged shut behind her.

  Donchen’s pocketwatch, which hung by its chain from a silver lever on one of the dark panels, chimed the half-hour. Meralda touched her ear.

  “Nameless. Faceless. Report,” she said.

  A moment later, she was answered. “Mrs. Primsbite and Miss Bekin have completed their examination of the ship’s aft end,” said a crow. “They report there are no visible means of ingress, save for the ramp.”

  Meralda nodded, relieved. She had been worried that the complicated engines might present some means of entry into the ship, should the Mag descend upon it.

  “No Mag in sight,” reported the other. “Ten miles, all clear.”

  “Good. Thank you. Please ask the ladies to return to the ship. Then resume your patrols, please.”

  “Aye,” chorused the crows.

  Donchen entered the bridge. Like the others, he had abandoned his Tirlish clothes, donning instead a plain set of overalls and the pair of dark, sturdy boots he’d found in his cabin. “I’ve made a list of doors I think we should try.” He sat in padded seat next to Meralda.

  “Were any marked ‘magical weapons,’ or perhaps ‘the way home?’”

  Donchen pretended to consult his list, which was written on the back of one of the waybills. “No, I’m afraid not. But I did find ‘Engineering Stores’ and ‘Emergency Eclairs.’”

  “You most certainly did not,” replied Meralda, smiling at him.

  Donchen retained an air of perfect sincerity. “Well, I’m sure there’s such a place here somewhere. Who goes into the void without the appropriate pastries, after all?”

  “We do.” Meralda sank back in her seat, her eyes wandering across the bridge, and to the darkness outside. “I’m no closer to getting us home than I was when I awoke.”

  “We have a safe, comfortable place to sleep. Food. Drink. A fortress from our enemies. A weapon, even. That’s progress, you know.”

  “It’s more a prison than a fortress.” Meralda looked about at the pictures, but then her eyes fell on the blank, lifeless panels that occupied most of the bridge. How alive this ship must have been once, she thought. And how sad it seems now, so silent and still.

  “Can you imagine,” Donchen said, “how it must have felt, to sit where we are sitting, and watch the stars race past?”

  “It must have been marvelous. It’s nearly bedtime,” she said, glancing at the pocketwatch. “Time to raise the ramp. But I’m just not sleepy.”

  “Nor am I. Rather than toss and turn, why don’t we explore the aft section together? Two rooms, that’s all, and we’ll return to our chambers.”

  Meralda grinned. “On one hand, I am inclined to believe this is merely a plot to get away from Mother and Mug.”

  “And on the other?”

  Meralda rose. “As I said, I’m just not sleepy.” She studied the image of the ship before them. “How about this one, and this one?” she asked, pointing to a pair of unlabeled compartments just ahead of the engines. “T
hey’re small enough to be searched quickly.”

  Donchen stood, nodding. “I’m convinced both contain treasures beyond imagination.”

  The ship shivered, just slightly, and the familiar echoing boom of the landing ramp closing and sealing filled the bridge for a moment.

  “Let’s go,” said Meralda.

  Together they hurried through the brightly lit corridors, ducking into a maintenance closet when they heard Mug’s voice grow near. Each held their breath as Mug and the women passed by.

  Once the gangway was quiet, Meralda opened the door, and the pair sped on, careful to be quiet until they reached the unexplored rear section of the ship.

  There, they paused. Meralda stole a quick kiss, which turned into a longer one, ending only when Donchen’s back pressed against a panel and a door neither had noticed slid silently open.

  Lights flared to life in the small, square room.

  “Well hello,” Donchen said, peering inside. “What have we here?”

  Meralda leaned in as well.

  The chamber was barely big enough to provide standing room to half a dozen people. There was no furniture, no décor – just four plain white walls, and another panel just inside the door.

  Donchen stepped inside, studying the panel.

  “Lower deck, flight deck, upper deck, promenade,” he read aloud. “Each button bears a label.” He grinned impishly, his finger poised above ‘promenade.’ “Let’s see what happens, shall we?”

  “Oh, why not? Go on. Push it before I regain my senses.”

  Donchen stabbed the button.

  The doors to the small chamber slid shut without even a whisper. Both Donchen and Meralda started as the room lifted suddenly, the motion accompanied by the subtle whine of a motor.

  Before either could speak, the sensation of motion stopped. The promenade button lighted, and the doors slid open.

  Beyond the chamber, just a step away, stars sailed past by the thousands, by the tens of thousands. They changed from red to blue as they crossed the open door.