by CJ Williams
“Adjusting course,” Alyssa said. The ship began a slow turn to put the sun directly on the stern. “Miss Schubert may now deploy all remaining sails.”
Thirty minutes later all of Alyssa’s canvas hung limply from the masts and Hannah rejoined Gus on the quarterdeck.
“Now?” Hannah asked.
“Yes, Miss Schubert,” Alyssa replied. “It is time to deploy the star sail.”
Gus and Hannah headed down to the sail locker to the cabinet that Alyssa had described. Inside was a zipped canvas bag with what Gus thought of as a spinnaker, a huge triangular sail. It took both of them to carry it up to the foredeck where they unzipped the bag.
The three corners were laying on top of the bundled sail. Hannah connected the top corner to a halyard that ran up the foremast and then back down to a small winch. Gus connected the other two corners to winches on either side of the forecastle.
“Ready!” Gus said.
“Charging the initiator,” Alyssa replied. A dome built into the foremast about five feet above the deck began to glow very faintly. “Flying the star sail.” The three winches started to hum.
The top of the sail flew up the mast while the two lower corners spread out to either side of the forecastle. The dome burst into a bright light, and the star sail began to fill. Very slowly it swelled out in front of the ship like a half-filled hot air balloon.
“Firing the star drive,” Alyssa said.
The figurehead under the bowsprit started to glow, emitting a ghostly blue light. The new luminance caused the star sail to expand way out in front of the bow. Nestled inside the center of the star sail, a small black sphere appeared, about the size of a volleyball.
Near the stern, yet another light appeared at the top of mizzenmast. Like a giant lantern, it illuminated the deck as though it were a midday sun. All the sails from the mainmast and the foremast filled in the same way they would with a strong following wind.
The galleon began to pick up speed and pull away from the planet. The dual moons slipped by off to the port side as the ship sailed past their orbits. As Alyssa accelerated, the dark sphere in the center of the star sail expanded until it was about ten feet across.
“I can’t believe this,” Gus said.
He and Hannah headed back to the quarterdeck where Kyoko watched in awe. Immediately behind the stern, their passing churned up sparkling shimmers of light like bioluminescent plankton that swirled and quickly faded in the distance. “What causes that?” Gus asked.
Alyssa said, “There is some loss of atmosphere during flight. When those few atoms trail away, they create a visible annihilation. I replace the oxygen through electrolysis on our stored water.”
“I have no idea what’s going on,” Gus said to Kyoko. “But it’s working. I can’t deny that.”
“It’s what Alyssa said it would be,” Kyoko said. She pointed to either side of the galleon. “See? We’re inside a bubble. I can see a little distortion all around us. The light from the stars is being diffracted. And look there. The space in front of us is being pushed apart somehow. It’s like it moves out of our way and that pulls us forward. And behind it falls back together. But here inside the bubble, for us space is normal. This is so cool.”
Gus’s gaze followed where Kyoko pointed, and he had to agree with her conclusions. All the while, standing out in the open on the quarterdeck, the air was perfectly calm, just as it was yesterday when they were floating in the bay off Paldae Island. Around the ship, inside the bubble that Kyoko described, the gravity plates maintained the atmosphere. Gus searched through his memory of space drives. He had worked on a lot of them in his years, but nothing like this.
“It seems kind of like an Alcubierre drive,” he said. “But physicists disproved that theory a long time ago.”
“Who knows?” Kyoko said. “Either they were wrong, or this is something different.”
“I guess anything is possible,” Gus concluded.
*.*.*.*
The days that followed were very different. When on the water, their life was a never-ending struggle against fatigue and the elements. But now, the shipboard routine became mundane. Gus loved it. He was even taking afternoon naps.
After three weeks they had just sat down for dinner when Hannah declared, “I’m bored!”
“Be good,” Kyoko replied sternly. “Just be grateful we’re on our way home.”
Gus ate his meal quietly, determined to put up with the girls’ squabbling without losing his temper.
Thankfully, Alyssa intervened. “Perhaps, Miss Schubert, you could do a stability check. It is time for the next one.”
Hannah perked up immediately. That meant shooting the cannon. She glanced at Kyoko. “Want to come? I could use help with the breeches.”
“Whatever that means.” Kyoko sighed. “But okay.” Kyoko had a principled opinion against guns but would put it aside in the interest of what Alyssa called an important safety check.
Gus glared at Hannah. “That means you have twenty toes to watch out for, not just your own.”
Hannah nodded obediently. “I’ll be careful.”
After the girls left for the gun deck, Gus cleared the table, enjoying the peace and quiet at the end of the day. He took the dishes forward to the galley. He had once tried to simply wash the dishes in his bathroom sink, but Kyoko came unglued at the idea and called him an unsanitary heathen.
On the way back from the galley, he paused to peer through the big open hatch on the main deck to the gun deck below. The lattice covers had been stowed below to help air circulation.
Hannah was following all of Gus’s safety procedures and lecturing Kyoko about each step. Hannah was enjoying the opportunity to show off to her friend.
In spite of Kyoko’s oft-spoken assertion that she was “just the ship’s bottle washer,” Gus suspected she was actually the smartest person aboard. She routinely pointed out solutions to the most intractable problems, and most recently, deduced how the star sail functioned. He subsequently caught her discussing the theory with Alyssa, and she seemed to grasp it more easily than Gus had.
He went up to the quarterdeck and braced himself against the wheel to wait for the shot.
“Ready!” Hannah’s voice called up through the hatch. “Fire!”
The deck shifted slightly, and a thirty-foot streak of flame burst from the aft starboard gun port. It ended fifty yards abeam with a sharp, ninety-degree bend of incandescence that flashed backward in their wake. The result was a spectacular, if momentary, burst of fireworks when the cannonball disintegrated into a smear of nuclear particles across the cosmos.
“How does it look?” Gus asked Alyssa aloud.
“The flat-space curvature near the edges of our warp bubble appear normal, and I detect no buildup of tidal forces within our wake. No change in speed or heading is required.”
“Is this how all Acevedos ships used to operate?” Gus inquired. “I mean, all this stuff with sails and cannons seem fairly ridiculous.”
“Not at all,” Alyssa replied. “Keep in mind that I am a replica of an ancient sailing ship from their long-ago history. All of my capability regarding space travel is the result of carefully designed and admittedly ridiculous workarounds. The goal was to retain as much authenticity as possible regarding true blue-water sailing. Modern Acevedos starships were much like your own. Their star drives, while using the same general principle of our star sail, were far more capable.”
“No sails then?”
“No sails. They managed the drive with focused force fields and gravity beams. My sails are impregnated with a rather exotic material that, when charged with high energy photons, can focus the infinitesimal amounts of dark energy around the vessel into the star sail. That is what generates what Miss Yoshimoto calls the warp bubble. The process is extremely inefficient, but it works.”
“So a real starship would not take this long?”
“While I reject the notion that I am not a real starship, you are correct. This jou
rney that will take us several months would normally be completed in a few weeks. I could increase our speed, but it would not be wise. The environment inside a warp bubble is generally considered stable, but the failure of certain components could be catastrophic. Witness the cannonball just fired.”
“I’m all in favor of safety,” Gus said.
“Acknowledged. As a point of interest, tomorrow I shall start reducing our speed for arrival at our first waypoint. According to my records, we will find an uninhabited planet with a gentle climate. I believe you may enjoy the local game. You often comment on how much you want a steak. I am afraid you will have to catch your dinner on the hoof, so to speak, but it may satisfy your desire.”
*.*.*.*
On the Studio 37 stage, the video backdrop showed Gus talking to the unknown woman he loved so much. Cassie Weaver wiped away a few tears as Gus finished his lengthy message. He was leaning against the side rail on the quarterdeck. Behind him, a swirling mass of billions of stars filled the heavens with pink and white incandescence.
“Anyway,” he said. “This is what the center of the galaxy looks like. I doubt the camera can really show you how spectacular it is, and I’m not enough of a poet to describe it. The stars are so closely packed together I feel like we’re sailing through a waterfall of pure energy. And each of the planets we’ve landed on so far for supplies were out of a fairy-tale; we even saw a herd of real unicorns. But in spite of being surrounded by all this beauty, every single minute we are apart is misery. I would trade all the magic of the last two years to have never left your side. But I’m excited now because it won’t be much longer. I love you, babe. I’ll see you soon.”
“That was such a beautiful message,” Cassie said. “He is such a romantic figure.”
“I know,” Russell acknowledged glumly. “I’m proud when I remember to have my secretary order flowers for my wife’s birthday. This guy literally flies across the galaxy to reunite with his lover.”
Cassie gave Russell a disapproving glare. “You are a terrible man. But those were nice messages from the girls, too. I know their families must be getting excited. Thirty days to Wheelers Bright, didn’t they say?”
“Approximately,” Russell clarified. “Gus said after one more landing for supplies, so I’m thinking four to six weeks? Sometimes when they stop, it takes a week or so to gather all their food. But anyway, it won’t be long now.”
Cassie turned to the camera. “Well, stick with us, everyone. After the break, we’re going to have retired admiral Jeremy Salas with us to talk about the increasing incidence of planet raiders. It seems that someone is scavenging historic relics on new planets even before they are opened for settlement. Admiral Salas will tell us what to watch out for and who might profit from such activities. We’ll be right back.”
*.*.*.*
Felix Carey stayed inside the cockpit of his air-conditioned space yacht to avoid the incredibly hot midday sun. His boss, Mr. Stephan Bullock, had sent him to this particular planet because of the UN-sponsored mission. His men were loading artifacts from the newly discovered Acevedos ruin into crates made of sturdy white plastic and marked with big red crosses.
The scientist in charge of the dig site was Doctor Linda Durham, principal researcher of the team run by the Extraterrestrial Advanced Intelligence Research Agency. She and the rest of her archeological crew lay dead three hundred yards up the road.
Carey, the man responsible for the murders, was speaking to his employer via subspace.
“Any trouble with the locals?” Bullock asked from his office on Wheelers Bright.
“You said no witnesses,” Carey replied prosaically.
“Good enough. Did you find it?”
“We definitely got it.” Carey was proud to relate the news. “It’s exactly what you described. We got over two thousand blocks of the stuff. It smells kind of squirrelly, spicy like.”
“It smells? You idiot! That material is probably toxic, so I suggest you handle it carefully.”
“I know that, boss,” Carey said calmly. “Everyone is white-suited. I just meant the storage chamber had a smell to it, that’s all. We’re doing the job just the way you wanted.”
The finger-sized ingots were being packed into one of the crates labeled First Aid. Once filled and sealed, the crates were loaded into the cargo section of Carey’s yacht, Chicksdigit. The boss had promised bonuses if all went well, and it had.
“Well, keep on top of it,” Bullock said, mollified by Carey’s assurances. “That has to be the exotic element the Acevedos used for their star drive. Good job.”
“We’ve almost finished loading, and then we’ll start back.”
“Make sure there aren’t any cameras,” Bullock said. “Scientists have a tendency to put remote cameras all over the place.”
“Already done,” Carey replied confidently. He was pleased with his work on this run. He felt like he was at the forefront of the next development of space technology.
And it was all thanks to the man known as Grandfather Gus. The old codger had spurred an unprecedented wave of scientific research. His discoveries had started an extraordinary search for clues about the ancient race.
Mankind now had proof that unparalleled technology was out there in the galaxy just waiting for those willing to seize it. In the two years since he had broadcast those first images of the ancient but incredible spaceship, corporations had placed massive bets in a race to bring the alien science to market. Bullock had a plan to get ahead of the game, and Carey was happy to tag along.
“Start your departure checks,” Carey told his copilot as he left to oversee the final loading.
Thirty minutes later, Carey plopped into the pilot’s seat and lifted the yacht off the planet’s surface. Once clear of the atmosphere, the navigator began taking celestial observations to finalize the course calculation to Wheelers Bright. A ping from the proximity detection system got his attention.
“What’s that?” Carey asked, pointing at the forward display screen. “Computer, give me a closer shot of that contact.” The image expanded as the telescopic camera zoomed in. In the middle of space was an ancient galleon in full sail. “You gotta be kidding me. Is that what I think it is?” Carey had watched dozens of the videos on the old man’s YouTube channel.
The copilot, Eddie Bridges, was equally astonished. “It has to be. Talk about luck.”
Carey grinned at Eddie’s words. “Ain’t that the truth. The stuff in our cargo bay is nothing compared to that ship. You have control. I’ll tell the boys to prepare to board.”
“I have control,” Eddie confirmed, tapping a key on the console. “What about the old man and those two women?”
“We don’t need them any more than we did the scientists.”
*.*.*.*
From the navigation room on the quarterdeck, Kyoko held her breath as she watched Hannah balance on the footrope dangling beneath the topgallant yard while she began folding the sail on top of the yard. “It scares me every time she does that,” Kyoko mumbled to herself.
An hour ago, Alyssa terminated the star drive as they approached the planet. Like always, it took all three of them to stow the enormous star sail properly. Since this was their fourth stop for provisions, they were getting better at it. The thing was so big Kyoko swore it would never fit in the zippered bag, but it always did with a little prodding and poking.
Once that was done it was time for Hannah to stow the remaining sails for atmospheric penetration. Grandfather stood on the quarterdeck as a safety spotter while she went aloft.
Alyssa suddenly announced some unexpected news. “We have a contact at eleven o’clock, fifty-eight miles. An alien spaceship is approaching.”
Kyoko looked out the window thirty degrees left of the bowsprit. “I can’t see anything.”
“Please refer to display screen two,” Alyssa said.
Kyoko scanned the larger video display on the control console. The image in the center of the screen was clearly a
spaceship, and it had lettering on the side. “Can you zoom in? I think I see a logo on the front.” The bow of the ship enlarged to display the painted image of a nude woman with enormous boobs next to the name, Chicksdigit. Kyoko snickered. “I don’t think those are aliens, Alyssa. It has to be miners or a rich playboy.”
“Based on its maneuvering I believe it intends to join on us.”
Kyoko stepped out and joined Grandfather next to the wheel. “Look!” she said, pointing at the ship that was now in visual range, approaching from the port beam.
He followed her gaze and gave her a big grin. “Well, this is certainly good news. Looks like our journey might be over sooner than we thought. If I’m not mistaken, that’s an older model Necker Craft.”
“What’s that?” Kyoko asked.
“It’s a low-end business yacht,” Gus said with a smile. “They sold a lot of them back in the day. I think this means we’re rescued. I don’t know why they’re here, but I don’t really care; this is fantastic. Let’s get ready to say hello. Go tell Alyssa to film this; I want Carol to see it.” Grandfather headed down to the waist.
Kyoko went back inside the navigation room. “Grandfather wants you to video our rescue,” she said. “Is there anything I should do?”
“Nothing at this point,” the AI replied. “I have stabilized our heading and speed for the moment. I am unable to contact the arriving vessel. I have asked Nineteen to assist me. Standby.”
Kyoko looked up. Hannah had moved to the crow’s nest to watch the arrival. For a brief instant, Kyoko was a little embarrassed. What must they look like on this old sailing ship out in space? Whoever it was could probably not believe their eyes.
The yacht matched Alyssa’s heading and speed and began to slide sideways close to the rail. Once they were above the outrigger, they would be inside the atmosphere bubble that Alyssa maintained with her gravity plates.
“Any luck?” Kyoko asked Alyssa.