After Ilika and Kibi said good-night and slipped into the lift, already kissing, Boro smiled to himself and swiveled in his chair. From the engineering station, he surveyed the entire bridge and passenger area, currently empty and silent.
Only a year before, he had been a slave in a little kingdom where people abused each other every chance they got. Now he was part of something else, something called Nebador that he didn’t fully understand. He had seen many pictures of beautiful cities, gleaming star stations, sleek ships, and strange people. It had all come a step closer to reality when Sata chatted with another navigator, some kind of large bird. He cringed for a moment, remembering his first thought at the time, of plucking, gutting, and roasting the creature over a slow fire.
He turned to his console and selected some soft music as he pondered his new life. He felt a little confusion, and more than a little amazement. A few moments later, soft but strong hands began massaging his shoulders. He leaned his head back to look. “Hi, Sata. Couldn’t sleep?”
She smiled. “Oh . . . I could, but I’d rather be with you.”
After a slight flush of embarrassment, he swiveled around to face her.
“Want to get a snack with me, sit in the passenger area?”
“Sure!”
Soon they had a plate with left-over biscuits, dried fruit, and cups of cold tea.
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“This is only my second watch alone,” he said. “I hope I remember what to do if Manessa starts screaming about an asteroid or something.”
“You will, I know you. I think Ilika’s gonna train me and Mati tomorrow.
Then we’ll all be doing it.”
They nibbled in silence for a minute.
Sata cleared her throat. “Part of why I . . . um . . . came up here was because I couldn’t quit . . . thinking about you.”
Boro swallowed as he felt a wave of warm emotions flow through him.
She looked at him with dreamy eyes. “And . . . I want to make sure you know that I’m . . . ready to share a cabin with you . . . as soon as you want to
. . .”
Boro’s entire body suddenly became hot and sweaty, and he had to swallow several more times. He looked at Sata, and saw her sparkling eyes and happy smile, but his mouth was too dry to speak.
“Ilika tells me,” she went on, “that in Nebador, girls ask boys just as often as boys ask girls.”
She noticed his discomfort. “But . . . if you don’t want to . . .”
“Um . . . no . . .” he stumbled, “it’s not that. You’re really . . . beautiful to me, and . . . um . . . I think about you too. It’s just . . . you know . . . it’s huge, and I want to . . . make sure it’s just right, and . . . everyone feels good about it
. . . you know. We have to think about Rini and Mati, and there’s our training and work and everything . . .”
Sata grinned. “Mati and Rini aren’t going to try anything until her knee is fixed, but I know they’d love to have some time to snuggle. And, you know, I wasn’t asking you into my cabin while we’re on duty! ”
Boro chuckled nervously.
“Couldn’t you just come over sometime so we could . . . play?” she asked with a smile of longing.
Boro’s expression passed through several shades of smiles and two or three types of frowns as he sat wrestling with his emotions.
Sata slowly lost her smile, then looked down at her lap. “Okay, I get the message,” she said as her voice started breaking. “I should have realized . . .
why you’ve never even . . . kissed me.” She started to get up.
Suddenly a strong hand grabbed her arm, and she froze.
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“Please stay. I’m not as good as you at putting my feelings into words, but I still have . . . lots of feelings . . . and I want to be the only boy who ever . . .
you know . . . touches you like that.”
Sata settled herself back into the chair with a slight smile.
“And about kissing . . .” Boro continued, “I think I can fix that right now without any . . . complications.”
Sata offered no resistance as she was pulled into Boro’s strong arms. She felt the warmth of his lips on hers, timidly at first, then more firmly as he found his confidence.
It seemed like hours later when they finally parted and looked at each other shyly. Sata took a slow breath and smiled. “Yeah . . . slow is okay.”
Somewhat to the crew’s surprise, they received a complete trigonometry review the following day covering all the functions, along with the inverse functions that would give them the angle. With knowledge pads at their fingertips, they only had to remember which function to use for each problem.
As Ilika clearly wanted them all to get it, Sata and Rini worked with Boro and Kibi. Mati worked slowly and carefully, and Ilika was ready to assist, but she held her own.
On the second day of their transit from Sonmatia Three to Four, they took
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turns presenting the new words they were studying. Sata and Mati could hardly stop giggling as they stood before the others, trying to explain star station approach procedures.
Boro, still a little clumsy with the language of Nebador, had trouble describing the new tools he was learning about, so he grabbed a knowledge pad and found pictures. Ilika, of course, made him do his best to describe them in words also.
Rini bubbled with excitement as he talked about the hundreds of instrument checks and calibrations the star station could do as soon as the ship was docked. Suddenly he stopped in mid-thought and looked at Ilika.
“The star station . . . it’s sentient too, with feelings and everything, right?”
Ilika smiled and nodded.
Kibi went through the entire passenger receiving process, using her shipmates as guinea pigs, and pretending they had never been on a deep-space response ship before. They were all soon tucked under soft blankets, in their reclined seats, with cold drinks at hand and a video on the big screen.
On the day they were scheduled to arrive at Sonmatia Four, Ilika emerged from a relaxing bath to find his entire crew at their stations, ready for approach adjustments an entire hour early. “Hmm. I need to find something for you guys to do. Let me think . . . we don’t need to collect firewood or brush donkeys . . .”
Everyone laughed. A gleam of sadness crept into Mati’s eyes.
After drying his hair and shooing Kibi away from her console, Ilika sent math and logic problems to all stations to pass the time. Finally, with the scheduled adjustments minutes away and his crew unable to concentrate on anything else, he gave in.
“You guys are tired of slow space flight, aren’t you?”
Mati turned and nodded vigorously. “Really tired of it.”
All the others agreed.
“Rini, any sign of Sonmatia Four?”
He smiled. “I’ve been watching it for an hour and a half! It’s just a few kilometers from where it should be.”
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“Sata?”
“Approach
adjustment
calculated!”
“I should have known. Mati?”
“Burn approved, one minute.”
“Boro?”
“Thrusters
are
green.”
“Kibi?” Ilika asked, turning his head.
“The passengers are all seated,” she said with a grin.
Ilika grinned back. “It is both happy and sad for a captain when he realizes his crew no longer needs him.”
Three anxious hours later, as Sonmatia Four began to loom large on their screens, the crew gathered around the galley with worried faces. Ilika was busy making potato cakes. Kibi put into words what they were all thinking.
“We need you, Ilika. We may have approach adjustments memorized, but we have no idea how to do atmospheric braking.”
Ilika took a minute to secure the galley and wipe his hands. As soon as he took the command chair, his entire crew, back at their stations, looked happy again.
“The freeloading pass was too close to do without sensors, and this is far closer. Sata, what’s our highest elevation on the equator?”
The navigator took a moment to enter the question at her console in the precise mathematical language that would allow the ship to search hundreds of charts in an instant. “Six thousand three hundred meters.”
Ilika nodded. “If we tried to orbit at our current speed, what would our altitude be?”
Sata selected the proper function. “Eight thousand one hundred. Isn’t that . . . too close?”
“No, it’s just right. The atmosphere of this planet is thin, so we have to go as deep as we can. The safe lower limit is one thousand meters above terrain, but I’ve heard of ships going down to a hundred in an emergency.”
“Whew,” Boro breathed. “They’d almost scrape the hull!”
Mati peered at her display. “I’ll have to do a slight adjustment to nail that eight thousand one hundred.”
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“Then, as we slow down,” Ilika continued, “you’ll raise the orbit, Mati.
Sata will give you an orbital velocity graph. As soon as the line on the graph becomes flat, you’ll know we’re out of the atmosphere and in a stable orbit.
Boro, Mati will need maneuvering thrusters and anti-mass on standby. Ready an alternate fuel for both.”
Boro’s eyes grew wide at the implied danger. “Engines warming,” he said, turning to his console. “Alternate fuels . . . selected and ready.”
Mati’s heart pounded as the little ship streaked toward the barren brown horizon of the fourth planet, lower and lower with each passing second. She watched the altitude constantly, ready to bring in the anti-mass drive if they went below eight thousand one hundred meters.
At first, the rocky surface appeared airless, but she soon glimpsed haze in the distance. “Eleven thousand four hundred and dropping.” Barren mountains reminded her of those in the deserts of her own planet.
A thick reddish-brown cloud appeared on the horizon directly in front of them. “Dust storm,” Ilika said. “Not a problem.”
The ship, still moving at interplanetary speed, covered the distance in seconds. Mati frowned as they plunged into the brown haze, but gritted her teeth and kept her eyes on her display.
Sata’s eyes snapped shut, and didn’t open until the dust was far behind them.
“Eight thousand two hundred,” the pilot said. A deep valley sliced the surface of the planet just before they streaked into the darkness of the night side.
“Trust your instruments,” the captain reminded.
Mati smiled when she noticed the first bit of speed reduction. A glance at her altimeter showed eight thousand one hundred and five meters. She settled her hand on her flight control and nudged the ship up slightly to begin following the orbital velocity graph.
Back in the brilliant daylight, a cone-shaped mountain raced toward them.
“Volcano?” Boro wondered aloud.
“Yes, completely dormant now,” Ilika said.
“That’s the high point,” Sata added, squinting at the sudden brightness.
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“Eight thousand five hundred and climbing,” Mati reported. “Another dust storm.”
They streaked into and through the brown haze before Mati could finish speaking, then plunged back into darkness.
“Actually, same dust storm,” Rini informed.
Sata swallowed. “Every time I see it coming, I worry there’s a mountain hiding in it.”
Mati glanced at her friend. “I’m watching the topographics. If there’s anything hiding in it, I’ll have us out of there in a heartbeat.”
Ilika smiled as the volcano flew by beneath them again.
Sata breathed easier, but couldn’t keep from closing her eyes on the next pass.
“Eleven thousand,” Mati said as they punched another hole in the dust storm and entered the night-side once more.
Deep Learning Notes
Is something wrong with Sata for having sexual feelings at age 11? The fact is, the average age of puberty, for girls, in our world today, is 11-12. If that’s the average, then some individuals enter puberty at 10, 9, 8, even 7, just as some do at 13, 14, 15, even 16.
What do we learn about the Nebador Transport Service when we see that the relationship between Sata and Boro is not being supervised or chaperoned by anyone?
An illustration summarizes the crew’s trigonometry review.
Using atmospheric friction to slow a spacecraft creates a lot of heat, and the spacecraft looks about like a fireball. We’ve learned to use replaceable ceramic tiles, but our spacecraft require months of work after each use. A durable hull that can handle repeated atmospheric braking or re-entry is not yet within our ability.
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