For the next several days, the new crew members of the Manessa Kwi worked hard at learning base eight arithmetic and a variety of new units of measurement. The old units they already knew were based on the length of the king’s shoe or the volume of his favorite drinking vessel. The new units required them to visualize the wavelengths of certain forms of electromagnetic energy, vaguely remembered from their elementary physics lessons with Ilika months before.
Each of the students spent time studying their consoles and equipment, and many things made more sense now that they could read numbers.
Kibi and Sata continued their intensive language lessons, and the ship was soon speaking to them in simple sentences. At first they hesitated, stuttered, and whispered to each other in the language of their kingdom before they could respond.
Boro and Kibi were very happy that the air sickness they experienced reached its peak at three hundred meters, then lessened as they went higher.
Ilika, of course, scheduled extra practice at and below three hundred meters.
NEBADOR Book Four: Flight Training 13
“Good morning, everyone,” Ilika said as he sipped the mint tea Rini had made from their stores of dried foods. “How’s the stomach, Boro?”
“Getting better. Three altitude lessons without losing my lunch.”
“Good. We can start motion training soon.”
Boro
moaned.
“Kibi?”
“Knowing I’m okay at higher altitudes has helped when we’re lower. I haven’t puked in a week!”
“Great. Any other concerns?”
The conversation paused as Rini brought breakfast trays to the table, two at a time, with hot porridge, honey, and stewed fruit.
“Um . . . there’s a simulation I need help with,” Mati announced. “It’s thrusters only, no anti-mass, and it’s sorta like the first time I rode Tera.”
Everyone chuckled, remembering well that day at the ruined shack and corral not far from the capital city of their kingdom.
“Yes, that’s challenging, and is usually just for emergencies. But today I think we all need a change of routine. Shall we go flying?”
“Yeah!” they all shouted at once, then started inhaling their breakfast.
The yellow and red peaks of the barren desert mountains passed slowly beneath them. As Ilika had taught, they alternated between glancing at their visual displays and checking their consoles. Mati went back and forth between visual and her three-dimensional topographic projection. Ilika moved from station to station, seeing how each crew member was doing, and pointing out displays or controls that might be useful.
“Terrain clearance, Mati?” Ilika asked from across the bridge.
“Like you said, I’m staying at least a hundred meters from everything.”
“All stations, inertia straps,” the captain suddenly said in a serious tone of voice, sitting down in the command chair.
The bridge was instantly filled with an air of excitement. They all knew how to pull the straps from the tops of their seats, over their chests, and secure them across their laps and upper legs, allowing them to stay in their chairs even if the ship turned upside-down. But never before had Ilika
NEBADOR Book Four: Flight Training 14
commanded them to use the inertia straps during flight. Five of them quickly had their straps secured, but Mati had to lock her flight control before she could do the same.
When Ilika saw that everyone was secured for rough flight, he continued.
“Watch, make sure you are feeding topographics at real-time. Navigator, start flight recorder. Steward, cargo safety check. Engineer, ears open for flight commands.”
When each station had confirmed, the captain spoke again. “Pilot, you may fly at a terrain clearance of twenty meters.”
Mati grinned, then pushed forward and down on her flight control, slowly bringing the Manessa Kwi closer to the desert mountains than ever before.
Rini wore a subtle smile as the little ship moved in and out of canyons, around peaks, and beside tall rock outcroppings silhouetted against the vivid blue sky.
At first, Mati kept the speed low and stayed well-clear of everything. As she gained more confidence at flying over and around the rocky formations, her speed increased and her clearance decreased. After getting a sense of how far twenty meters looked and felt, she had little trouble maintaining the proper clearance.
“Status check,” Ilika requested.
“Pilot is happy,” Mati said, as she already knew she should respond first.
“Navigator good, recording flight,” Sata said.
“Watch okay, nothing but a light wind.”
“Engineer good. Green and yellow engines.”
“Steward okay, all secure.”
Mati, with a big smile on her face, turned the ship into a steep-walled canyon that penetrated deeply into the mountain range. She giggled out loud at the thrill of swishing by the vertical rock faces. Her display told her the walls were rapidly getting closer together, and suddenly the canyon made a sharp turn to the left. She pulled back on her flight control and spoke at the same time. “Thrusters, level two.”
Boro had been gazing at his visual display. The sudden need to focus on his engine controls caused him a moment of dizziness, so he poked where he thought the right control should be.
NEBADOR Book Four: Flight Training 15
A half-second later, an alarm sounded, Boro’s console lit up with flashing lights, and Mati’s flight control jerked right out of her hands. The ship suddenly performed several violent maneuvers that would have sent all six crew members flying if they weren’t strapped in.
A moment later everything came to a dead stop high in the air above the mountain range. Five pairs of frightened eyes turned toward Ilika.
“I am . . . so very . . . very sorry,” Boro said between gasps where he sat in the sand, back at their landing site, with his captain and shipmates. While the others sipped on their cartons of chilled pinkfruit juice, Boro crushed his carton in his strong hand, then moaned with more guilt when it squirted all over Mati and himself.
Mati just smiled, gently took the carton out of his hand, and replaced it with her own hand. “You’re not the only one who made a mistake, you know,”
she admitted.
“That’s right,” Ilika agreed. “I’m glad you can see yours too, Mati.”
“I was having way too much fun. And . . . I guess . . . I treated Boro like a machine who could just do what I wanted instantly. I should have asked for that thruster change as soon as I entered the canyon.”
“But
I
should have been able to do my job right when you needed me to!”
Boro said, gasping for breath.
“Did you learn from it?” Ilika asked.
“Yeah! You taught us to keep our eyes moving, not stare at anything too long. I just . . . forgot. It seemed sort of . . . unimportant when you said it.
I’m so sorry, Mati. I shouldn’t be the engineer any more.”
“You’re in training, Boro. You will make mistakes, worse than this one.
Does anyone want me to replace Boro . . . with Toli maybe?”
Laughter and head-shaking circled the group.
“So . . .” Ilika began, “are you willing to continue learning, Boro?”
The stocky fifteen-year-old took several deep breaths as he made eye contact with his captain. “Y . . . yes.”
Sata grinned and clapped, and others quickly joined in.
“Okay,” Kibi said, “Boro feels about an inch tall, and I would too, in his shoes. But we all want to understand what Manessa did.”
NEBADOR Book Four: Flight Training 16
“Yeah,” Mati almost whined. “Can Manessa be her own pilot? Am I . . .
just for show?”
“No, Mati, not at all. Manessa knows her crew is in training, can spot some dangerous situations, and will try to bring the ship to a stable and safe place if the situation looks hopeless.”
“You mean like when the stupid engineer shuts down all the engines?”
Boro said with a cocky expression.
Ilika smiled. “Yes, like that. But the emergency maneuvers that Manessa will attempt at those times are not piloting. They are more like what Tera would do if she faced a wolf alone.”
Mati nodded slowly.
“So . . . Manessa just . . . bolted?” Sata proposed.
“Yes, and there will be many times,” Ilika continued, “when we are flying in tight quarters and will have to cancel Manessa’s emergency responses entirely.”
Mati took a deep breath. “I . . . I’m glad Manessa could save us today.”
As they finished their lunch trays, Ilika got a hand-held knowledge pad and began writing on its screen in the language they all knew. His letters appeared on the large display above the steward’s station.
“We’ve talked about this a little, but after our experience this morning with Manessa, who is sentient but not sapient, I want to make sure you understand how different Nebador is from your kingdom.”
Sata grinned. “We’re gonna be up there with the king!”
NEBADOR Book Four: Flight Training 17
“Don’t let it go to your heads,” Ilika began with a slight frown. “No one will be peeling your fruit for you.”
Kibi doubled over with laughter.
Ilika waited until everyone was quiet. “Consider a living tree in the forest, and you are tempted to pound in a nail to put up a rope.”
The silence stretched for a long moment, and then heads started shaking.
“Protected,” Rini said.
“Good. Consider a donkey named Tera.”
“Also protected,” Mati said.
“Even a little better than that,” Ilika said. “We’ve already talked about creatures who can develop a soul. That is also the beginning of sapience, the beginning of wisdom.”
“So . . .” Boro said thoughtfully, “Tera would be . . . a partial citizen of Nebador?”
“Yes. She’s on the borderline, and obviously isn’t going to sit down and discuss philosophy while eating with a fork and spoon, but in Nebador, we respect her emerging sapience. She wouldn’t have been able to stay with Mati and face that wolf without it. We’ll study all this in more detail when we get to our first star station. Consider . . . a carrot you pull out of the ground.”
They all smiled, and Rini made a biting motion with his teeth.
“But we could also say thank you,” Mati said with a frown, “since the carrot is dying for us.”
Ilika smiled and nodded.
Deep Learning Notes
The illustration shows one cycle, forming a simple sine wave, of some form of electro-magnetic energy, such as light or radio. “Wave-lengths” are the only things we have found that are fixed, reliable, unchanging distances, so we use them today to define our units of distance measurement.
“. . . the length of the king’s shoe or the volume of his favorite drinking vessel”
refers to the system of measurement still in use in the USA (feet, pints, etc.)
NEBADOR Book Four: Flight Training 18
The metric system, used by most of the world, is much easier to use, but was invented a little too early to be firmly based in physical reality.
Mati’s simulation of piloting with thrusters but no anti-mass engines would be like an airplane with a powerful propeller but no wings -- in other words, a helicopter. An aircraft that uses brute force to stay aloft can be very maneuverable, but is also very inefficient. A 2-person helicopter uses about twice the fuel as a 2-person fixed-wing airplane.
Boro learned the lesson every driver, pilot, and machine operator must learn: what is right in front is most important, but awareness of other directions, instruments, and controls must be maintained. The thing you forget about is the one most likely to get you.
When “cruise controls” first appeared on cars in the 1960s, many people thought they could set the controls and then get something from the back seat, or take a nap. People quickly learned, of course, that they provide some control of the accelerator, but not the steering wheel. Most professional drivers today never use them as they give an illusion of control, but without the intelligence and wisdom that only the driver can provide.
Ilika’s “ethics” chart has a column for a medieval society, and a column for an ideal society with values similar to those taught by most religions. How does your society fit into this chart?
