Mati flew upriver until the ugly city was no longer visible, until the pathetic farms were far behind, until the river valley itself was lost from view.
Only when she saw pristine forests and clean air all around did she turn to Kibi.
Kibi smiled and nodded.
“Position locked,” Mati declared, touching the symbol that transferred the helm to Manessa for stability against the wind and any other forces that might come along.
“Captain has command,” Kibi announced, then helped Mati up to the passenger area.
“An unbreakable rule on any ship,” Ilika began as everyone settled around the table, “is that someone is on-duty whenever we’re in flight. So I’m on-duty here at the steward’s station.”
“External air,” Kibi whispered.
“Good idea,” Ilika said and turned to the console for a moment. They all took deep breaths of the fresh, cool, pine-scented air that entered the ship.
“I am very happy with all the skill and trust I see developing in this crew every day. But the fact is, we are human, and we all have weaknesses. I have challenged you to keep growing and not get stuck, and you have all been willing to do that. That’s your ticket into the Nebador Services — be human, but never stop growing.
“Neither is our ship infallible. Our next few destinations will be
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challenging because Manessa will simulate things breaking down. I want you to know ahead of time that all Transport Service ships are extremely reliable, and failures are very rare. We will usually go months, maybe even years, before something fails, and system redundancy makes it easy to handle most of those. During the next few days, they will happen quite often, sometimes several at a time.”
Boro’s face twisted into a frown. Rini looked ready for anything.
“These failures are contrived, but real. For example, if Manessa says we’re running out of fuel, we aren’t really out, but the flow will stop, and the engine using it will shut down. So you must treat each problem as if it’s completely real. Only an override from me will cancel a simulated failure, and I won’t, unless Death itself is knocking on the hatch.”
Rini burst out laughing. “A high priest knocking on the hatch wouldn’t be enough?”
Ilika smiled. “No. Any questions?”
“Um . . .” Kibi began, face scrunched as she formulated her thought. “How long will each failure last?”
“Until we don’t need that part of the ship any more.”
She
nodded.
After a snack and more discussion about the upcoming drills, the passenger area was quickly cleaned and everyone went to their stations. The moment Mati sat down at the helm, a sudden jolt sent her a foot into the air, then back into her seat with a cry of pain. Even as she landed, she saw flashing symbols on her console. “Anti-mass is off and we’re falling!”
Struggling to latch his inertia straps, Boro saw the flashing purple indicators on his engine control board.
“Thrusters!” Mati screamed, partly from the pain of her wrenched knee, partly from sheer panic.
Boro blinked away the water that had somehow gotten into his eyes and quickly punched at his thruster controls until he saw all sevens on his display.
“You’ve got every thruster I can find!” Then another thought came to him and he reached for the ion drive controls, but a feeling in the pit of his stomach stopped him.
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Fighting the pain in her knee, Mati wrestled with the flight control like a wild beast. At the same time, she saw the ground rushing toward them on her down-angle display. She felt the strong response of the thrusters, looked at her display again, and clenched her teeth.
Under a crushing three or four gravities of acceleration, Ilika worked from his knees to secure Mati’s inertia straps, then pulled himself into the command chair.
“We’re gonna make it!” Mati yelled as she watched their descent slow, and finally cease, just meters above the treetops, several whipping back and forth from the thrust.
“Oh crap!” Boro yelled. “We’re almost out of thruster fuel!”
“Find some!” Ilika commanded, then quickly stepped to the engineer’s station. “Next fuel choice?”
“Um . . . um . . . solid number three, through the oxidizer.” Boro made the selections on his board. “Shit! Oxidizer’s purple. Shit.”
“Next choice?” Ilika coaxed.
“I don’t know!”
“Open your fuel selection chart.”
With shaking hands, Boro managed to get the chart onto his screen. “Um
. . . solid four mixed with liquid one.” Even as he spoke his hands moved.
“Whew, mixer works.”
“Mati, your thrusters will be rough for a moment as the fuel switches,”
Ilika informed.
“Okay. We’re gaining altitude now,” the pilot reported between shaking breaths.
Boro breathed a sigh of relief.
After the thrusters sputtered for a few moments, Mati eventually achieved a comfortable three thousand meters and managed something that resembled a hover.
“Looks like you’re fighting sharks!” Sata observed with wide eyes.
“It’s like riding a scared donkey,” Mati admitted, “and right after tweaking my knee! Plenty of fuel, Boro?”
“Plenty right now, as long as Manessa doesn’t hide the rest.”
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Nervous laughter came from several stations.
“Um, Rini,” Sata began, staring at her chart display. “My position indicator’s gone.”
“That’s because the ship’s positioning system is purple, packed up and flew south. I just did a diagnostic, and it says it can’t be fixed.”
“What are we going to do? I can’t tell where we are!” Sata said with desperation in her voice.
Ilika remained silent.
“Don’t we know where we were?” Boro asked.
Sata glanced at Ilika with worried eyes. “Um, sort of. At least . . . before we lost anti-mass. We were somewhere over this forest . . .” She pointed at a large region on her chart.
“We’re still over it,” Mati said looking at her down-angle display.
“But
where?” Sata asked with a note of panic.
“Can’t we . . . take a compass reading,” Boro suggested, “like we did in the big meadow near Farmer Koto’s house?”
Sata’s face lit up. “Ilika, would you make a compass on a knowledge pad?”
“Rini can give you a compass.”
“That’s right, I can! I can put a coordinate grid onto a visual!”
Sata turned to her console with excitement. “Give me a north view, Rini.”
Several rounded hills made the horizon lumpy, but none of them were unique.
“Northwest.”
Rini changed the view.
“Got one!” Sata said excitedly. “That mountain is either this one,” she declared, creating a mark on her chart display, “or this one.”
Everyone strained to see what Sata was doing.
“So I take the opposite compass direction,” Sata continued, thinking aloud,
“draw lines from these peaks to our forest . . . okay, we know we’re on one of these lines. Give me a visual to the west.”
More mountain peaks came into view.
“Oh, yes!” Sata nearly shouted. “There’s no mistaking that mountain!”
She drew another line. “So we’re at one of these two places. Hmm. If we were at this point, we’d have a river right under us.”
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Everyone tapped their display selectors, then searched with their eyes.
“No river below,” Rini reported.
Everyone else shook heads in agreement.
With a smile of pride, Sata drew a circle around their current position on the chart and deleted the other lines.
“Flight objective is location six on the list, thrusters only, impaired sensors, visual flight referencing to the highest mountain on the planet, twenty-one thousand meters above sea level. Rini has command.”
Rini and Ilika changed places and secured their straps while Sata calculated the bearing and Mati turned the ship to make it their heading.
“Um . . . um . . . status, a-all stations,” the freckled lad began with hesitation.
“Pilot has tamed her wild thrusters, but don’t expect a smooth ride.”
Rini chuckled and exchanged grins with the pilot.
“Navigator is going to track the flight, mountain by mountain, river by river.”
“Watch has visual and magnetic sensors,” Ilika reported, looking over the indicators, “but no positioning or topographics.”
“Engineer reports thrusters all yellow, current fuel supply good, and I’ve
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whipped up another kind, just in case.” He turned and grinned at Rini.
“Steward is having an easy day. I’d go take a nap if it wasn’t for the inertia,” Kibi said with a smile.
“What do we know about the weather?” Rini asked.
“Only what we can see,” Ilika replied. “Some fog in the valleys, but flight above six thousand meters looks clear. The top of the mountain may be different.”
“Distance to the mountain?” Rini asked.
“Um . . .” Sata said, working with her controls to move a scale on her chart,
“three thousand seven hundred kilometers.”
“That’s going to take a while with thrusters,” Mati announced with frustration.
“As soon as Mati finishes accelerating,” Ilika began, “I’ll show Kibi how to serve a meal under inertia flight conditions.”
When Rini was sure everyone was ready, he asked Mati to begin accelerating. Soon they were streaking across the sky into the mountains.
Ilika and Kibi entered the galley, always keeping one hand on something solid.
Deep Learning Notes
Travel by water and air can never be made as “idiot proof” as travel by land because we cannot usually survive in water or air if our vehicles fail. A good airplane pilot is always looking for places to land, within gliding distance, in case of engine failure. A multi-engine aircraft pilot studies what his craft can and can’t do “OEI” (one engine inoperative).
When our cars fail, we usually take them to a mechanic and get them fixed.
Since there were no deep-space response ship garages on that planet, what is implied by making each simulated failure continue “until we don’t need that part of the ship any more”?
Why was the first simulated failure (anti-mass drive) especially challenging
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for Mati as the pilot?
When Boro’s fuel was suddenly threatened, be tried one alternative from memory, but Ilika had to coax him to look up a third option. An aircraft pilot (or other essential crew member) always keeps all necessary information within reach. When piloting a small airplane or helicopter, it’s all in a small binder strapped to my leg.
After being reminded of the tools she had available, Sata took compass bearings to mountain peaks in two directions. One of the directions had two possibilities because the peaks looked similar. After selecting the peaks, Sata worked backwards. The unmistakable mountain peak (lower left), for example, was at a bearing of 260° (using our system). The opposite (or
“reciprocal”) would be 80°, so Sata drew a line in that direction from the peak.
The crew saw no river directly under the ship. What was the ship’s position?
The reciprocal of a compass bearing is the bearing plus or minus 180 modulus 360. It is the number directly opposite the bearing on the compass rose. The reciprocal of 50° is 230°. What is the reciprocal of 300°?
Boro got “ahead of his aircraft” by preparing another type of fuel. Any type of ship operation has long stretches with little to do, then suddenly moments of high-workload and stress. Whatever crew members can do ahead of time makes those stressful moments easier.
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Chapter 20: Rini’s Mountain
With finger food and beverage in a holder at her station, Mati was milking everything she could from her thrusters, until Boro pointed out that his status symbols were turning red. Ilika reminded Boro that they were out of danger and that one set should be held in reserve. Mati sighed and eased back on her flight control until the engineer smiled.
An hour later, they could all see a thick ring of clouds surrounding the highest mountain on the planet. But, Rini happily pointed out, the peak itself pierced the mist and was awash in brilliant sunshine.
“Manessa’s records say there’s a small landing site up there, but I’ve never been to it,” Ilika informed them from the watch station.
Sata touched a symbol. “Chart’s at maximum magnification.”
“Can you see it, Kibi?” Rini asked from the command chair.
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Kibi switched to the magnified chart. “It could be in that little cleft on the south side. I can’t be sure ‘til we get there.”
With instrument flying impossible, Mati stayed well-clear of the thick clouds. “Hold on!” she warned as strong winds began to rattle their bones.
Moving around to the south side of the mountain, she nudged the ship toward the peak.
A small cleft in the rocks, with a level floor, awaited them just a stone’s throw from the top. “You want me to land a bucking donkey in that?” Mati asked.
“How wide is it, Sata?” Rini asked.
“About . . . six meters.”
“How small can Manessa go, Ilika?”
“Two
meters.”
“What do you think, Mati?” Rini asked.
“Er . . . I’ll try it . . . if it’s okay with Ilika.”
Ilika just smiled at his pilot.
“Um . . . Boro?” Mati began without turning. “Can you give me level seven up and down, and level two sideways?”
“Sure! Thrusters seven vertical, two lateral.”
“Yeah, those words,” Mati said, still concentrating on her flight control.
“Mmm . . . that’s better. Everybody ready for my donkey-in-a-barrel trick?”
Laughter rolled through the ship as several tight stomachs, including Mati’s, loosened up a bit.
“Manessa is a little ball two meters across,” Ilika announced. “I’ll show you those controls soon, Mati.”
Everyone remained silent as their pilot coaxed the bucking ship closer and closer to the mountain. The buffeting from the wind was the worst just a few meters from the mountain, but dropped to a calm breeze as Mati entered the cleft. She extended struts and set the little ship down without ever touching the surrounding rock.
“The Manessa Kwi is on top of the world!” Rini shouted with joy when Mati turned around and grinned at him.
With a short and easy climb from the landing site to the top of the peak,
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the five who could undertake the journey got into harsh environment suits and grabbed breathing masks. Mati put on a breathing mask, determined to get all the practice she could in spite of her knee.
Kibi and Rini were ready to bound out the hatch, but Ilika stopped them and brought out a long safety line with attachment points every three meters, then put careful Boro in the lead.
With gloves now protecting their hands, they made their way up the icy rocks to the peak, a jumble of angular boulders bare to the sun and wind.
“We have arrived,” Boro said for Mati’s benefit. “The wind is fierce.”
“Um . . . you guys have a problem,” Mati informed through the intercom.
“The clouds are rising. They’re almost up to the ship.”
“I think Ilika saw that coming,” Rini began, “and that’s why we’re on a safety line.”
“Great,” Mati grumbled. “Now if you guys die, I’ll have to pilot the ship all the way to Satamia Star Station by myself, right Ilika?”
The captain chuckled. “With Manessa’s help.”
“I guess I’d better pay attention during language lessons!”
“Yes,” Ilika agreed, “but also, we’ll try not to die.”
Everyone fell silent. They could see the clouds rapidly rising to engulf the peak, and took the remaining few moments to enjoy the view. Other white peaks jutted above the clouds in every direction, all at lower elevations. In places, far away, they thought they could glimpse dark forests coating the lower flanks of the mountains. Southward, a hint of blue might be an ocean.
The mist quickly rose around them. Not like any fog they had ever seen, it shimmered with countless tiny ice crystals. Sata reached for Boro’s hand, and Kibi reached out for both Ilika and Rini.
“We’re in the cloud now, Mati,” Ilika shared. “Sight-seeing is over and we’ll be heading back.”
Boro moaned. “I don’t like this, Ilika. It’s like . . . I can’t even remember which direction I was just looking.”
“I feel cold, even though I’m not,” Sata reported.
“No one moves until I say so,” Ilika said firmly.
“No problem,” Kibi assured. “I’m shaking inside too much. Just don’t ask me to let go of your hand. I can’t see anything but your hand, and Rini’s.”
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“Rini, how are you doing?” Ilika asked, unable to see the boy just a few meters away.
“I like this shimmery stuff. It almost feels like I’m floating in it. I’m okay.”
“Kibi, I’m going to need my hand for climbing,” Ilika asserted, “and so is Rini. What else do you have that feels solid and reliable?”
“Um . . . there’s a rock under me, and some ice,” she said with a trembling voice. “I guess . . . they’re not going anywhere. The safety line was connected to you and Rini last time I could see.”
Ilika tugged on the line.
“I felt that!”
Rini tugged from the other direction and chuckled.
“Okay! It’s still connected.”
“Boro, are you going to be okay bringing up the rear?” Ilika asked without any visual contact.
“I . . . um . . .” he began, but had to stop and breathe several times. “This is so unreal . . . my head’s swimming . . . I feel so stupid!”
“Can you feel the rock under you?” Sata asked.
“Yeah.”
“Do you have plenty of air to breathe?”
“Yeah.”
“What else do you need?” Sata asked.
“Um . . . I guess . . . nothing . . . as long as someone else is leading.”
“Rini is leading,” Ilika announced. “It’s his mountain. He has to get us back to the ship.”
Everyone heard Rini chuckle again. Somehow the sound gave all of them a little extra courage.
“Anything I can do?” Mati asked from the ship.
“Just open the hatch when we get there,” Ilika replied.
“Sounds easy enough.”
“Everyone let go of hands,” Ilika commanded, “and take a moment to feel the solid rocks under you, the good air to breathe, and the strong safety line between us.”
He sensed Kibi’s reluctance to let go.
“I’ve been remembering the way back,” Rini shared, “and I don’t think it
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will take long.”
“Kibi, you ready?” Ilika asked.
“Ready,” she said in a voice somewhere between panic and courage.
“Ready,” Sata said, shivering.
“R . . . ready,” Boro forced out.
Once they began the return journey of about a hundred meters, everyone was too busy dealing with the rocks and ice to worry about the lack of visual clues. Ilika feared that Boro would drag his feet, but the engineer stayed right behind the navigator. Ilika could hear Kibi’s shaking breath, though he could rarely see her in the icy mist.
When Rini finally said, “I see a golden ball that’s too big to be a bird’s egg,”
noises of relief flowed up and down the safety line.
A moment later the hatch opened, and each person slapped hands with their pilot where she sat at the steward’s station wearing her breathing mask.
When the hatch closed and the ship repressurized, masks came off and long embraces were shared until everyone quit trembling.
Rini and Mati held hands, but neither was in distress. A kiss, however, seemed right.
Deep Learning Notes
Why was Mati never bored when riding her donkey, but then, with only thrusters (“jet engines”) available, she craved more speed?
All but the most extreme air turbulence and wind shear (rapid changes of wind direction) are merely inconvenient while flying, but become very dangerous when trying to land.
Disorientation in fog or darkness is a serious challenge for most people. Have you ever had to walk a short distance without useful vision? What feelings did you experience? Did you have any trouble getting to your destination?
