The next morning, Sata laughed when she realized the ship was still sitting on the bottom of the frigid, dark polar ocean. By that time, she already had a video of birds in flight on the main screen in the passenger area, and a mug of hot tea in hand.
“How did you sleep?” Ilika asked with a slight smile.
Sata laughed again, this time with a tone of resignation. “I think . . . I know what it means to be part of a team now. What happened to me . . .
makes me remember Buna at the pool in the tunnels. You never abandoned her as long as she was willing to try something. I almost wish she could be with us now.”
“Me too,” Ilika agreed. “She worked hard to overcome her weaknesses.”
Several others nodded as they sipped tea.
“I wonder if she’s found Noni yet,” Kibi pondered aloud.
“I think she’ll look until she does,” Boro began. “But if they do get together, they’ll have to be careful and hide their relationship from the priests, won’t they?”
“From everybody!” Kibi emphasized.
“Ilika . . .” Rini began thoughtfully from the galley, “in Nebador, can anyone have a close relationship with anyone else, no matter who or what they are?”
“Within the Nebador Services, yes.”
Rini
nodded.
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“Only people,” Ilika continued, “get it into their heads they can tell others what kinds of relationships are okay.”
After a moment of thoughtful silence, Rini’s eyes opened wide. “You mean
. . . Nebador isn’t run by people?”
“That’s
right.”
Several crew members exchanged funny looks, but didn’t know what else to say.
Butterflies flitted about on one part of her display as Sata made sure everyone, especially her dear friend Mati, had the necessary charts at their fingertips.
After an ion-drive journey through the cold water from the north axial pole to the nearest continental shelf, Mati guided the little ship through shallow water looking for a hole in the ice. Marine mammals and wingless diving birds told them an opening was near, and with Ilika’s approval, Mati nudged some floating blocks of ice farther apart so the ship could take to the air.
Sata picked a view of the winter sun, not far above the horizon, and put away her butterfly video. Then she turned her attention to clearance checking for another ion flight, this time through the atmosphere.
“Location eleven is near the equator,” Ilika explained. “It’s a city that Kibi requested, very different from the first.”
“Good,” the steward said, coming down to the bridge.
“Kibi is in command,” Ilika announced, getting up. “We will be using ion level three, the fastest that can be used through air. Clearance is four thousand meters.”
“We have a mountain range at almost seven thousand,” Sata reported, studying her screen, “so we need thirteen thousand meters, Mati.”
After Kibi got status reports from everyone, she swiveled to look at Ilika.
“Could anyone see us at that speed?”
“We’d look just like a shooting star.”
Stone temples and wide avenues covered the top of a plateau that rose a thousand meters above a broad river valley teeming with farms and villages.
Carts and people with baskets could be seen slowly ascending the four roads
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that connected the lowlands with the city above. Goods of all kinds went up, empty carts returned as the drivers reined back the animals and pulled constantly on the brake levers.
“Nothing like that other city,” Rini observed as he selected several down-angle views and made them available to his shipmates. “I think I like this city better . . . but I’m not sure yet.”
“It’s clean,” Sata noted, arranging all the external views side-by-side on her display. “Plenty of food, and not too many people.”
Boro tapped at his controls. “Thrusters level one. Something’s very different about this place, almost like . . . someone took paper and drew it neatly before it was built.”
“Is that a group of slaves?” Kibi asked, peering intently at the large screen directly in front of the command chair.
Everyone saw where she was pointing, then looked more closely at their own displays.
“Could be,” Mati said, leisurely moving her flight control. “But they aren’t being put to work, just kept in a group.”
As soon as Rini figured out which view they were talking about, he magnified the image.
“Thanks, Rini,” Kibi said. “They’re all young girls. One’s being led away, but she’s dragging her feet. Ilika, does Manessa know anything about this city?”
“Yes,” he said from the steward’s station. “I’m reading about it now, but I want you to learn all you can by observing.”
Boro tapped at his display selector. “It looks like a parade or ritual. The girls are trying to get away, but the guards won’t let them. I bet the one with the weird mask is a priest.”
Rini increased the magnification. “The girls are all in fancy dresses and their hair is nice. They can’t be slaves.”
“If they’re in fancy dresses, why are they trying to get away?” Sata wondered aloud.
Kibi squinted. “They’re heading for that round building. Rini, would you magnify it?”
Sounds of shock and disgust came from all over the bridge as they gazed at
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the ugly open-mouthed demonic sculpture that formed one of the doorways to the temple. Even as they watched, a girl of about eight years, richly-robed and wearing flashy jewelry, was dragged through the open mouth into the building.
“I don’t like this,” Kibi said with feeling. “Mati, let’s look at the other doors.”
As the ship moved around the temple, the other three doors slowly came into view, each a different grotesque stone sculpture with the doorway going right through the figure’s open mouth. Another group arrived, led by a priest, and one of the captive girls was forced through the doorway.
Boro cleared his throat. “I have a hunch I know what’s going on . . . and we’re not going to like it. Rini, can Manessa pick up sound at this distance?”
Rini looked at Ilika, and the captain stepped to the watch console to demonstrate some new controls.
“Mati,” Rini began, “if you’ll hold Manessa steady in sight of one of the doors . . .”
The pilot locked the ship’s position with a good view of the nearest door.
The captain, from Satamia in Nebador, and his crew of five from a little kingdom far to the north on another continent, heard deep-throated words chanted by the priests as a girl was dragged inside, kicking and screaming.
None of the words meant anything to any of them, but the chanting was cold and cruel, and the girl screamed with fear and anger.
When the chanting reached a climax, the girl screamed one last time, long and blood-curdling, and the sound echoed and faded away slowly, ending with a barely-heard thud.
Kibi and Mati both wiped at their eyes as they gathered around the big table to discuss what they had seen and heard. Boro wore a frown. Sata and Rini had far-away looks in their eyes. Ilika set a plate of crackers in the middle, and an empty bowl, just in case.
“Did you guess right, Boro?” Ilika asked to break the ice.
“Yeah. The girls are sacrifices.”
“What good does that do?” Mati challenged.
After a long silence, Rini looked up. “I think . . . the four ugly things . . .
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are gods . . . and the priests are feeding them . . .” His gaze returned to the tabletop.
“I know what you’re gonna say, Ilika,” Kibi began, “but I want to rescue them so badly, I can taste it.”
“So . . . you want to start a new religion to replace the one they have? Are you willing to stay and be the leader of that new religion?”
Kibi scowled. “Couldn’t I just . . . give them a new revelation . . . you know, the voice of God speaking from the golden ball in the sky? I’d just tell them no more sacrifices.”
“They’d have your revelation twisted to their own purposes in a week,”
Ilika predicted.
“And if you stayed,” Rini speculated, “they’d find a way to make you their next sacrifice.”
Kibi
frowned.
Ilika nodded. “Sacrificing prophets is a long-standing tradition in most religions, especially when they try to make changes in the established ways.”
“Damn!” Kibi breathed with frustration.
Deep Learning Notes
The value that Ilika shared, the freedom of “consenting adults” to enter into relationships, has been a goal of freedom-loving people all through history.
We have made progress in that direction, but it is a constant struggle against people in both politics and religion who enjoy controlling others without good reason.
Can you imagine a civilization in which “people” aren’t in charge?
On our planet, at the edge of the northern polar ice cap, the marine mammals are mostly seals, walruses, and bears. Our “wingless diving birds” are only found around the southern ice cap. What are they called?
7000 + 4000 = 13000?
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Human and animal sacrifices are not part of most religions today, but they were once a common part of human culture. Our concept of deity (god and other spiritual persons) has changed slowly over the thousands of years of human pre-history and history. As our concept changed, so we changed the ways we relate to deity. The god(s) to whom human and animal sacrifices were made were thought of as cruel, vengeful, and angry. Some people still have that concept of deity today.
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Chapter 28: The Lost City of the Atorura The Manessa Kwi sat on a rock outcropping completely surrounded by jungle. Warm, humid air came through the open hatch as the crew lounged around the passenger area.
“Your next destination is the lost city of the Atorura tribe.” After saying this, Ilika stepped into the galley and started pulling out ingredients for dinner.
The five crew members looked at each other. Kibi sat down at her station and opened the destination list that had always before included latitude and longitude in Manessa’s planetary coordinate system. Destination number eleven was on the list, but said no more than Ilika had already told them.
“Um . . . Ilika . . . we don’t know where that is.”
Ilika poured a measure of dried vegetables into the cooking pot. “You have to find it. Everything necessary to do so is available to you.”
After a long silence, Boro sighed. “It’s a puzzle.”
“You’re not fond of puzzles, are you?” Sata asked from where she swiveled in one of the passenger seats.
“No. I like knowing what I’m supposed to do and getting to work.”
“Any time limit?” Rini asked from where he lay on the floor, hands behind his head, eyes sparkling.
“No,” Ilika replied, stirring spices into the pot. “Manessa says it takes most crews several days to solve a puzzle like this.”
Boro
moaned.
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“Manessa,” Mati began, speaking to the air, “do you have any records of an Ato . . . rura tribe?”
“Atorura. A tribal nation of about seven thousand humans who currently inhabit one large and several small islands in the eastern ocean of this planet at coordinates . . .”
Sata dashed to her station and quickly had the correct chart on her screen.
“Got it.” Touching other controls, she centered and enlarged the group of islands and sent the chart to all stations.
“I’m putting it on the big screen back here,” Kibi announced.
Rini sat up next to Mati’s seat and gazed at the display. “Okay, there’s a big village, three small ones, and several fishing camps. I don’t see any lost city.”
They studied the chart for the next quarter hour, occasionally asking Sata to enlarge a section of the main island, or one of the small outlying islands. As Ilika worked on his soup, a pleasant aroma began to fill the ship.
As time passed, Boro started making frustrated growling noises. “There is no lost city on any of these islands, no way, no how.”
“If it was on the chart,” Rini said with a subtle smile, “it wouldn’t be lost.”
Mati laughed and ruffled his hair.
Boro growled again.
“Manessa,” Kibi began, “do your records about the Atorura tribe say anything about a lost city?”
“The Atorura have a legend about a city that was once their home. They no longer know its location.”
“Do
you know its location?” Sata asked, coming up from the bridge.
“No.”
Silence settled over the entire crew as Ilika molded biscuits and spaced them evenly on a baking pan.
“We’re stumped,” Boro declared, chin in his hands.
“We’ve barely started!” Rini countered while Mati ran her fingers through his hair. “We just have to find out where they came from.”
“Manessa,” Mati began, “do you have any records about the Atorura from the past?”
“I have a large collection of oral traditions about their past migrations.”
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“We need to read them and look for clues,” Kibi asserted.
Boro
moaned.
“Boro . . .” Kibi began, a mischievous gleam in her eyes, “I’d like you to be our reader. Sata and I will help.”
“Me? I’m not that good reading our language. I’m terrible at Manessa’s!”
“I know,” Kibi said.
Ilika kept his eyes on the soup he was stirring.
“I was . . . just a little . . . boy . . . when my father . . . guided our . . . boat
. . . from island to island . . . always northward . . . ” Boro, with Sata at his side, slowly worked through one of the stories of the Atorura. The other three listened thoughtfully, searching for clues.
“We thought we had . . . found a new . . . home, but the . . . fishing was poor so we . . . returned to the ocean way that went . . . northwest. ”
“Wait!” Rini begged. “Ocean way. What does that mean?”
“I don’t know!” Boro responded with frustration.
“A ‘way’ on land is a road or trail,” Sata began, “but that doesn’t make any sense in the ocean.”
“It feels like it’s important,” Kibi suggested. “Manessa, if a boat was left to drift on the ocean without sails or rudder, what would happen to it?”
“The boat would follow the ocean currents, unless caught by the breaking waves near an island.”
Ilika wandered through and silently sat down at the watch station.
“Manessa,” Mati asked hopefully, “do you have ocean current charts in your memory?”
“No.”
Boro growled again.
The engineer struggled, with Sata’s help, through several more stories, none of which included any clear locations or directions. Sometimes the
“ocean way” went one way, sometimes another, but with rare exceptions, the Atorura followed it.
Suddenly Rini, massaging Mati’s shoulders, burst out laughing.
“What?” Mati asked, swiveling around in the chair since her massage had
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stopped.
“We asked the wrong question! Manessa, do you have ocean current charts in memory?”
“No.”
“Can you make them if we fly over the ocean?”
“Yes.”
All five crew members looked at each other with big smiles. As evening light was rapidly fading from the sky outside, no one suggested they do anything that day, but they were all in silent agreement about their first task in the morning.
Mati locked the ship’s position high in the sky directly above the current home of the Atorura tribe, a fairly large island in an otherwise nearly empty ocean. The horizon curved in every direction, giving the five crew members their first direct evidence that they lived on a round planet.
Rini, with Ilika at his side, began the ocean current mapping process, and Sata carefully matched the data with her charts as soon as each area was completed.
“Now this is more like it!” Boro proclaimed happily from the engineer’s station. “We’re doing something.”
After settling the ship onto a small uninhabited island, little more than a sand spit with a few trees, they gathered around the big table and gazed at the new chart Sata just printed. It covered all the islands in that part of the eastern ocean, and little arrows revealed the surrounding ocean currents.
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“I had no idea there were rivers in the ocean,” Mati shared, standing on one leg so she could see.
“They definitely came from the south,” Rini observed.
Boro growled. “This is the part I hate.”
Rini glanced at Kibi, and she nodded just enough for him to see.
“Boro,” Rini began, “would you draw the route the tribe probably took, working backwards along the little arrows?”
Boro
moaned.
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With coaxing, Boro managed to complete his analysis of the ocean currents that eventually arrived at Atorura Island. The route snaked among many small islands, originating deep in the southern hemisphere as a branch of an even larger current.
“Okay, I get it,” Boro began with a smirk. “You guys aren’t going to let me avoid learning anything . . .”
They shook their heads.
“Sata and Mati had to sink or swim together,” Rini reminded him. “Same goes for all five of us, together, if we really want to be Manessa’s crew.”
Boro sighed, but a tiny smile was starting to show. To cover his embarrassment, he looked at the chart again. “Okay. They followed this wiggly river in the ocean, except for a few times when they got cocky and found poor fishing.”
“So they always came back to the current,” Sata added, “from what we’ve read so far.”
“And since they only moved their village one or two islands between father and son . . .” Rini began.
“Or mother and daughter . . .” Kibi added with a smile.
Rini grinned. “Yeah. So the journey took them a long time, maybe hundreds of years.”
“Wow,” Boro breathed softly, suddenly amazed by the complexity of the puzzle they were trying to solve.
“But we don’t know,” Mati began with a wrinkled brow, “where along this wiggly line their city was. We need to read more. I’d be glad to do some.”
Boro took a deep breath. “Um . . . no thanks. I’m starting to catch up with you and Rini. I’ll never read like Kibi or Sata, but it would be nice to not be, you know, dead last.”
Kibi smiled, and Sata kissed him lightly on the cheek.
“In the . . . old city, the . . . temple had many . . . seeing chairs so the . . .
priests could watch the sun, the . . . moon, and the . . . stars. ”
Boro looked up from his knowledge pad. Everyone gave him blank looks.
“They saw many . . . creatures in the stars. The . . . Serpent and the . . .
Clam were always . . . high in the sky. The . . . Eel and the . . . Pig were . . .
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shy, only showing themselves part of the time. ”
“Constellations,” Rini suggested.
“But nothing useful . . .” Kibi proposed with a questioning look, glancing around the table.
No one responded, so Boro continued.
“The Great . . . Turtle would drink from the ocean each day, but her . . .
feet stayed dry. When the people . . . left the city, the Great Turtle . . . dove under the water longer and longer. ”
When Boro paused again, Kibi frowned. “That sounds important . . . I think . . . maybe . . . sorta.”
Rini closed his eyes. “If I was on an island, and I looked east or west, I’d see stars coming from or going into the ocean. But if I looked north or south, some stars would just skim the horizon.”
“So . . .” Mati began thoughtfully, “if there was a constellation that looked like a turtle, and it just touched the horizon where they used to live . . .”
“And then they traveled north . . .” Sata added.
“And it started dipping below the horizon . . .” Boro recalled from his reading.
“They were looking south,” Rini said firmly.
“Um . . . um . . . yeah,” Mati confirmed, eyes closed as she tried to picture it.
Boro let out a long sigh and smiled.
Sata was so good at locating planetary charts that she could do it with one hand while sipping tea and talking to Mati. Star charts were another matter.
Ilika knelt beside her as she learned how to select viewing location, direction, brightness of the stars, and many other factors. Grid lines could be based on planetary, solar system, or local universe references. Finally, the time could be the present, any point in the past, or far into the future. Rini and Mati stood near and paid close attention, while Kibi and Boro listened from their stations.
Once Sata was ready to manipulate the star-studded display, their problem became recognition. Manessa could not help to identify a constellation that had once reminded a long-dead tribal priest of a turtle. They all remembered
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the puzzle of the jar of flowers, so Kibi was made to sit in the command chair where she could see the large bridge display. The others got comfortable at their stations. Sata slowly changed the options for time of day, season of the year, and latitude from deep in the southern hemisphere, north to Atorura Island. They could hear Ilika making something in the galley.
During the next hour, Kibi found not one, but three possibilities. Rini found a fourth. With each discovery, Sata adjusted the star chart parameters so the turtle would just touch the horizon during the course of a day. She announced the latitude and displayed the proper planetary chart.
“Damn!” Boro cursed each time they discovered nothing but open ocean or tiny desert islands at the proper latitude.
When they ran out of turtles, the entire crew wandered slowly up to the
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passenger area, dragging their feet and looking at the floor. Although their minds were elsewhere, something spicy tickled their noses, and a sweet aroma brought smiles.
When he plopped into a seat, Boro noticed that the stars were still displayed over Kibi’s station, so for lack of anything else to do, he stared at them.
Suddenly he saw something in the stars, but the moment he thought about it, the shape was gone and he couldn’t find it again. “Sata . . . you can pick the brightness of the stars you display, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Would you do me a favor and get rid of all those dim stars?”
“I suppose.” Sata dragged herself back to her station. “How’s that?”
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“There’s our four stupid turtles,” Kibi commented, chin in her hands.
“Please, get rid of more stars,” Boro begged, eyes intently fixed on the display screen. “I want just the very brightest.”
“O . . . kay,” Sata said half-heartedly as she poked at her controls.
Suddenly Boro was on his feet, dancing a clumsy victory jig. “Yes! I did it!
Look! We forgot one word in the story.” He grabbed a knowledge pad from the table and tapped at the controls to find the right page. “It said serpent, clam, eel, and pig. Then it said great turtle. Not little turtle, and not just plain old turtle. There’s the Great Turtle!”
Everyone was standing around the table now, including Ilika, gazing up at Boro’s discovery. Sata dashed back to her station, quickly had a latitude at which the Great Turtle touched the horizon, and a moment later replaced the
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stars with the planetary chart where the latitude crossed the ocean current.
They could all see a fairly large island in the center of the chart, with lowlands for growing food, upland plateaus for building or grazing animals, and mountains to catch the rainfall.
“I had a hunch you were getting close,” Ilika said with a smile, “so I made dessert and chilled a carton of tasty primola juice.”
Deep Learning Notes
When the crew first discussed the puzzle, what personality difference could clearly be seen between Boro and Rini?
What aspect of leadership was Kibi performing when she asked Boro to read the Atorura records?
The ship gave the crew a good example of the difference between sentience/intelligence and sapience/wisdom. It answered the question about ocean current charts truthfully. The leap from that, to a way to create the charts, required the application of a “value” (a spiritual concept) by a sapient mind. What value did Rini apply?
Ocean currents are caused by many factors, primarily the rotation of the planet, the heating or cooling of the water at different latitudes, and the shape of the land. They are not completely stable, but change from season to season because of temperature, and also have multi-year cycles that we don’t completely understand.
What attitude (or spiritual “value”) did it take for Boro to accept the fact that his fellow shipmates were not going to let him get too far behind at any of the skills they needed? How common is that attitude in humans?
Parts of the ocean away from currents often have poor fishing because the ocean currents transport many living things and the nutrients they need for
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food. Large areas of still water tend to be relatively lifeless.
Small, low islands that are just sand and a few trees are called “desert islands”
because they don’t stick up high enough to catch any rainwater from the clouds, and so have no fresh (non-salty) drinking water. One of these may be the last resting place of Emelia Earhart.
Kibi’s remark about mothers and daughters may actually be relevant to the Atorura culture. In our own history, there is a tendency for small, stable tribal societies, and sometimes federations of tribes, to be matriarchal (ruled mostly by women) and matrilineal (family lineage traced through mothers). The patriarchal and patrilineal society we have today can be traced back to ancient Greece, and before that, to migrating groups from central Asia.
Constellations are logical groupings of stars based on animals or other things they resemble. They are not reliable astronomical references because the constellations are all different sizes, and different people, in different cultures or at different times, will see different things in the stars.
At night, stars appear to “rise” and “set,” just as the sun does during the day (and in the same direction), because of the rotation of the planet. We see this when looking east or west.
When the Atorura journeyed north, and began to see less and less of the Great Turtle constellation in their southern sky, what was blocking their view?
The controls Sata had available when selecting star charts are about the same as those in any good planetarium computer program, except that we only know the view from Earth, and local universe reference grids are not, of course, available.
What skill did Kibi (and Buna) show with the flower puzzle in NEBADOR
Book One that caused her friends to select her for constellation-recognition duty?
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As Boro discovered, not all the pattern-recognition abilities of our minds are under our conscious control. Sometimes they come when we least expect them (including during dream-filled sleep). Boro, although he glimpsed the pattern, was not used to listening to his intuition, so probably had a harder time “holding onto” the information than Kibi or Rini would have. How did he compensate for that weakness?
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Chapter 29: The Old, the Hot, and the Cold The ruins of the lost city of the Atorura tribe spread out on a plateau on the south side of the island, giving a view of the southern sky right down to the ocean. Stone blocks and simple statues lay at odd angles, with grass and bushes growing wherever they could. Few walls stood, and no roofs.
After setting the ship down on a level area that may have once been a plaza, the crew of the Manessa Kwi laced their boots, grabbed sun hats and mission bracelets, and crept about the ruins they had worked so hard to find.
“It seems like . . .” Rini began, struggling to express a thought as he balanced on a crumbling stone wall, “our old kingdom is the present . . .
Nebador is the future . . . and places like this are the past.”
“This place sure is the past for someone,” Boro commented from the top of a stone block. “I don’t think anyone’s been here for . . . centuries!”
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“I wonder why they left,” Kibi pondered aloud from her knees, examining a bit of tile floor that was still intact.
“Maybe the rest of the stories Manessa has in memory will tell us,” Mati suggested, slowly walking along beside Sata. “I want to finish reading them.”
“Me
too!”
“Yeah!”
Boro thought for a moment. “Me too, and I want to do at least half the reading.”
Ilika, exploring some ruins off to one side of the plaza, smiled to himself, then took a good, hard look at what lay before him. “I think I found it.”
“What?” Kibi asked, walking that way.
“The temple, where they observed the sun, moon, and stars.”
As the others gathered, they gazed at the rubble and weed-choked circular space, slightly lower than the surrounding streets, with four stone towers in various stages of collapse.
“Kibi, would you see how those towers are aligned, please?”
“Um . . . if I can remember . . .” she mumbled as she opened the cover of her mission bracelet, tapped at the little keys, and slowly moved until she was lined up with two of the towers. “Yep . . . axial north and south.”
“I thought so,” Ilika said. “It was a simple astronomical observatory. I bet there are all sorts of interesting markings on the circular floor down there.”
Boro looked at the rubble. “We could clean it out. None of those stones are very big.”
“It’s not ours, Boro. It belongs to this world, and someday the people of this world will discover the lost city of the Atorura tribe and learn many things from it. We are just visitors, here to carry out our mission and depart, changing things as little as possible.”
“It’s strange to think we’re not part of this world anymore,” Rini mused.
“But I like the idea.”
The mutiny was unanimous. Not one person, of the five Ilika had chosen for his crew, was willing to leave until the sun had set, the sky darkened, and they had seen the Great Turtle constellation with their own eyes.
Ilika chuckled and went up the ramp to make dinner.
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After they had all gazed at the star-studded sky to their hearts’ content, easily locating the Great Turtle and speculating about some of the other constellations, they finally returned to the ship.
But to Ilika’s surprise, they completely ignored the food and drink on the table and gathered around Sata at her station. She entered star chart parameters, then stepped the hour forward until they were all laughing.
“We just learned something,” Kibi announced with embarrassment as she sat down at the table.
“We couldn’t figure out why the Great Turtle wasn’t drinking,” Mati explained.
“Sata knew,” Boro added, smiling at her with pride.
“The Great Turtle will take its drink tomorrow about an hour before sunset,” Sata revealed with a slight pout, “so we won’t be able to see it.”
“How long would we have to wait here for it to happen at night?” Ilika asked with a gleam in his eyes.
Rini squinted for a moment. “About half a year.”
Eleven-year-old Sata, a medieval innkeeper’s daughter, squirmed a little as she got comfortable in the command chair of the deep-space response ship.
She was painfully aware of her ongoing battle with panic whenever they went anywhere dark and gloomy, especially if it included a great weight over her head. Luckily, both their current location, and their destination, were light and airy. She glanced at her friend Mati, unable to walk without a crutch.
After swallowing a couple of times, Sata took a deep breath and forced herself to smile.
As her fellow crew members completed diagnostic and routine starting procedures, they turned to her for orders.
“Wow,” she breathed as a shiver tingled along her spine. “Um . . . status reports?”
Everything was working and ready, and they knew the exact latitude and longitude of their destination. Boro was clearly happy with the situation.
A few minutes later, Mati announced their arrival. “The hottest desert in the world is a thousand meters below.”
“Sata,” the captain said from the navigator’s chair, “you should work with
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Kibi to select a good landing site.”
“What do you think, Kibi?”
“Hmm . . . you want dunes or salt flats?” the steward asked, glancing at view after view on her display.
“We’ve seen lots of dunes. Let’s go for salt flats.”
A minute later the pilot settled the ship onto a large expanse of crusty white minerals. As soon as Kibi opened the hatch, an oppressive heat invaded the ship even though the day was young.
Protected by sun hats, all six crept down the ramp, but no one showed any desire to go far.
“Does anyone live here?” Sata asked.
“Yes,” Ilika replied, “but they stay close to the mountains where water can be found. They would rarely, if ever, come here.”
“Since I’m steward,” Kibi began, “I guess it’s my job to say we can’t stay long. Mati and Rini look wilted already.”
“I’m not far behind,” Sata declared, shading her eyes.
Ilika nodded. “This is an environment we can tolerate for a few minutes, but we have to quickly do whatever needs to be done, and keep an eye on each other. Any hotter and we’d just stay inside, or use radiation suits.”
“Those are the white ones?” Boro asked, squinting at the shimmering horizon.
“Yes.”
“I think we’ve done what we came to do,” Kibi announced, seeing Mati limp toward the ramp. “You feel done, Sata?”
“Yeah. We can peek at other parts of this desert from a nice, cool ship.”
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A few minutes later, the Manessa Kwi hovered over a small oasis. Water bubbled out of the ground and was channeled to gardens and watering troughs. Brown-skinned people kept to the shade of the hundred or so trees as they tended their animals. Children ran out of thick mud houses, but quickly returned.
At the base of the nearby mountains, a boy and girl sat in the half-light of a cave entrance, shelling nuts. A handful of small goats occasionally poked their heads into the blistering sunlight, but quickly retreated. As Mati moved the ship up and over the barren mountains, Rini spotted the nut trees in a deep and shaded canyon.
When Sata declared she had seen enough of the hottest desert on the planet, she gladly returned to the navigation station and began nimbly selecting charts as Mati guided the ship southward.
“The next destination is across thirty-one thousand kilometers of open ocean,” Sata announced as she sent the new flight plan to Mati.
Mati studied the plan as she took the Manessa Kwi up to five thousand meters with one hand. “I want ion drive three, Boro, unless Ilika wants me to go slower.”
“Clearance check,” Ilika ordered.
“Highest land, before we get to the coast, is seven hundred and thirty-two meters,” Sata said.
“I’m ending the ion jump a hundred kilometers short of the far shore,”
Mati added. “We’re at five thousand meters now.”
“Ion three approved,” Ilika said.
“Warming up,” Boro reported. “Ion three, zero inertia, at your service.”
After Ilika checked with Rini and Kibi, Mati sent the ship streaking toward the planet’s south pole.
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A three-hundred-meter wall of solid ice loomed above as Mati nudged the ship toward the coastline. Their visit to the North Pole had done nothing to prepare them for the spectacle before their eyes. As they watched, huge slabs of ice broke free of the frozen white cliffs and plunged, in slow motion, into the frigid blue water below. Huge waves of water and ice rushed toward them.
Mati took the ship up a little higher.
“External audio, Rini,” Ilika requested.
A moment later the ship was filled with an eerie groaning sound. Even as they watched and listened, a sudden loud crack made most of them jump.
They saw, heard, and felt another massive chunk of ice slowly peel away from the glacier wall and plunge downward. Seconds later, it smashed into the floating ice with an explosion of sound and flying shards. They felt, more than heard, the resulting wave of black water and white ice that rushed beneath the ship.
“Hatch is half-open,” Kibi announced.
The crew went off-duty two at a time to take a closer look at the fury of the glacier. Sata closed her eyes when a large column of ice came crashing down, but forced herself to open them before it hit the water.
“We are so lucky,” Mati said at her side. “No one in our kingdom will ever see this.”
“Or the hottest desert,” Sata added.
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“I don’t know which one is scarier.”
“This one, to me,” Sata declared. “We’d be in trouble, either place, without a good ship.”
“Yeah. I’m cold. You ready to go up?”
Sata put her arm around her friend and helped her to her station.
For the next two hours, the ship and its crew flew slowly over the ice continent, pausing to look at deep glacial crevasses, bare rocky peaks, and lakes of summer melt-water with nowhere to drain.
Swimming mammals and birds lined the coast where it came down to meet the water. Flying birds penetrated a few kilometers inland, pecking at clumps of wiry grass and building nests on the ground.
The ion drive brought them to the south axial pole where a blizzard was in progress. Mati landed by instruments, and each crew member braved a minute of fine ice crystals in the face at the half-open hatch.
After another quick flight, Mati and Kibi selected a level ice field near the south magnetic pole. The weather was clear, and the sun still up, but they all knew it had been a long day. Four of them left the bridge to make dinner and relax, while Ilika taught Rini how to scan for magnetic fields.
As they ate, they gazed at the large display over the steward’s station, currently showing Rini’s multi-colored fountain of magnetic field lines emerging from the nearby pole.
“Almost makes me dizzy,” Boro shared.
“It’s wonderful how Manessa can help us see things we usually can’t,” Mati began. “I use elevation color-coding all the time.”
“That’s even more important in space,” Ilika explained. “Most of what’s out there is invisible.”
Rini smiled with anticipation, a far-away look in his eyes.
After bowls of hot cereal the following morning, and half an hour of sliding around on the ice, they returned to the little ship to warm their hands and feet.
“Mati, you are in command,” Ilika announced as he took the pilot’s station.
“I don’t know if I selected the most beautiful hot springs on the planet, but the
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ones at location fourteen are pretty close, and easy to get into.”
“After freezing my toes out there, hot water sounds very nice,” Mati declared, leaning her crutch against the command chair.
Sata got the coordinates and started a flight plan. “I see why you put this after the ice continent, Ilika. It’s on the other side of the planet from that desert.”
“Overcast ceiling at two thousand meters most of the way,” Rini reported.
“Clear above five thousand.”
“Landing site secure,” Kibi added. “We need water soon.”
“The mountains just beyond the hot springs should take care of that,” Ilika said.
“You have anti-mass,” Boro declared, “and the ion drive is green. We never seem to get low on fuel.”
“It takes very little to poke around on the surface of a planet,” Ilika explained. “When we start going into and out of orbit, we’ll use more and have to plan carefully.”
“Let’s stay below the clouds,” Mati said. “I want to see the swimming birds again.”
“Thrusters three, ion one,” Ilika requested.
Boro verified the acting pilot’s flight command.
Ilika took the ship up to a thousand meters, then headed for the coast.
“There’s a small ice shelf on our way that should be teeming with birds and mammals. They’re called ‘penguins’ and ‘seals’ in some places, but I don’t think your language has words for them.”
A few minutes later, Ilika hovered while Rini sent views of the marine birds and mammals to all stations. Mati chuckled as the seals, barking happily, slid across the ice and dove into the water. Kibi smiled at the sight of a penguin carrying an egg between its legs as it waddled along.
Eventually Mati felt ready to say good-bye to the ice continent. Looking around the ship at her crewmates, they all nodded or smiled, so she gave the order to prepare for the ion jump. A few moments later everyone was ready, so she nodded to Ilika.
“Wait!” Rini yelled. “There’s someone down there!”
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Deep Learning Notes
The chapter title is a word-play on the classic western “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.”
“Axial” north and south is what we would expect of the alignment of an observatory of a civilization that watched the sun, moon, and stars. Two points in the sky, one directly over each axial pole, do not appear to move as the stars make their daily journey across the night sky. In our sky, the star Polaris is very close to being directly over the north pole. It is the last star on the tail of the constellation Ursa Minor (Little Bear), or the last star on the handle of the “Little Dipper.”
“Magnetic” north and south, the other possibility, requires a delicate instrument that few early civilizations had (the compass), and it changes from year to year, making it a poor choice for building alignment.
What is the difference in attitude between (1) being from a planet and feeling free to dig things up, and (2) being visitors who want to change things as little as possible?
What did we learn about Rini by his reaction to being “not part of this world anymore”?
The crew could not see the Great Turtle “drink” (touch the ocean horizon) because, on any one day of the year, we can only see about half the sky. The other half is “up” during the day, so the sun prevents us from seeing the much-dimmer stars. It was just bad luck that on that particular day of the year, the Great Turtle “drank” during the day.
If the Great Turtle was a constellation in Earth’s sky, and it “drank” at 4:00
pm, a month later it would “drink” at 2:00 pm, then 12:00 noon, etc., until 6
months later, it would finally “drink” at about 4:00 am and could be seen.
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On Earth, the hottest deserts experience temperatures in the summer of about 60°C (140°F, 333°K).
Ilika judged the hottest desert, in summer, to be an environment they could only endure for “a few minutes” without special clothing. What other environments have they endured for “a few minutes” that would require special clothing for a longer stay? (In one of them, only Kibi went out briefly in regular clothing.)
The water at a desert oasis allows food and shade trees to grow, and a few people and animals to live. Such an ecological “niche” shows clearly the minimum requirements for a human habitation: soil, fresh water, and a tolerable temperature range.
An oasis where water “bubbles out of the ground” is the luckiest kind. Called an “artesian” well, it saves the labor of hauling or pumping the water out of a regular well.
When a glacier meets the sea, it is undermined at the bottom by the water until huge chunks fall from the slowly-creeping wall of ice. This is sometimes called “glacial calving.”
On Earth, the south axial pole is on land covered by a thick polar glacier. The resulting elevation is 2835m (9301 feet), most of which is ice. It was first visited by people and dogs in 1911, then seen from the air in 1929. The temperature can plunge to about -80°C (-112°F, 193°K).
Making something visible that is usually invisible is the task of all instruments. Rini used the ship’s sensors and displays to make the south magnetic pole visible. What instruments are found in most cars that make things visible that are hard or impossible to know otherwise?
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Chapter 30: People Where None Should Be
Ilika quickly drew his finger back from the ion drive symbol, then locked the ship’s position. “What do you see, Rini?”
“First I saw a pile of sticks way over on the far side of the ice shelf. When I magnified it, it turned out to be a wrecked ship. It’s on channel four.”
The others tapped at their display selectors.
“Then I saw a faint trail leading to the shore.”
“I see it,” Boro confirmed.
“Just as you were getting ready for the ion jump,” Rini continued, “I followed the trail with my eyes to the shore and saw a pile of rocks that doesn’t look natural. And I think I see smoke coming from it.”
Everyone studied their visual displays.
“Survivors from a shipwreck?” Mati wondered aloud.
“They must be going back and forth to the ship for firewood,” Boro proposed. “Nothing else down there will burn.”
“Can we rescue them, Ilika?” Kibi asked, almost grinning from ear to ear at the prospect of her first real passengers.
“Maybe,” Ilika replied. “Mati, you’re back on duty as pilot. I need to work with Sata for a minute.” He helped Mati switch seats.
“Ion drive off, thrusters one,” Mati said. “I’m taking us closer for a better view.”
Ilika stepped to the navigator’s station. “Sata is going to be doing something completely new, and I want all of you to listen so you understand
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what’s happening.”
Sata looked up at her captain with much excitement and a tiny bit of fear.
“The rule we must follow, when thinking about interfering with another culture, is that we must do our best to communicate the situation to the leaders of the Transport Service. They are much older and wiser than any of us.”
Rini cracked a tiny smile.
“It’s happened several times since I came to your kingdom,” Ilika continued. “The most important example was when I allowed our ship to be seen and attacked by the priests. I never would have done that without approval, since I could have easily hidden the ship somewhere off the trail.”
“So you, and the Transport Service, wanted the ship to be attacked?” Mati asked with a frown.
“We wanted you all to be well-trained, and we knew no harm could come to Manessa. I did not anticipate what the religious orders would do, but the Transport Service did. Somehow, in ways I don’t completely understand, it all fit into a series of events they knew would be good for your kingdom.”
“I can see that,” Rini said softly.
Mati nodded, but was still frowning slightly.
“So now I’ll compose a description of what we see and want to do, and show Sata how to send it to the nearest star station. If they see anything wrong with our plan, they’ll tell us.”
“How long will it take them to decide?” Kibi asked with concern. “There are already several mounds near the little rock hut that could be graves. The survivors might not last much longer.”
“When I propose something they don’t like, I usually hear back in one or two seconds. I wait eight seconds just to be sure.”
Kibi looked puzzled, but nodded.
Sata only needed to ask Ilika the meaning of two words in the message he composed. At his request, she sent it to all her shipmates so they could study the text. It was short and simple, as they knew nothing about the person or people in the rock hut. The only known fact was that they would soon die if not quickly rescued by the Manessa Kwi.
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Sata’s eyes were big as she stared at the reply that flashed onto her screen less than a second after sending the message, the first words she had ever read from somewhere out in the stars. Rescue of the child is essential. Leave the child in the care of the adult, and provide all possible material support.
Melorania of Nebador.
“Wow. I wasn’t expecting that,” Ilika shared with a look of surprise.
“There’s a child in that hut who is somehow very important to this world.
Mati and Kibi, find us a place to set down that’s nearby but not visible from the hut. I’d like to arrive on foot.”
“Harsh environments suits?” Boro proposed.
“Mmm . . . no. I don’t want to scare them. We’ll have to make do with our stuff from your kingdom, just you and me, Boro. The rest of you . . . prepare to receive passengers.”
Ilika and Boro put on every piece of wool clothing they could find, grabbed mission bracelets, and slipped out into the cold.
Kibi closed the hatch behind them, then headed for the storeroom beside the galley for blankets. “Sata, a big pot of soup. Mati, monitor the guys outside. Rini, weather watch and help Sata . . .”
The air was bitter cold, the rocks and ice slippery, and the clouds threatened to dump snow at any moment. Boro, with sparkling eyes and a half-smile of pride, walked beside his captain as they crested the shallow rise between the Manessa Kwi and their first real mission.
“The hut is in sight,” Ilika said into his mission bracelet. “No one outside.
We can smell smoke.”
“Okay,” he heard Mati say. “Soup is on the stove.”
The rescuers continued down the gentle slope toward the simple rock hut, only big enough for about two people huddled close together. In the background, the small flat ice shelf stretched several hundred meters to dark open water, with the wrecked ship most of the way out.
A man in a heavy cloak suddenly crawled through a small opening in the side of the hut, stood, and gazed toward the ice shelf. Clutching his hood tightly closed with one gloved hand, he began walking toward the shipwreck.
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“Hello!” Boro called in the language of Nebador.
The man ran back to the hut as quickly as possible, but his steps were slow and clumsy. He placed himself between the hut and the two figures who had appeared out of nowhere, put up his fists, and spoke strange words in a weak but threatening voice.
“I think . . . I’ve heard that language before,” Boro said softly to Ilika.
“I want you to remember, Boro, that our primary mission is to rescue the child. If this man doesn’t cooperate soon, we’ll have to be firm. Try your language.”
“Hello!” Boro called in the language of his kingdom. “Do you speak this language?”
The man suddenly relaxed and lowered his fists. “Little.”
“We have a ship and want to help you!” Boro said loudly and clearly.
The man looked toward the ocean, but seeing no ship, turned back and raised his fists again. “Not ship! You . . . demons!”
“He’s afraid, and the child could be dying,” Ilika said to Boro. “We’ll have to continue the introductions another time.” Ilika raised his left arm and tapped the sleep code into his mission bracelet.
Boro cringed as the man crumpled to the ground.
Ilika spoke into his bracelet. “Mati, bring the ship over, quickly. Tell Kibi to get into her cloak and boots.”
While Ilika spoke to Mati, Boro covered the distance to the unconscious man. “He’s breathing!”
“Good,” Ilika said, joining him. “Stay with him.”
At that moment, the Manessa Kwi appeared over the rocky hill and settled to the ground close to the hut. The hatch opened and Kibi dashed out.
“The child should be in the hut. Poke your head in and see what the situation is. I’ll be ready to pull you out at any sign of trouble. The man spoke your language a little, but the child may not.”
Kibi nodded, got down on her knees, and pushed past the canvas flap into the hut. Ilika kept one hand on Kibi’s cloak, one eye on the sleeping man, and listened carefully. He could also see Rini lacing his boots at the open hatch.
Kibi’s muffled voice repeated soothing words of greeting and comfort, and occasionally Ilika caught a word or two in another voice. He did not
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understand the words, but guessed the child was female.
Kibi backed out and sat on the rocky ground. “She’s about five, and I think I convinced her to come out. The fire in there is almost dead. By the smell, they’ve been here awhile.”
A head of tangled brown hair suddenly poked through the little doorway.
Kibi smiled from where she sat, and reached out her hand. The girl crawled out, clutching a small rag doll in one hand.
As soon as she saw the unconscious man, she ran to him and began talking and crying.
“He’s okay, really,” Boro assured. “He’s just asleep.”
The girl didn’t respond to Boro’s words, so he tilted his head onto his hands, closed his eyes, and began snoring loudly.
She quickly collected herself and laughed at Boro as she wiped her eyes with a sleeve that had not been clean for a long time.
Deep Learning Notes
What does the communication with “Melorania of Nebador” tell us about Melorania, or about Nebador?
The wooden ship was probably crushed by ice. Floating ice shelves are usually very thin and broken along the outer edge, so ships are tempted to penetrate for some distance to get closer to the land. If the ice begins to shift, or open passages freeze over, a wooden ship is easily crushed.
Why would the man, not seeing another sailing ship, assume Ilika and Boro were demons?
Kibi’s soothing tone of voice, and Boro’s sign language, was all the communication the crew had with the little girl at first. What other forms of communication work in a situation like that (when there is no shared language)?
