The crew of the Manessa Kwi gathered at the eating place Kibi had chosen, on the second balcony of Blue Hall, at the requested time. Mati selected a table while Rini went up to the counter for a big tray of food. Ilika and Sata arrived a few minutes later, practicing their new language as they walked.
Kibi, the acting captain of a deep-space response ship of Nebador, looked around. “Anyone know where Boro is?”
“Riding a horse,” Rini informed as he slid the tray onto the table.
Kibi raised her eyebrows.
“He’s felt so uncomfortable in the pilot’s seat,” Mati explained, “that he’s trying what I did, you know, learning to ride first. But there’s no donkey on the star station, or anywhere else, that’s strong enough to carry him . . .”
“Here he comes!” Sata noticed.
The massive stallion, pale orange with long hair that completely covered his feet, caused several mouths to open in wonder.
“Everyone,” Boro announced proudly from atop the huge equine, “this is Malika-Terno, the only horse on the station who would let me ride. And I think it’s really gonna help my piloting.”
“Just don’t forget,” the huge horse began, “an hour of brushing my coat and massaging my sore muscles for every hour you ride.”
Boro grinned with embarrassment as he dismounted, and all his friends chuckled.
“You’re welcome to eat with us, Malika-Terno,” Kibi said.
NEBADOR Book Seven: The Local Universe 99
The horse looked askance at the food tray. “There’s a place not far along the balcony with things I can digest. See you in an hour, Boro. We still need to work on your center of gravity during vector changes.”
With a slight cringe, Boro nodded.
“Okay,” Kibi began as the horse walked away, “while we eat, let’s talk about the mission.”
Sata swallowed a bite. “They brought in a native speaker, and Ilika and I are meeting with her several hours a day. That language is weird, patched together from three or four older languages, and from what we’ve heard, the people who live there are actually proud of how hard it is to learn, and refuse to do anything to make it easier. Then they wonder why all their children hate school.”
Ilika smiled and nodded his agreement. “I think we’ll be as ready as we can be in another Satamia day.”
“How does that fit with your training, Boro?” the acting captain asked.
“Good. Mati’s taught me everything she can, I just need to get the feel of it.”
“That’ll come slowly, over months and years,” Ilika said. “For Mati, it was almost natural. You’ll have to work at it, like I once did.”
Kibi waited a moment to see if that conversation had run its course.
“Mati?”
“As you know, it’s been a real challenge for me to be constantly listening for what the pilot needs, instead of giving flight commands. Boro’s teaching me to think ahead, you know, anticipate what he’ll need. We’re tinkering with something in the engineering ring almost every day.”
Kibi nodded. “Rini?”
He sighed. “Bored, I guess. There’s nothing I need to do for the mission, and every time I try to take a class, they say that’s not what I should be doing right now, that I should wait until after we get back.”
“Wanna help me stock the ship?” Kibi asked.
“Sure!”
The four ship-days before the next Satamia evening party passed quickly —
for everyone but Rini.
NEBADOR Book Seven: The Local Universe 100
Sata declared she was starting to dream in the new language she was learning.
Kibi continued to study the lesson materials every ship captain was expected to know, and practice the mental exercises, with three others at her level, aimed at expanding her intuition into the realm of spirit.
Mati wondered how she was going to keep herself from reaching over and grabbing Boro’s flight control during difficult maneuvers. In training simulations, as the ship jerked and lurched, she practiced breathing deeply and keeping her eyes on her engine control board.
Ilika studied the new language with Sata, and smiled with pride as his crew took steps, large and small, toward becoming citizens of Nebador.
At the party, several new people were introduced by Kerloran, having just survived breath-taking adventures and heart-pounding dangers to escape their home planets. Rini and Mati looked at each other knowingly.
Three avians, scientists from a planet where science was forbidden, tried to express their deep wonder at the sights and sounds of a star station, but mostly just clucked with delight. Boro smiled, remembering his own initial feelings of wonder not so long before.
Two furry mammals, almost but not quite ursine, declared themselves Seekers of Spirit, and mumbled their amazement at a place where they could actually see and talk to non-material beings. Kibi, who had just come from a class led by a glowing blue light, held in a grin.
A reptilian artist stood alone, but her eyes sparkled as she noticed the many beautiful artworks that adorned the star station’s main hall. Kerloran described the punishments for being an artist on her planet, and visible scars among the newcomer’s scales bore witness.
The next morning, on a balcony overlooking Violet Hall, over slices of fresh fruit and grilled seed cakes, each member of the crew declared that they were ready for the mission, but pointed out that they had no idea what it was.
Arantiloria appeared, settled into her purple-haired human form, and pulled up a chair. “The planet you are about to visit has more than its share of myths. One they rarely talk about, but which has great power over them, is
NEBADOR Book Seven: The Local Universe 101
that any mistakes they make, any damage they do to each other or their world, will be fixed, before it’s too late, by someone else.”
“That’s pretty childish!” Mati declared.
Several of the others remembered Buna’s tendency to blurt out her thoughts.
Arantiloria just nodded. “Some of them think it will be gods who save them, some think aliens, and many trust that their own scientists will invent something new in the nick of time. The effect is the same. Taking responsibility for themselves is just not a value among those people.”
“So . . . what’s the mission?” Boro asked.
Arantiloria smiled slightly. “Because of this tendency of theirs, they have great trouble with priorities. All of you, even though you are just beginning your advanced training, have a much better sense of what’s important, and what’s not, than even the highest leaders on that planet.”
Boro opened his mouth at the pause in Arantiloria’s talk, but closed it before any sound came out.
She pretended not to notice. “They will, I guarantee, try to suck you into every little problem they have, no matter how trivial, how personal, or how much they could have avoided it with a little forethought.”
The crew members looked at each other, but since Boro hadn’t had any luck, no one else dared ask what they were all still wondering.
After a long silence, the training specialist spoke again. “As for the mission, you will know it when you find it. It is the only thing on that planet, with enduring value for the universe, that would be lost without your help.”
After a stop at a supply dome on an uninhabited planet to leave some cases of food and canisters of fuel, the Manessa Kwi popped back into space and time not far from a planet that almost looked like Sonmatia Three from a distance.
“Very similar,” Ilika said as he looked over a planetary summary at the steward’s station. “Slightly more ocean area, but less volcanic activity. The humans are the only dominant race, although several other sapient species are lying low because the humans are technologically advanced, and very dangerous to everything and everybody at this point in their history.”
NEBADOR Book Seven: The Local Universe 102
“So . . .” Boro began after locking his controls and spinning around, “our planet was only . . . safe for other creatures . . . because we weren’t very good at killing them yet?”
Rini and Sata laughed nervously.
Kibi
grinned.
After a moment, Ilika nodded.
Mati noticed that Boro was still closing his eyes during de-orbit with ion drive. “It’s only scary the first time you watch,” she said softly.
“I’m trying to work up the courage,” he mumbled.
“Even though it’s almost night, take us down below the hills,” Kibi ordered, “before they see us with . . . what was it called, Ilika?”
“Radar. Radio detection and ranging.”
With some hesitation, Boro guided the ship from four thousand meters to treetop level. “Real-time high-res topo, Rini.”
“Channel four. No weather to worry about. It’s a beautiful late-spring evening down there.”
“Where are we going, Sata?” the commander asked.
“Chart on channel five, Ilika’s drop-point is about twenty kilometers from here, one valley to the northeast.”
Boro studied the chart as he crested a rise so close to the trees that Manessa could feel their leaves brush her hull.
“Everyone remember the important aspect of the drop-off?” Ilika asked the entire bridge.
“Slow, silent, and invisible for the last few kilometers,” Boro repeated from memory, “and the same on the way out.”
Ilika nodded. “These people would tear someone apart whom they thought was cooperating with . . . what was the term Arantiloria used? Oh, yes, an alien invasion force.”
Chuckles rolled around the bridge.
“Oh, no!” Mati gasped dramatically at the engineer’s station without turning around. “We might . . . we might . . . put them to sleep!”
Boro howled with laughter.
“Hey!” Mati continued with sudden realization, looking at her console.
NEBADOR Book Seven: The Local Universe 103
“I’ve got those controls right here!”
Ilika laughed. “And you might need them before this mission’s over.”
As soon as the laughter faded, Boro cleared his throat. “Okay, we’re getting close. Quiet on the bridge, please.”
Everyone got serious.
“Hull matches the sky,” Boro said to himself, “tallest trees are thirty meters . . . there’s the river . . . a light in a house, I see it on the chart but it’s not the right house . . . a dirt road . . .”
As soon as Boro passed another group of trees, a clearing came into view, and in its center, a circular area paved with flat stones and ringed with dim lights.
“Bingo,” Sata said softly. “Matches the coordinates.”
“You ready, Ilika?” Kibi asked.
As Boro lowered the ship, Ilika shouldered his bag, stepped onto the bridge to give Kibi a quick but serious kiss, then opened the hatch.
A tall man stood on the edge of the circular area holding a lantern.
As soon as Ilika descended the ramp, it vanished and the hatch closed. A moment later, the Manessa Kwi silently rose into the still night air and floated away among the treetops.
“This is all happening exactly as I saw it in my dreams,” the tall man said in his native language.
Mati noticed a smile creep onto Boro’s face as he guided the ship through the darkness just above the treetops. After curving around a hill, many glowing lines on his topographic display suddenly blocked the ship’s path and Boro pulled back sharply on his flight control. “Whoa! What’re those?”
Everyone
looked.
“Wires,” Sata informed. “Manessa color-codes them bright cyan.”
Boro swallowed. “Oh, yeah, blue-green. Um . . . thank you, Manessa.”
“You are welcome, Boro. Thank you for piloting with ever-increasing skill.”
Boro grinned sheepishly.
“And
those wires are carrying electromagnetic energy,” Rini added.
“We still want to avoid . . . radar,” Kibi reminded them, now commanding
NEBADOR Book Seven: The Local Universe 104
from the steward’s station.
Boro moved the ship this way and that. “I’ll try to squeeze under.
Minimum vertical profile, Manessa.”
“Disc, two meters vertical,” the ship replied.
Just as the little ship passed underneath the wires, several small beams of light shined onto the hull.
“Uh oh,” Rini said. “We’ve been discovered.” He sent a down-angle view to all stations.
Kibi looked at her display and saw four children with hand-held lights gazing up with open mouths. After a moment, they all started running toward a house in the distance.
She chuckled. “They’ll have a story to tell!”
“I doubt anyone will believe them,” Sata said. “I wouldn’t.”
“Clear of the wires and resuming treetop flight,” Boro said. “Where are we going?”
“The only place on the planet,” Sata began, “where people won’t think we’re . . . an alien invasion force . . . and I think we’re close enough to communicate. They use radio waves here. Luckily, Manessa knows how.”
She turned and looked at Kibi.
“If you remember what to say, and how to say it, go ahead.”
Sata nodded and made some selections on her console. She cleared her throat and spoke in her newest language. “Lost Forest Heliport, zulu one-three-seven, ten miles north, inbound for landing on Pad Three.”
An anxious female voice replied in the same language. “Zulu one-three-seven, did you say . . . um . . . Pad Three? ”
“I
thought
I was nervous,” Sata mumbled in the language of Nebador.
“Yes, Lost Forest Heliport, Pad Three.”
“Um . . . zulu one-three-seven . . . I’ve never done this before . . . there’s instructions around here somewhere . . . here they are . . . okay, just send the code you should know on the frequency you should know, and the hanger door will open.”
Sata touched a symbol.
“Wow, it’s opening,” the female voice said. “Um . . . zulu one-three-seven, do you need landing pad lights?”
NEBADOR Book Seven: The Local Universe 105
“Do we need lights?” Sata asked, looking at Boro, then Kibi, both of whom shook their heads.
“Lost Forest Heliport, no need for lights. We’ll be inside in a minute.”
“Wow . . . okay, zulu one-three-seven, I’ll . . . um . . . see you soon. We keep some extra equipment in there, but the middle of the floor is always free.”
Sata closed the connection, and everyone was quiet as the ship covered the last few kilometers.
“Going to slow, silent, and invisible,” Boro said, studying his chart. “The trees are taller here . . . a road cuts through with lights along it . . . a big open space with all shapes and sizes of metal carriages and wagons . . . gardens with little lights on the paths . . . buildings that almost look like parts of a star station . . . and way in the back, I see two lighted landing pads.”
“Those would be Pads One and Two,” Sata said. “Pad Three should be completely dark.”
Boro took a moment to bring the ship directly over the proper coordinates.
“Yep, there’s a circular landing pad right under us, and a big square building beside it.”
“Down and in, pilot,” Kibi said. “We don’t want to be outside any longer than necessary.”
With white knuckles, Boro lowered the ship until his display showed one meter of altitude. “Whew!” he said, changing hands and flexing his fingers.
“This is intense!”
Mati chuckled in sympathy. “Remember, you can let Manessa handle the altitude now.”
“Oh, yeah. Manessa, maintain one meter altitude. Mati, minimum maneuvering thrusters.”
She touched her control board.
Boro slowly nudged the deep-space response ship into the hanger building, and sighed with relief when he was finally able to extend landing struts. “Whew! Finished with engines.”
With a mission bracelet on her arm, Kibi opened the hatch. By the light from inside the ship, she saw a tall, blond woman standing nervously to one side of the dark hanger, between an engine hoist and a stack of boxes.
NEBADOR Book Seven: The Local Universe 106
“I
have
no idea how you made that landing, at night, without lights, into a hanger under power,” she began in her native language, “but welcome to Lyceum. I’m Sister Nancy.”