After a hearty breakfast of nutty grains from a far-away planet, Rini, Sata, and Boro stepped into the entryway where Ilika snapped bracelets onto their left arms. Boots were laced and cloaks tied, but only Sata carried a coin pouch. Both boys carried empty rucksacks.
“You are crew members of the Transport Service ship Manessa Kwi. You have responsibilities and powers beyond anything the people of this country can understand, including your parents, Sata. Conduct yourselves accordingly.”
Kibi and Mati waved as their friends disappeared through the hatch.
Mati assumed she was going to be completely bored for the next four days waiting for her turn with Ilika. She soon discovered she was wrong.
Ilika seated her at the pilot’s console and showed her how to access the ship’s four hundred and thirty-two piloting simulations, each with eight difficulty levels. He activated the first simulation, at level one, and a simple flight control rose from the console. With shaking fingers, she took it in hand, and was soon moving a dot around on her display screen, trying to avoid the circles and squares it couldn’t go through.
“This is fun!” Mati declared after getting the hang of it.
Ilika smiled. “You can’t go to the next simulation until you achieve a good score at level four.”
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Ilika began Kibi’s training by strolling around the landing site and discussing geological stability, wildlife, concealment, and many other factors.
The selection of a landing site was usually made, he explained, in cooperation with the captain, as some missions needed extreme secrecy, while others required a certain location regardless of the risks.
Next they walked around inside the ship, and Ilika pointed out several loose objects that could break or hurt someone if the ship was in motion.
Mati’s boot and moccasin were stowed, and they worked together to put away the cooking utensils in the galley.
Back at the steward’s console, he started a demonstration, narrating it himself as Kibi watched. The panel, until now almost completely dark, came to life with mysterious symbols, strange words, and images of both the inside and outside of the ship.
“Environmental changes, starting with temperature and humidity . . .”
They could feel the air get colder, then warmer, then thick with moisture, and finally return to normal.
“Lighting controls . . .” The lights went off and on, dimmed and brightened, and changed color. Mati, concentrating on her display screen, didn’t notice.
“Hatch controls . . . water tanks . . . waste storage . . . supplies to be stocked . . . sample passenger lists . . . security images . . .” With each item, different parts of the console glowed with information, most of it still meaningless to Kibi.
The demonstration ended and the panel went dark. Ilika taught Kibi the operating modes for the main hatch. “Manessa is smart, and can make many small decisions without help, but we have to make the hard choices.”
Luckily for Kibi, the selections on her screen were labeled with both strange words and little pictures.
“Which mode would you use in a star station dock while receiving passengers?”
“Um . . . always open?”
“What if a meteor hit the station and the docking tunnel lost air pressure?”
“Oops! Conditionally open.”
“Right. Use Manessa’s intelligence whenever you can. And if we’re going
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underwater?”
“Always
closed!”
Ilika nodded with a grin.
The team of three crew members-in-training wandered through the farming village east of the city, waving to the residents and chatting with those they met on the road. At the city gate, they mumbled something about the marketplace and tossed a coin. Luckily no one noticed how uncomfortable two of them were as they hurried past the street to the slave market.
When Sata, grinning from ear to ear, stepped into Doko’s Inn for the first time in many months, all work came to a halt as her excited family surrounded her with hugs and questions.
“Mom, dad, this is my friend Boro who . . . um . . . works with the sails, and my friend Rini, the watch. And I’m the navigator!”
The reunion moved into the kitchen so the stove could be tended while they talked, and Sata did her best to dance around their questions. Sweet tea was poured, and porridge scraped from the breakfast pot.
“I discovered I’m really good at arithmetic, geometry, trigonometry, all that stuff, and pretty fair at logic, but what really got me the navigator job was that I could read and write well!”
Rini and Boro nodded agreement.
They stayed for another half hour, then arranged for a mid-afternoon lunch after they had been to the market to buy supplies for the ship.
Doko watched his eleven-year-old daughter head out the door with her two shipmates. She had not grown much in height since he had last seen her, but in the way she carried herself and spoke to others, she was somehow very different, very much more grown up. He wondered how that could have happened in so short a time.
Kibi next learned all about the galley, including the machines that could grind grains and nuts, mix batter and dough, and puree fruits and vegetables.
The refrigerator fascinated her, until Ilika pointed out that if she kept it open any longer, it wouldn’t be cold inside.
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She broke into a dance of joy when she discovered she could cook without fire and smoke. However, with no ingredients until her shipmates returned, she made lunch for the three of them from the ship’s food stocks.
At the table, Mati shared that she was doing well at level three of the first simulation, and out of curiosity had tried level eight. Her poor little dot had been smashed between two colliding squares within seconds.
“Levels seven and eight are so extreme we would usually just avoid situations like that,” Ilika explained. “Even levels five and six need very experienced pilots. Most real-life situations are similar to levels one through four.”
Mati’s pout changed to a sigh of relief. After lunch she went back to simulation one, but selected level four.
Since Boro was along, the trio in the marketplace focused on heavy grains and beans. Sata and Rini took turns handling the money and standing guard.
They remembered clearly the last time they had been in this market, newly-freed slaves, still quite skittish. Now, with money in their pouches, mission bracelets on their arms, and a magical ship to return to, they felt proud and confident. They just had to suppress the temptation to use their money or power to rescue unfortunate people or animals.
Ilika had been very clear about the situations that justified the use of their new powers. They had to admit to themselves that everything happening around them, although often unjust, was all quite normal for this kingdom, and posed no threat to any of them.
Even so, about a dozen hungry children received copper pieces, and dashed off to the bakery as fast as their little legs could carry them.
Kibi lay on her back on the floor, head in an access hatch under a cabinet of spare parts in the utility room, gazing up at the mysterious tubes and devices above her.
“Can you see the three solvent filters? They’re the ones with the same symbol in yellow, green, and blue.”
“Yeah,” she said. “So the darker filter, with the yellow symbol, is older?”
“Yes. Yellow means it’s working. The green one is ready to take over as
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soon as it’s needed. Blue means completely shut down. You can also monitor them at your station. Having three gives you plenty of time to schedule a replacement. The waste collection tanks are to your right.”
“I see them. One is half full.”
“It will probably be full by the time we get to Satamia Star Station where it can be processed. I’ll teach you that procedure when we get there.”
Kibi slid out of the utility hatch. “What’s next?”
After wiggling through a tiny doorway in another part of the utility room, Kibi gazed up at three large, clear water tanks. Only one contained any water.
“We’ll fill them in the mountains where the water is cleanest,” Ilika said,
“although we could purify just about anything if we had to.”
When they squeezed through the next hatch and looked at the tanks and machines within, Kibi wore a puzzled look. “I can see carrying water . . . but air?”
“Have you ever been trapped in a small space with too many people and no fresh air?”
“Oh, yes! Four of us slaves were sleeping under a tarp one winter when it snowed. I woke up panicking — the edges were all packed down and no air was getting in. When I finally got it off, one of the others was dead.”
Ilika shivered for a moment, hearing another example of the life experiences that had made Kibi so strong. “That’s what a ship would be like during a space voyage if we couldn’t remove the carbon dioxide and moisture from the air. The CO2 separators are more important than the ship’s engines, and again you have three of them. See the little control panel? Touch the yellow symbol on the left.”
“It changed to blue-green.”
“It’s running a test. The big tanks store extra nitrogen and oxygen so we can repressurize the ship if necessary. The small tank collects waste carbon.”
Finally, back in the utility room, Kibi learned how to load the laundry machine, check chemical levels, and make control selections. “I know lots of slaves who would love one of these!”
Ilika
chuckled.
They returned to the steward’s console on the upper deck to finish the day’s training. Ilika emphasized that the other crew members might spend
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lots of time planning routes and fuel supplies, but the ship couldn’t go anywhere until Kibi declared it was ready with all the necessities of life.
Boro and Sata both moaned with relief when Ilika and Kibi helped them get the heavy rucksacks off their backs. Mati quickly finished a simulation and came up to the passenger area. Rini started unloading the new supplies.
“I’m getting a long, hot bath tonight!” Boro declared. “And I’m so glad I don’t have to go again tomorrow.”
Kibi went to work making soup using the galley’s fireless cooking equipment for the first time. She listened as the trio of shoppers shared their experiences.
“There are lots of priests on the roads . . . too many if you ask me,” Rini reported.
“Could you tell what they’re up to?” Ilika asked.
“No. They were nice . . . but we just looked like ordinary travelers.”
“My parents didn’t know anything about it,” Sata added. “Business has been good, and my brother’s friend is a hard worker. It was great to see them
. . . but . . . I was glad I was just visiting.”
Boro plopped into a passenger seat and leaned back. “We didn’t have to use the bracelets, but it sure felt good to have them.”
“You know, Ilika,” Sata began, swiveling her chair, “I’d never heard of a pad of paper before your test. Now they’re all over the city! My parents have two, some of the vendors in the market are using them, and even the guard at the gate has a small one on his belt. I think they’re status symbols now. The king probably has a dozen.”
Ilika laughed deeply.
About an hour later, Kibi served dinner made from scratch. Mati described her piloting simulations, each one a little different and more challenging. Kibi gave them an outline of the things she had learned that day, and announced there was a big pile of clean laundry on the lower deck to be sorted.
After dinner, Ilika put on a video, a collection of stories in which stewards played key roles in dealing with difficult situations. “This is mainly for Kibi,
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but I want you all to have a good sense of what each of your companions will be doing.”
Kibi watched intently as a large insectoid steward succeeded in comforting a group of frightened birds who were being relocated from their unstable planet. She cringed when she saw a reptilian steward quickly take command during a complex docking maneuver when the elderly captain collapsed from heart failure. She watched from the edge of her seat as a furry steward, with nothing but a breathing mask, clawed his way to the emergency air controls to repressurize the ship.
Ilika promised a similar video for each of their jobs, and sent them off to get baths and enjoy the remainder of the evening.
When he was finally alone, he sat down at a console and looked over the long checklists of training and experience his new crew members would need, step by step, phase by phase, during the coming weeks and months.
Deep Learning Notes
Ilika declared that his crew members have “... responsibilities and powers ...”
What happens when a person has responsibility, but no power (such as a slave)? What happens when a person has power, but no responsibility (such as a dictator)?
Mati’s job as pilot was largely a kinesthetic skill, which requires the body to get used to complex actions, just like an athlete or dancer. Even though our minds may learn a concept quickly, our bodies often take much longer. Mati’s hours of “video game” piloting simulations were necessary, just as hours of practice are necessary to drive a car well, even after learning all the necessary concepts. By the way, young people learning to drive for the first time always seem to do better when they realize it’s a form of piloting.
What might happen to a car if the driver gave no thought to geological stability? What might happen if a driver was completely unaware of wildlife?
What danger might await a car carelessly parked in a busy parking lot? How
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about in a dark alley in a slum?
In aircraft piloting, we have a concept called “cockpit management.” It begins by securing all objects so they won’t bounce, fly around, break, or spill. Next, the pilot-in-command must consider all the things he or she might need to reach during the flight, such as charts, paper, pencil, light, tissue for a runny nose, and sick sack (they used to be called barf bags).
Why might a Transport Service ship need different temperatures of air, different amounts of humidity, and different levels and colors of light?
Kibi bridged the language gap with her console because of “little pictures,” or icons. Iconography was a major development in computer technology that made them available to many more people. Figuring out the meaning of written words is much slower and more difficult than simply recognizing a picture.
It was easier for Boro, Rini, and Sata to enter the city than it had been for Ilika because they knew what the guards wanted. Often, satisfying a person in power is as much a matter of form as of content. The three natives of the kingdom knew the small bribe was necessary, and that an answer to the guard’s question was required, but they also knew that what they said was not very important. Ilika, not knowing this, had put much more effort into his response.
What logic was Sata using when she told her family that Boro “worked with the sails”?
How would you explain to Doko why his daughter seemed so different?
How long have people been able to cook without fire and smoke? About how long, before that, did they have only fire and smoke?
What is the purpose of having low levels of difficulty in a video game that
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anyone can master? What is the purpose of high levels that are beyond human skill?
What would happen if Ilika’s crew members were unable to ignore most
“normal” injustices in the capital city? Was there any danger in giving copper pieces to a few hungry children? What are some “normal” injustices in your culture that you ignore in order to avoid danger?
In addition to avoiding dangers, can you think of any other good reasons to ignore “normal” injustices?
The solvent filters showed the first example of the ship’s color iconography for device status: yellow = working, green = ready, blue = shut down. The other colors will soon be seen. Which color, so far, has the same meaning that we use in our culture?
Lack of oxygen on a space ship or submarine would eventually be a problem, but the crew would die much sooner because of the presence of too much carbon dioxide (CO2). The most important job of a sealed ship’s air processing system is to remove the carbon dioxide and excess moisture. If the system can separate the carbon and oxygen, such as by photosynthesis, and return the oxygen (O2) to the air, then little extra oxygen would need to be carried. The remaining 80% of the atmosphere, nitrogen (N2), is not involved in our metabolism (or photosynthesis), and usually remains very stable.
The color icon for a device that is running a test is blue-green. We actually have a name for that color, cyan, and it is a very unique color in the spectrum, but for some reason it doesn’t register well with the human eye and/or mind, so the name is not well known.
What might happen on a ship like this if the watch, navigator, pilot, and engineer all did their jobs to perfection, but the steward was gone and no one noticed until they were far from port?
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The pad of paper, even though it was simple, became a status symbol in this medieval city because it was completely new. Can you think of anything in your culture that is (or was) a status symbol just because of it’s newness?