When Kibi awoke, she tucked the covers closely around Ilika, kissed him lightly on the cheek, and listened as he muttered something in his dream-colored sleep. Though his words were in another language, it sounded like a good dream. She grabbed a robe before tiptoeing out and stepping into the lift.
Rini sat cross-legged on the floor gazing through the open hatch at the dawning sky. He showed no reaction to her arrival.
She got two cartons of pinkfruit juice, opened both, and sat down beside him. He received one with smiling eyes.
Kibi gave her friend the gift of silence as they both sat and contemplated the beauty of the dawn colors in the sky. The edges of the broken clouds slowly changed from orange to pink.
“Today I learn to look at the world through Manessa’s eyes,” Rini said softly after taking a drink of his juice. “Then I put what she sees into charts and pictures for Sata and Mati. I’m excited!”
Kibi smiled. “It sounds like fun. I’d like to learn that job someday.”
“I’ll teach you, and you can teach me about the galley and everything!”
“Deal!”
They fell silent again, and after a few minutes Kibi rose and went to start porridge with diced apples. Rini stayed to watch the clouds gather morning light.
NEBADOR Book Three: Selection 204
After everyone had eaten and waved good-bye to Boro, Sata, and Kibi, Rini helped Ilika clean and put away the breakfast dishes. As they worked together, the slender lad’s eyes sparkled, and he had an especially happy and mystical quality about him.
Ilika paused and looked at him. “I think you’ll enjoy talking to Ss’klexna Rrr’tak-fi someday, or just sitting and meditating together.”
Rini smiled without quite showing his teeth.
When they got down to business at Rini’s console, the demonstration showed examples of sensory data from both matter and energy, near and far.
It then highlighted some of the tools used for extracting meaningful information from that data. Finally it showed a variety of images and graphs that others could read.
“First we’ll take a peek at some of the sensors that allow Manessa to see and feel what’s out there,” Ilika explained as they headed for the lift.
For the next hour, Rini squeezed into little openings all over the ship to see the strange devices embedded in Manessa’s flexible outer hull. While looking at a complex blue crystal that ended in a fluid-filled tube that snaked off toward the watch console, Rini asked the question that Ilika hoped wouldn’t come up so soon.
“How can Manessa change shape on the outside without crushing us on the inside?”
Ilika was silent for a moment. “You’ll have to take what I say on faith. It will make better sense as you learn more.”
“Okay . . .”
“The interior of the ship is made from two different levels of reality woven together — normal matter you know, and something closer to pure abstract meaning. You with me so far?”
Rini grinned. “Just on faith.”
Ilika chuckled. “But Manessa’s hull is different still, a mixture of three realities that come from a far-away place. None of them are physical matter as you know it. That makes for an extremely flexible ship. I know this won’t make much sense, but it’s accurate to say that the interior of the ship — the seats, walls, consoles, everything — isn’t really inside the hull. It’s somewhere else.”
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Rini looked quite puzzled, and didn’t ask any more questions.
The baker pulled a half dozen loaves out of the oven with his large wooden board, slid them onto the cooling table, and turned to see who was at the counter.
“Sata! Your mother told me you got that job you wanted. Did I hear right that you’re gonna be a navigator?”
She nodded with pride. “This is Boro, my dear friend and shipmate, and this is Kibi, the steward who looks after the passengers.”
“Happy to see you folks again! Were you some of those Captain Loki bought from the block?”
“Yes,” Kibi replied, trying not to laugh.
Boro just smiled and nodded.
“Tori, we want to buy some bread and tarts a little later,” Sata began, “but we came to you because you always know the talk of the town. We can feel something strange is going on. Something is bothering people, but we can’t figure out what.”
“Oh, it’s just the demon monster by the little lake in the hills to the east.”
All three crew members were stunned into absolute silence. Luckily the baker kept talking.
“That high priest, the same one that has it out for Captain Loki, went to the king yesterday, asked him to send soldiers. Word out of the court is that the king asked if the beast had hurt anyone or anything, at which the high priest started making up vague bullshit. The king said ‘no’ until he gets word that it’s harming someone or burning crops. But, they say, he gave the religious orders leave to do whatever they wanted with the beast . . . if they could.”
“Do you . . . hear what they might do?” Kibi asked.
“They’re just going around stirring people up, taking up a special collection, that sort of nonsense. It’s probably a sick wolf or something that ran out of the forest after the fire last summer.”
When the baker had shared all the gossip he knew on the subject, and other people were gathering for the fresh loaves, the trio thanked him and wandered toward the market.
“Do you think we should hurry back and tell Ilika?” Boro asked.
NEBADOR Book Three: Selection 206
Kibi thought for a moment. “I think he knows. I think he wants us to get used to doing our jobs in places where people don’t understand us. Right now our job is to stock up the galley for several months of training. Let’s go do our job.”
Rini got comfortable at his console.
“Your most important task when the ship is on or near the surface of a planet is to provide the rest of the crew with topographic information, the shapes and elevations of the land, water, or ice. Unfortunately, this is one of the hardest sensory jobs for Manessa to do, because from any one place, especially when sitting on the ground like we are now, she can’t see very much of the land. Therefore, Manessa’s memory is very important. Any topography the ship has ever seen was recorded, including most of your kingdom and the desert to the east, because Manessa could see all that when I descended half a year ago.”
“Did you say . . . topographic?” Mati said from right behind them after hobbling over with her crutch.
Ilika looked at her. “Yes, Mati. Rini is learning topographic scanning.”
A smile crept onto her face. “Just like the simulations I’m doing?”
“Yes. Except that when we fly the ship, three days from now, Rini will be giving you real topographics, so you can safely fly even if there’s thick fog, or at night, and nothing can be seen.”
Rini’s and Mati’s eyes met, watch and pilot, the source of essential information about their environment, and the one who would make use of that information to safely steer the ship. Mati grinned and then silently went back to her station.
Ilika showed Rini how to scan the topography, access data stored in memory, and combine the two.
“But how could they be dif . . .” Rini began, but quickly stopped himself.
“Can you answer your own question?”
He smiled sheepishly. “Tectonic plate movement, erosion, volcanic activity, glacial movement and melting, sea level changes . . .”
Ilika smiled. “And others that don’t happen on this planet.”
When Rini finally felt comfortable with the topographic controls,
NEBADOR Book Three: Selection 207
lunchtime was past and they were all quite hungry. Ilika stepped into the galley, and quickly discovered that Kibi had rearranged everything, and he couldn’t find anything he wanted.
Mati and Rini chuckled from the table in the passenger area.
“It’s a good thing you’re going west!” Doko said with wide eyes to his daughter and her shipmates as they finished their mid-afternoon meal.
“Some kind of nasty business to the east.”
“Please tell us about it, father,” Sata coaxed with a straight face.
“I don’t know much. Some kind of beast hunt, or maybe a witch hunt, I couldn’t quite tell. The religious orders are working together on it, trying to get the whole city stirred up.”
Boro flashed Sata a clueless look. “Doesn’t sound like anything we should get mixed up in.”
“Your friend is smart, Sata,” her father said, nodding. “Your mother wishes to know if she can please make you and your friends a nice dinner on your last day here.”
Sata looked at Kibi.
“That’s day after tomorrow, and Rini will be here too.” Kibi could see the pleading look on Sata’s face. “Sure, as long as we make it kind of early, maybe just before the dinner hour.”
Doko smiled. “Great! I’ll tell Mosa. But she also made me promise to tell you that you can’t pay for it! ”
The three friends smiled and went back to cleaning their plates.
Rini and Ilika were just about to move on to another topic when they heard a gasp from Mati, and by the time they looked, she was bouncing up and down in her chair with excitement. They went over to see.
For a minute she had trouble putting her amazement into words. “It’s . . .
oh my god . . . wow! . . . I never dreamed . . .”
Luckily they could see for themselves. Mati’s display was no longer a flat screen, but had become a three-dimensional projection of the imaginary terrain through which she could fly.
Ilika smiled and guided Rini back to his own console.
NEBADOR Book Three: Selection 208
“Will the real topographics I give her be displayed like that?” Rini asked.
“Usually, unless she selects a different mode. But most pilots work in three dimensions whenever they can.”
Rini took a deep breath, and spent a moment touching his console lovingly.
“Now we turn to collecting and interpreting weather data. The ship’s memory is useless because weather changes so quickly. Do you remember the primary factors that create weather?”
“Um . . . air pressure . . . wind . . . temperature . . . and moisture.”
“Pretty good. Don’t forget topography and planetary rotation.” He activated a new section of Rini’s console, and they worked through several different methods of gathering weather data.
Next came a large group of tools for taking that data and predicting future trends.
Finally, Ilika showed his student how to create the three weather charts that pilots all over Nebador could read.
Once Rini knew the most important charts, Ilika left him to experiment with his sensors on the actual weather outside the ship at that moment —
heavy rain with lightning on the northern horizon.
Ilika helped Boro and Kibi out of their rucksacks and sopping-wet cloaks, and Rini did the same with Sata. Mati sat on the top step and received bags and crocks as they were handed up.
“We have serious news,” Boro announced as he stood in the entry shower to warm up.
“Did the baker know anything?” Mati asked.
Sata poked at Boro so she could get under the shower. “Oh, yes. Even my parents, who usually stay out of politics, are starting to hear things.”
Kibi hung up her cloak to drip. “It’s us. But I’m sure you knew that, right Ilika?”
“Yes, I knew, or at least strongly suspected, ever since that priest paid us a visit.”
Boro pulled out a towel and began to dry himself. “Will we always put the ship in places that’ll get us into trouble?”
NEBADOR Book Three: Selection 209
“No. Very rarely. But we’re getting some essential training done this way.
You all need to understand that you’re not here for the same reasons as most people.”
Several faces wore slightly puzzled looks.
“Most people cannot see beyond the need to survive and get ahead, at the expense of anyone and anything around them. On planets like this, everything is done by power politics, the dog-eat-dog method. Even religion.”
Kibi finished drying, pulled on a clean robe, and headed up to deal with the food and make dinner. To her delight, she found grains in the slow-cooker, just about ready. “Ilika, you’re so sweet!”
Rini presented himself at the galley entrance to help, and Kibi handed him a cutting board and knife.
The conversation paused as everyone helped get dinner on the table.
When they were finally seated with steaming piles of grain and cooked vegetables on their trays, the topic resumed.
“We were slaves, remember, Ilika?” Boro pointed out. “We were the dogs who were eaten.”
Ilika blinked several times. “Yes, but it’s more than that. Very few of your fellow slaves could follow where you are going. Toli, with all his brains, could not.”
“Kodi couldn’t tell right from wrong,” Sata remembered.
Rini looked sad. “Neti was so filled with feelings, she couldn’t finish the lessons.”
Ilika nodded. “Much of the difference boils down to fear. I have watched all five of you deal with situations that would have scared most people white
. . .”
“And
did in Toli!” Mati growled, showing her teeth and making claws with her hands.
“Yes, Mati. And in that moment you learned something very important about Rini, didn’t you?”
Mati looked at the gentle, slender boy across the table. “Yeah. I learned he’ll be at my side . . . in death if necessary.”
Rini
blushed.
“So the current situation,” Ilika continued, “is teaching you how people in
NEBADOR Book Three: Selection 210
this kingdom think, and giving you practice at slipping through the shadows to complete your missions, and not get caught up or bothered by anything that’s going on, even when it’s directed at you.”
“Like the thieves at Port Town,” Kibi remembered. “You just put them to sleep and we moved on. You didn’t try to punish them, or rid the town of them, or anything else that wasn’t our business.”
“That’s right. And even though we won’t usually put the ship where people can see it, they’ll often try to mess with us, one way or another.”
“We won’t play,” Rini asserted. “We’re the crew of the Manessa Kwi!”
Deep Learning Notes
The ability of two friends to share a time of silence and contemplation tells us much about their personalities and maturity. Rini’s ability to sit quietly, without reaction, when Kibi came up behind, tells us even more. What are some qualities in a friend you have, or would like to have, with whom you could share this level of trust?
Data and information are two different things, although information can sometimes be extracted from data. Data (the plural of datum) is just numbers, usually from an instrument of some kind. It usually contains much that is useless, and is in a useless form. Information is able to “inform” us about something useful. Going from data to information is tricky, however, because it requires us (or our machines) to make choices. If those choices are wrong (or our machines programmed incorrectly), then the result may look like information, but will really be just garbage, or worse, lies.
Science today does not recognize “other levels of reality” because they are not measurable by our instruments. Those instruments aren’t (and can’t be) designed to measure anything but physical matter as we know it. This is, by the way, an example of circular reasoning. Hints and vague descriptions of other, non-physical, levels of reality only come to us through religious writings and mystical experiences.
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The word “demon” has had a hard life. It originally meant any minor spiritual being, and did not imply good or evil. But part of the process of any change of leadership is to redefine terms to fit the purposes of the new leaders. As Christianity replaced older religions during the Dark Ages from about 400 to 900 A.D., “demons” had to be redefined as completely evil to fit with the new religious teachings. From this process, we get the word “demonize.”
With Rini supplying topographic information that will allow Mati to pilot the ship, what kind of professional relationship is developing between them?
How would this be changed if the ship supplied the information automatically?
In addition to the reasons Rini mentioned, our topographic maps have to be revised every few years because of our planet’s shifting magnetic poles, and human activity.
If the purpose of the Manessa Kwi and its crew was NOT to further anyone’s
“dog eat dog” power politics or other manifestations of human fear, what might it be?