Kibi spent the next quarter hour in Ilika’s arms, crying softly and kissing him at the same time, but saying little.
Rini was completely embarrassed when Mati wrapped her arms around him. She didn’t let go for a long time.
Boro and Sata, who had been together the entire day, smiled at each other and started unpacking the rucksacks.
Once everyone was settled, Ilika brought an assortment of snacks and beverages to the table and listened as stories from the day were told. The leadership decisions of both Kibi and Boro, as witnessed by the others, made him smile.
“Was
it
really okay that I gave up my command?” Kibi asked with a slight frown.
“Your willingness to do that makes you a better commander,” Ilika assured her.
“I’d do the same thing,” Boro admitted, “if Sata was in danger and I couldn’t think straight.”
Sata blushed, and Ilika smiled.
“Manessa’s hull . . .” Rini began with a puzzled look, “. . . I have a hunch that fire was like . . . nothing . . .”
“That’s right, just like warming your hands at a campfire. Manessa can handle the surface of a star.”
Boro
whistled.
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Mati and Sata looked at each other.
“After a leisurely breakfast tomorrow, I propose we fly Manessa away from here . . . unless any of you would like to stay a little longer, go to church or something . . .”
The dirty looks and snickers all around the table told Ilika they would quickly recover from their trying day. He wasn’t sure the priests, however, would forgive and forget so easily.
Ilika knew of several items on his training checklists he could now check off. In addition, each of his crew members had completed their initial day of instruction. And as a bonus, the galley was brimming with food.
When Ilika awoke early the following morning, vaguely remembering a dream about flames licking at his feet, Kibi wasn’t in the cabin. He presumed she was taking a bath, and since he felt rested, he hopped out of bed to look over the training recommendations for a new crew’s first flight.
When he arrived on the upper deck, he found all five of his crew members at their stations.
“Well, well. Do you guys know it’s barely sunrise?”
“Yeah, we know,” Sata began. “We’re just excited, and want to get going!”
“We looked outside,” Kibi reported. “It rained last night and all the fires are out. No priests anywhere. But the lake’s a mess with charred wood all over the place.”
“Ready to go, huh? Have you all had baths?”
The girls raised their hands, but the boys wore guilty looks.
“Have you had breakfast?”
The girls joined the boys wearing sheepish grins.
“Okay, let’s get organized. We have a long day ahead of us, and we’ll be visiting some friends. Boro, Rini, get baths while I look over my training manual, then I’ll get one. Kibi and Sata, a hearty breakfast, and begin teaching Sata the galley, Kibi, now that you know all about it.”
“Who are we visiting?” Rini asked.
“Whoever we find at your favorite place in the kingdom.”
“The monastery!” Rini breathed, his eyes sparkling.
Ilika nodded. “Go, go, go! If we all work at it, we can be in the air in a
NEBADOR Book Three: Selection 237
couple of hours.”
After doing his reading, Ilika grabbed a bracelet and strolled around the landing site. As Kibi had described, it was a mess, but nothing that wouldn’t vanish by next summer’s growing season. The little oil buckets were just low-grade iron and would quickly rust and rejoin the soil. Manessa’s hull showed no signs of the fire that had burned underneath.
Soon Rini emerged from his bath in a robe, and Ilika went in. He could smell porridge grains cooking when he returned to the passenger area, and Kibi and Sata had their heads in a cabinet, discussing the contents. Boro appeared in the lift.
“That felt good!” Boro said. “Thanks for making us slow down and do it right.”
“Don’t worry, Boro, there will be plenty of times we’ll have to go to work without bathing or eating.”
As breakfast was being served, Ilika went to the navigator’s station and made a hardcopy of the chart that included this kingdom. He laid it in the middle of the table as he sat down. Only Sata and Mati had seen it before.
“I want to visit the monastery again,” he began, “although I won’t be surprised if most of the sisters have left for the winter. I want each of you to pick a place you’d like to visit today — somewhere we’ve been, or a new place.”
They all searched the map with their eyes while finishing breakfast. With pointers from Sata and Mati, everyone was soon able to relate the colored, shaded topographic map to their memories of the countryside.
Ilika took notes as they made their selections. Some choices made him raise his eyebrows.
As Boro helped Kibi do the dishes, Ilika worked with Sata at her station to develop the flight plan. First they marked all the locations, then planned a route without too much back-tracking. Others watched as Sata used her drawing tools to connect the dots on her display.
Next, with the ship’s help, Sata examined each leg of the plan for the highest land elevation it crossed, and anything else of concern. Ilika had to interpret what Manessa reported, and guide the selection of altitudes. Soon
NEBADOR Book Three: Selection 238
their first real flight plan was ready.
They all looked at Ilika, and he softly spoke one word. “Stations.”
Never, except in the most dire of emergencies, had a deep-space response ship experienced its crew jumping into their seats so quickly.
They all hoped their captain’s first command would be ‘Fly!’
“Kibi, landing site status?”
“Um . . . about like it was before . . . I think . . .”
“I need to know how it really is, right now, for sure.”
“Um . . . should I go look again?”
“No, your personal inspection earlier just needs to be updated with some current information from your console.”
A smile appeared on Kibi’s face, but it faded as she looked down. “I . . .
don’t remember how.”
Ilika went to her side and pointed to different controls. “Visual appearance?”
“Looks the same. No one around.”
“Nearest large animal?”
“Um . . . way over on the edge of the screen, by the swamp, something four-legged.”
Ilika knew he had to cut them lots of slack at this point because they couldn’t yet read the words and numbers on their consoles. He walked Kibi through the same process for the main hatch, the internal air system, the water and waste systems, and the food stocks in the galley. Finally, she looked at him with expectant eyes.
“Cabins secured for flight?”
“Um . . . I think so.”
“You have to know.”
“I’ll go look . . .”
“Not necessary. The owners of all the cabins are right here. Just ask them.”
“Okay . . . anybody have anything heavy or breakable in their cabins?”
They all shook their heads.
“There’s still one person who hasn’t answered,” Kibi said, looking at Ilika
NEBADOR Book Three: Selection 239
with a slight snarl.
Ilika smiled back at her. “I have a few breakables, but they are all well-secured.”
“All cabins secured for flight!” Kibi announced.
“Galley secured for flight?”
“Um . . . I’ll have to check that one . . .”
Ilika came along, barely holding in a smirk.
Kibi chuckled with embarrassment when she found a knife on the counter.
“What would have happened?”
“Today, at thruster level one, nothing. On another day . . .” Ilika paused and flashed her a devious grin. “You’re the closest one to the galley!”
Kibi grinned back and returned to her station.
“I know that was tedious,” he began. “The next time we fly, how much of that will you be able to do without me asking?”
“All of it! I think . . .”
Everyone on the bridge started clapping, and Kibi turned bright red.
Boro went through a similar process checking the status of fuel tanks, flow controls, and the engines themselves. Finally, to his relief, Ilika said the magic words.
“Anti-mass drive, power level one, warm-up and diagnostics.”
With some hesitation, Boro touched the symbols on his console that would select the right fuel and bring the mysterious engines to life. They could all feel subtle vibrations.
“Narrate engine status,” Ilika ordered.
“Diagnostics okay, warm-up . . . done. Anti-mass drive ready for flight!”
“Atmospheric thrusters, power level one.”
Boro again touched the symbols he had already studied. “Diagnostics okay, pressurizing . . . thrusters ready for flight!”
Ilika smiled, and everyone else cheered.
Rini had to run tests and calibrations on several sensors before Ilika would let him get down to business.
“Begin continuous surface scanning. Automatic memory integration.
NEBADOR Book Three: Selection 240
Topographics to all stations on channel four.”
Rini was happy. He knew how to do those things.
“Weather data, types one through eight, eleven, and fifteen.”
Rini went to work. The others watched as more and more sections of the wall behind Rini’s console lit up with multi-colored plots of air pressure, temperature, and other aspects of the weather.
When all of the data was gathered, Ilika gave Rini the final command.
“Send weather chart to all stations.”
It flashed onto their displays, and everyone clapped.
“Sata, you’ve already done most of your work, but not quite all.”
The navigator was ready, fingers poised.
“Overlay flight plan and weather, report any conflicts.”
After a moment of embarrassment, she grumbled with frustration. “I . . .
don’t remember how . . .”
Ilika pointed to controls to jog her memory. Soon, both images appeared on the same screen and they studied the result.
Rini watched intently as the information from his station was used for the first time.
Sata pointed at her display. “Um . . . we might get a little rain on this leg of the flight plan.”
Ilika nodded. “Nothing to worry about.”
“The monastery looks like it’s in clouds . . .”
“Truth is,” Ilika began, “there’s little weather on this planet that can affect us in any way. But we have to practice, because that’s not true everywhere.
Activate universe flight transponder.”
“What’s that?” Boro asked.
“It tells other ships and stations of the Transport Service who and where we are.”
“Transponder active,” Sata announced.
“Send the flight plan out on channel five.”
They could all see it flash onto Mati’s large display and merge with the chart already there.
Ilika started clapping and everyone joined him.
NEBADOR Book Three: Selection 241
“This is a good time to pause and think,” Ilika explained, standing behind Mati. “You now have tons of information — ship status, engine status, charts, weather, flight plan . . . and yet you’re missing the most important thing.”
“I am?” Mati whimpered.
“You don’t yet have a flight objective from the commander. You’re assuming that because Sata handed you a flight plan, you’re supposed to follow it. That assumption could be wrong. Same with the engines Boro warmed-up, and all the information Rini gave you. Never make assumptions like that when piloting. The commander could give you instructions that would make part or all of that stuff useless, and you’d have to call for other engines, or different information.”
“I see what you mean.”
“But having given you that warning . . . the flight objective really is to follow the first leg of the flight plan.”
“Whew!”
Mati
breathed.
Deep Learning Notes
We only know the temperature of the surface of stars by their color. Our sun has a surface temperature of about 6000°K (5726°C, 10340°F). Brown Dwarfs are less than 3000°K, Red Giants about 3600°K, and at the other extreme, Blue Giants approach 50000°K.
The iron buckets that came out of a medieval blacksmith’s shop would rust very quickly outdoors, unless painted or heavily greased. What do we make containers out of today that will not return to the soil so easily? Even though you probably thought of some long-lasting materials, does that mean those containers will remain usable that long?
While preparing for their first flight, all of the new crew members experienced a “steep learning curve,” a stressful phase when everything is new, all tasks require intense mental effort, and fear of failure lurks nearby. Luckily, it
NEBADOR Book Three: Selection 242
doesn’t last long, and we soon automate (reduce to a series of memorized steps) or internalize (perform without conscious thought) most of the process.
It is very easy for social creatures like us to make the assumption that if everything is in proper social form, it must be right. That assumption only works in social situations. Piloting, and most other aspects of ship operations, deal strictly with physical realities, which are not affected by our hopes, dreams, desires, dislikes, and fears. What assumptions might you have trouble avoiding if they are presented in, and surrounded by, all the proper social forms?