The Bright Black Sea (58 page)

'Aye, I guess it's best left unsaid. An undetected
exit via an airlock, or a hidden hole somewhere amongst the fuel
tanks is perhaps the best guess, for those who don't care for the
supernatural...'

We left it at that, though I've a feeling Rafe was
simply being discrete. Someday I'll have to spin my yarn to him,
but he left it for saner times.

On awakening, I also ordered the engine saddle
extension to be reinforced along Glen Colin's suggestions. Lilm,
who I gathered, had argued for a wider safety margin was onboard,
but Riv and Myes rather resented a mere ship's captain poking his
nose into what was seen as the engine room's concern.

Riv made that clear to me.

'I tell you Skipper, the extension is solid enough,'
he said urgently, red in the face, after having tracked me
down.

'Perhaps. But I want it to be super solid enough,' I
replied, resigned to this meeting since I made my decision. 'Better
safe than sorry.'

'All because of some dream or hallucination or even
the ghost of Glen Colin telling you so?'

'Yes.' I wasn't an engineer, so there was no point
claiming any expertise on my part.

'I've been a ship's chief engineer for more than a
century. I think I know something about engines and ship design,
and I'm telling you that that saddle extension is more than what we
need as it is. And I resent being second guessed by a still wet
behind the ears bridge officer. If you don't trust my judgement,
maybe you should find yourself a new chief engineer.'

'Well, I'm lucky that I have three others onboard to
choose from. But I'm not replacing you. I'm giving you your orders,
Chief. Maybe I haven't been giving you enough of them for you to
get used to it, but get used to it you must. As for the source of
my concern, well, I'm no more superstitious than the next spaceer,
but when I have a dream, or a hallucination, or a visit by the
ghost of Glen Colin warning me to reinforce the saddle extension, I
take it. No questions asked. And so would you,' I replied. It was,
at least amongst spaceers, a telling argument. You may find less
superstitious people downside, but not in space.

He considered that, opened his mouth, and thought
better of it, and with a sulky shrug asked, 'Were am I to get the
D-matter D-Steel to do the job?'

'Use the new drone davis to start. If you need more,
we'll cut some out of the dismantled bulkhead.'

'The davis we spent half a voyage building?'

'I know it's our pride and joy, and a marvel of
ingenuity, but we need to get to Zilantre and we're going to have
to use the cut down engine hard to get there on time. I'm sure
we'll have time to rebuild the davis...'

'If I have to design and rebuild the saddle it'll
delay decel and we won't make Zilantre on schedule.'

'No it won't. We've still two days left to finish
cutting the bell. And after that we'll slowly work up the engine.
You'll have time to design and install the additional supports as
we go along. You can draw on the crew to help. I want that 5x
safety margin. Jump to it' Chief.'

He glared at me for several moments. And grinned.
'Right.' he said and with a wink turned to go.

You don't spend 16 years cooped up in a space ship
with someone without arriving at a pretty fair understanding of
your shipmates. Riv had to object to my interference in his domain.
He also knew it was my right to do so. But he had to test me as
well. And , too, he's no more superstitious than the next spaceer
himself.

And there was the encounter with Min. That was
entirely a wyrm experience, since Min was in her room and asleep.
The wyrm weather had apparently allowed me to overturn a rock in my
unconscious mind to project what was underneath it as a vivid
dream. I'm not sure – or at least not willing to admit – that the
wyrm vision really represents my true feelings. I wonder if it
might've included something of Min's actual attitude, since she
didn't appear as I'd have thought I'd project her in a dream. I
gave it a lot of thought and turned that particular rock back over
again. In any event, it didn't seem to affect Min, who treated me
no differently, that hidden reserve remaining, which I appreciated
a lot more, after my imaginary encounter.

Everyone gave me grief about not only meeting the
ghost of Glen Colin, but for my forcing the engineers to follow his
advice. Still, while none of them are more superstitious than the
next spaceer – you do have to pay attention to the omens, and well,
we could hardly go wrong strengthening the saddle extension. Safety
first. All, in all, it's another yarn that I, unfortunately, can
add to my growing collection of old spaceer claims yarns that I'll
be able use to entertain (or bore) my downside friends – if I
should survive long enough to become “Ol'Captain Wil, the cha
planter”...

I logged the wyrm weather and Dyn's vid and fruitless
search without comment. The Guild and Unity authorities can make
what they will of it. The wyrm weather persisted for the better
part of a week, though its intensity slowly declined after Dyn's
disappearance, and while the moving shadows and the feeling of not
being quite alone as we should have been persisted, knowing their
source went a long way towards making them less stressful. In the
end, it seemed that Min, Riv, Lili and Kie were unaffected by the
wyrm, Lilm and I were the most affected, and everyone else more or
less suffered the moving shadows effect at least in the heart of
the storm.

As a side note I should mention that while I have not
remained quite the patron saint of the cats of no. 4 hold since the
end of the wyrm weather, they have remained friendly with me,
greeting me casually when I make my rounds or pass the time of day
with me when I'm up in no. 4 hold to work out or fence with Barlan,
Molaye and Kie.

Our service bot finished severing the bell two days
after Dyn's disappearance and we secured the severed section in no.
2 hold. Within hours we began test firing the main rocket, and
slowly began our decel using our balancing rockets. Everything went
smoothly, allowing Lilm to over see the redesign, construction and
installation of additional braces and cross braces to the saddle
extension while the engine testing was ongoing. Once we got the
engine up to half force, we did indeed find, as predicted by Glen
Colin, that we'd get persistent flow and vortex irregularities that
rattled the engine until stepped down and back up again. Nothing we
couldn't handle, but the engine now needed to be watched very
carefully. Riv pointed out that its subtle twisting and rough
running never exceeded the limits of the originally installed
extension, but it certainly made running the rockets more
comfortable knowing we had a margin of error to work with. As far
as I'm concerned, we owed Glen Colin.

Five days after we started testing the engine, and
once we had the reinforced extension fully installed, we began
decelerating at full force, riding the sometimes rough and touchy
main engine at about half force and using the balancing engines
nearly flat out to deceleration hard in order to not over run
Zilantre and make our deadline. The nine engines running hot for
the next twenty-four days kept the engineers busy, but we managed
to slip into Zilantre orbit with half a day to spare – 163 days out
of Sanre-tay orbit.

The LinTin Chartered Trading Company’s tug will be
here within the hour to collect the first of their two boats and
Limai & O've Mining Chartered tug is on its way to collect one
of its boats too, so I won't have time to write much more for at
least several days. Riv has already requested the gig to visit the
asteroid based shipyards that circle Zilantre to see what we can
afford to do about the main engine.

Vynnia has just let me know the LinTin boat has
arrived, so I'll close this account.

It has been, well, an interesting passage.

01

'Remember this isn't the Unity. I can't afford to
replace any of you, so be careful, stay quiet and stick together,'
I said, adding, 'And don't do anything I wouldn't do.'

'Yes, dad,' sighed Molaye rolling her eyes. 'We'll be
home early.'

I gave her a stern glare which didn't make a dent in
her, or anyone else in the shore party for that matter, Min, Rafe,
Kie, Lili, Tenry and Vynnia.

Min grinned. She and Molaye had become friendly
rivals, neither of them willing to concede that the other was
bolder or braver than the other. Our final mark 7.1 acceleration
was only a result of Riv or Lilm putting their foot down or my
junior pilots would have no doubt pushed it to mark 8 or
beyond.

Vynnia frowned, probably at me for allowing such
flippant replies. 'I'll look after them, Captain,' she said.

'So will I,' added Tenry with a grin.

'If you ever want to see the Unity again, you'd
better,' I said as the shuttle glided up to collect the shore
party. They climbed on and went off with a merry wave.

I remained by the gig, still warm from its descent,
and sighed. The sooner we put Zilantre and the drifts astern, the
happier I'd be. Still, effects of the long passage and the
disappearance of Dyn had to be dissipated ashore and Min felt we
could afford a week or two in orbit to give everyone a needed break
from the ship and routine.

I drew a deep breath of fresh sea-air and started off
for the LinTin Hangar, one of the massive box-like hangars that
circle the landing field with its orderly rows of rocket boats and
lighters. CityOne Spaceport is set on a high, flattened island in a
broad, island studded bay. Through the breaks in the line of
hangars I could just catch sight of the blue sea and the day's last
light shimmering off the dancing waves as the chain of suns set.
Zilantre has four micro-suns. The lead sun was already below the
horizon and the second within a finger's width, with the trailing
one a hand's width above the deep blue line. The fourth micro-sun,
the smallest, follows the other three half an orbit back acting as
the planet's moon to provide a “moonlit” night, since the dead
black cloud of the Myzar drift fills half the sky like a clutching
black hand, leaving only two stars and some strands of glowing
nebula to break the blackness of the night sky.

This was my first experience with a typical drift
world, a planet in the style of the prehistoric idea of a solar
system with the sun(s) orbiting the planet. Zilantre's micro-sun or
so called lamp suns make a complete orbit once a day (by
definition, I guess). All of them had been asteroids before being
towed into orbit around Zilantre and imploded – igniting them like
miniature suns that burn for three or four thousand years before
needing replacements. I'm told there are hundreds of similar
planets scattered about the drifts. And most of the larger drift
communities without planet sized rocks also have lamp suns to keep
the big night somewhat at bay.

Zilantre was just a frozen, sunless planet before a
consortium of chartered mining companies decided to convert it into
a supply and transshipment center for their far-flung trading,
mining,refining, and foundry operations in this sector of the Myzar
Drift. They began the process by towing and igniting half a dozen
small asteroids to thaw the planet over the course of a thousand
years while atmospheric engines were built to create a habitable
atmosphere. Once the atmosphere was up and running, vast
terra-forming machines were brought in to craft a sustainable
environment around the planet's tropics for the humans that were
arriving to build farms, factories, warehouses, ship yards, and joy
houses to serve as the far flung commercial enterprises of the
great Chartered Trading Companies.

I was making my way to the LinTin Chartered Trading
Company's hangar and port office to meet their port captain, Lenz
deLin. Captain deLin and I had worked together over the course of
several days unloading LinTin's two guard boats and auxiliary
supplies and had gotten along well. He'd invited me to dinner at
the Helm and Star Club where I'd have a chance to meet other
captains and ship owners.

Other than worrying about my shipmates getting into
trouble ashore, I was feeling pretty braced. We'd completed our
delivery with everything in order. Despite having a nice, healthy
credit balance, Min had decided not to make the engine repairs on
Zilantre but to wait until we were were back in the Unity and had a
prospect of cargoes. We have none here, which, truth be told,
didn't make me very sad. It meant we'd need to return to Aticor and
the Unity with a chance of avoiding the drifts. Drae had sent a
long radio packet with contact information and introductions to
agents in that system which I hoped would give us an in, without
having to do time in the drifts.

The lack of cargo prospects is due to the fact that
the smoldering troubles which had brought us here with the four
guard boats had flared into a full fledged drift war during our
passage out. One of the largest reef political entities in this
region of the drift, the Confederacy of Despar decided to expand
beyond its home reef, and is in the process of swallowing other
smaller and less powerful independent communities as well as some
Chartered Trading Company mines and factories using a large (by
drift standards) navy and many commandeered trading ships. Beyond
Zilantre, any ship not registered and licensed by the Despar Navy
was subject to attack and seizure by the Despar Navy or any of its
many wide-ranging letter of marque raiders. On the flip side, any
ship registered and licensed by the Despar Navy was considered an
enemy combatant by Despar's enemies and subject to attack and
seizure. For this reason, prudent shipowners, and most of the
others as well, had decided to sit this war out and had laid up
their ships in Zilantre orbit where there were enough CTC guard
ships to deter even the Despar Navy. (They hoped.) As a result,
there were well over a hundred tramp freighters, company transports
and smaller drifteer traders in the orbital roadstead waiting for
the war to burn itself out. It seems that we'd jumped from the
frying pan into the fire as far as cargoes go, but the silver
lining was that it meant we'd not be going further into the drifts
and had no recourse but to try our luck in the Aticor. It is for
this reason that Min decided to sit on our credit balance, keeping
it as a cushion against breaking into the Aticor trade. A decision
I agreed with. A healthy credit balance is a nice thing to have,
even if it meant nursing the engines a bit. And not having to deal
with trading in the drifts was an asteroid dodged as far as I'm
concerned. A million asteroids dodged.