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II
THE SHIP

 

Chapter 6

But I think Ralph thoroughly enjoyed himself in the few weeks that followed. I doubt if any of the rest of us did. I know that I didn't. Sailing as a sport is all very well on a planet like Caribbea, but it has little to recommend it on a bleak slag heap such as Lorn. Oh, there's always a wind—but that wind is always bitter and, as often as not, opaque with gritty dust.

I don't think that anybody had ever sailed on Lorn until we, the future personnel of Flying Cloud, cast off our sleek, smart (and that didn't last for long) catamaran from the rickety jetty on the shore of Lake Misere, under the derisive stares of the local fishermen in their shabby, power-driven craft, to put in hour after hour, day after day of tacking and wearing, running free, sailing close-hauled and all the rest of it.

But Ralph was good. I have to admit that. I was amazed to learn that so much control of the flimsy, complicated, wind-driven contraption was possible. In my innocence I had always assumed that a sailing vessel could proceed only in a direction exactly opposite to that from which the wind was blowing. I learned better. We all learned better. But I still think that there are easier ways of proceeding from point A to point B, either in deep space or on the water, than under sail.

Yes, all of us had to get a grounding in sail seamanship, Sandra, Doc Jenkins and Smethwick as well as myself. We gathered that Commodore Grimes wasn't finding it easy to find officers for his fine, new ship—after all, even Rim Worlders weren't keen on voyages that would extend over years, even though those years would be objective rather than subjective time. There just weren't that many completely unattached people around. So he'd been dickering with the Astronauts' Guild and got them to agree that anybody, but anybody, could be issued a certificate of competency with respect to the improved Erikson drive.

So we all—and how we hated it!—had to become more or less competent sailors. As I've said, on a sunny world with balmy breezes, blue seas, golden beaches and palm trees it would have been fun. On Lake Misere it wasn't. On Lake Misere it was hard work in miserable conditions—and I still think that it's utterly incredible that in this day and age no heavy weather clothing has yet been devised that will stop the ingress of freezing water between neck and collar, between boot-top and leg.

And when we had all become more or less competent sailors—Ralph called it Part A of our certificates—we thought that the worst was over. How wrong we were! The next stage of our training was to bumble around in yet another archaic contraption, a clumsy, lighter-than-air monstrosity called a blimp. (Like the catamaran, it had been built merely for instructional purposes.) I don't profess to know the origin of the name, but it looked like a blimp. One just couldn't imagine its being called anything else. There was a flaccid bag of gas—helium—shaped like a fat cigar, and from this depended a streamlined cabin that was control room, living quarters and engine room. There was a propeller driven by a small diesel motor, that moved us through the air at a maximum speed of fifty knots. (Our speed over the ground was, of course, governed by wind direction and velocity.) There was a lot of complicated juggling with gas and ballast. There was the occasion when we were blown off course and drifted helplessly over Port Forlorn just as Rim Hound was coming in. Ralph told us afterwards that had the blimp been hydrogen-filled that would have been our finish; as it was, with our gasbag all but burst by the searing heat of Rim Hound's exhaust, leaking from every seam, we made an ignominious crash landing in Lake Misere, from which dismal puddle we were rescued by the fishermen—who were, of course, highly amused to see us again, and in even more ludicrous circumstances than before.

But the blimp was patched up and again made airworthy—as airworthy as she ever would be, ever could be—and we carried on with our training. And we got the feel of the brute. We neither respected nor loved her, but we came to understand what she could and could not do and, when Ralph had decided that we all (including himself) had passed for Part B of our certificates we proceeded, in the little airship, to Port Erikson on the southern shore of Coldharbor Bay.

There's one thing you can say in favor of the Survey Service boys who first made landings on the Rim Worlds, and you can say the same thing in favor of the first colonists. When it came to dishing out names they were realistic. Lorn . . . Port Forlorn . . . Lake Misere . . . the Great Barrens . . . Mount Desolation . . . Coldharbor Bay . . .

The trip was not a happy one. In spite of the heat from the single diesel the cabin was bitterly cold as we threaded our way over and through the Great Barrens, skirting the jagged, snow-covered peaks, fighting for altitude in the higher passes, jettisoning ballast when dynamic lift proved insufficient and then perforce being obliged to valve gas for the long slant down over the dreary tundra that somebody in the First Expedition had named the Nullarbor Plain.

And there was Coldharbor Bay ahead, a sliver of dull lead inset in the dun rim of the horizon. There was Coldharbor Bay, leaden water under a leaden sky, and a huddle of rawly new buildings along its southern shore, and something else, something big and silvery, somehow graceful, that looked out of place in these drab surroundings.

"The ship," I said unnecessarily. "Flying Cloud"

"Flying Crud!" sneered Doc Jenkins. He was not in a good mood. His normally ruddy face was blue with cold, and a violent pitch and yaw of the ship a few minutes since had upset a cup of scalding coffee (prepared, somehow, by Sandra in her cramped apology for a galley) in his lap. "And what ruddy genius was it," he demanded, "who decided to establish a spaceport in these godforsaken latitudes? Damn it all, it isn't as though we had the Ehrenhaft drive to contend with and lines of magnetic force to worry about. And both old Grimes and you, Ralph, have been harping on the fact—or is it only a theory?—that these fancy lightjammers will be far easier to handle in an atmosphere than a conventional spaceship."

"True," admitted Ralph. "True. But, even so . . . just remember that on Lorn every major center of population is on or near the equator. And there's a certain amount of risk in having conventional spaceports near cities—and the conventional spaceship isn't one per cent as potentially dangerous as a lightjammer."

"I don't see it," insisted Doc. "To begin with, there's a much smaller pile. A lightjammer is far less dangerous."

"Don't forget what's in the heart of her," said Ralph quietly. "That core of anti-iron. Should the casing be breached, should the antimatter come into contact with normal matter . . ."

He lifted his gloved hands from the wheel in an expressive, explosive gesture. The ship swung off course, dipped and rolled. It was my turn to get a lapful of hot coffee. I decided that there was a lot to be said in favor of the despised drinking bulbs used in deep space.

"Any more questions," asked Ralph, "before we make it landing stations?"

"If you insist on answering with your hands," I said, "no."

He grinned ever so slightly. "All right, then. Now remember, all of you, that this won't be the real thing—but it'll be as near to real as we can make it. To begin with—an upwind approach . . ."

"I can see the windsock," said Sandra, who was using binoculars.

"Where away?"

"A degree or so to starboard of the stern of the ship. On that tower."

"And wind direction?"

"As near south as makes no difference. A following wind."

"Good. Now, Peter, you're in charge of the gas valves, and you, Doc, can handle the ballast . . ."

"The tank's dry," grumbled Jenkins.

"Anything with mass is ballast. Anything. Open a port and have a pile of odds and ends ready to dump. And you, Mr. Smethwick, stand by the hose and pump . . ."

We were over the spaceport now. We could see the administration buildings and the warehouses, the long wharf alongside which lay Flying Cloud. We could see the little waving figures of people. And we could hear, from our telephone, the voice of Commodore Grimes speaking from spaceport control: "What are your intentions, Captain Listowel? The ground crew is standing by for your lines."

"I intend to land on the Bay, sir, to make this a rehearsal of landing the big ship."

"A good idea, captain. Berth ahead of Flying Cloud. Berth ahead of Flying Cloud."

Ralph brought the blimp round in a long curve and lined her up for the beacon at the end of the wharf. He said sharply, "Don't valve any gas unless I tell you, Peter. That's one thing we shan't be able to do in the real ship." I saw that he was using the control surfaces to drive us down, and I heard the complaining of structural members. But the surface of the water was close now, closer with every second.

"Mr. Smethwick, the hose!"

I couldn't see what was happening, but I could visualize that long tube of plastic snaking down towards the sea. I felt the blimp jump and lift as contact was made and, at Ralph's barked order, valved a cubic centimeter or so of helium. I heard the throbbing whine as the ballast pump started.

We were down then, the boat bottom of the cabin slapping (or being slapped by) the crests of the little waves, and then, a little heavier, we were properly waterborne and taxiing in towards the raw concrete of the new wharf.

It was a good landing—and if good landings could be made in a misshapen little brute like the blimp, then equally good ones should be made in the proud, shining ship that we were approaching.

I thought, with a strong feeling of relief, There's nothing to worry about after all.

I don't know if that sentence is included in any collection of famous last words. If it's not, it should be.

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Framed