By the time Shahnaz had explained his current obsession with learning exactly how the Wave drive actually worked, or at least humanity's best approximations of the physics, Caelan had finished off the beef, eaten an impromptu salad out of cheese, lettuce, leftover tomato and a bit of potato salad he'd forgotten was tucked into the back of the fridge. Caelan's eyes started drooping, their head bobbing as if they couldn't quite keep their head up.
"I have never thought about how the Wave drive actually works," Caelan admitted around a suppressed yawn. "It just does."
"Granted," Shahnaz agreed. He took the dishes and began washing them, nodding his thanks when Caelan silently helped dry and then put them away in the cabinet. "But rewiring the command center made me curious so I started working on understanding it. Turned out to be far more complicated than I expected."
"You… had a failure in the controls?" Caelan asked, stopping for a jaw splitting yawn that made them scowl. "My apologies."
"Accepted," Shahnaz said. "No, I just didn't like how it was laid out so I rewired to let one person fly the ship instead of four."
He laughed as Caelan stared. Understandable. The technicians he'd consulted on the project that said outright that he was out of his mind to think that he could run a ship like the Blessed Prayer by himself. But he'd come up with a good system, invested in a good computer, and done it. Hadn't had a speck of trouble since it was installed.
Caelan yawned again, swaying with the force of it. They looked utterly exhausted, dark bags forming under their eyes and a greyish tone to their skin despite the food. Shahnaz hummed and then chuckled when the azan began to sing over the loudspeaker. He waved for Caelan to follow, watching for the inevitable stumbles of exhaustion. Which he didn't get. Caelan was steady on their feet even if they were about to collapse.
"What… is that?" Caelan asked.
"That's the azan," Shahnaz explained as he led Caelan into the command center. "The call to prayer. My prayer mat is off to the right. I would appreciate it if you did not approach or sit on it. Please don't step on my books. And please don't touch any of the controls in the pilot's chair. None of them are labeled exactly correctly. You could settle in my hammock if you wished to. I won't mind if you watch me pray."
"Thank you."
Caelan's eyes were puzzled at first and then stunned as they figured out that yes, this truly was the command center of the Blessed Prayer. They wandered over to his flute and sitar, then to his stacks of books and then, stumbling at last, to stare at his pilot's chair with its mass of controls arranged in careful arcs over and around the Pilot's chair. As he purified himself and began to pray, Caelan frowned. It took only until he recited the first chapter of the Qur'an before Caelan crawled into his hammock.
By the time he was done praying, ten minutes later, Caelan was fast asleep. They had curled into a ball as they slept, arms and legs tucked defensively close to their chest. Shahnaz left them be. No reason to risk waking Caelan by laying a blanket over them. It wasn't terribly likely that Caelan trusted him enough to stay asleep with him that close. Shahnaz certainly wouldn't in their place.
Shahnaz settled into his pilot seat. Time to get his herd on their new trajectory. Gathering them up into a gentle wave was a bit tricky. They were all of different sizes and masses. But he had managed to get them orbiting each other relatively successfully prior to dropping out, so gently sliding back into the center of their orbit, becoming their temporary sun, was simple enough. Then came the work of crafting a Wave that would redirect them all towards the outer reaches of the Tasma solar system.
More than likely, someone else would find them slowly tumbling along and gather them up for sale. That was fine. Shahnaz wasn't desperate for money. Far from it. A great many of his rival asteroid cowboys lived at the edge of destitution. He would never begrudge them the payday that these asteroids represented.
Two hours later, Shahnaz dropped the Wave again and deftly jetted them out of the center of the asteroids.
"There we go," Shahnaz murmured. "Time to make our way to the Gensyn."
It was a journey that would take several stops along the way. Even his lovely Blessed Prayer needed refueling from time to time. Going from Tasma to the Gensyn system was crossing nearly the entire human sphere. The only father away place would be going to Walker's Hole and Shahnaz most certainly had no reason to do that. Or perhaps going all the way out to the Gemini system. That was even further given that it would require three or four stopovers along the way to reach it.
The best path, in his opinion, would be to go from Tasma to Bassan, a shorter Wave, and from there to Wittier. Then they could go directly to the Gensyn system without halt. At least if they stopped at Wittier Shahnaz could visit his family and invest in upgrades to his nanites that would protect him against the worst of the radiation in the Gensyn system.
Three days by a decent Wave to Bassan plus six to Wittier with another ten to get to Gensyn. Quite doable. He could always push the Wave harder, make the trips shorter, but it would take more out of both the Blessed Prayer and out of him as the pilot. Tending a Wave strong enough to make the full trip in seven days total would leave him exhausted, shaking and disoriented. It wasn't something he wanted to try without a backup pilot.
He never had done well in the really strong Waves.
"Caelan?" Shahnaz called as he rotated his chair and then stooped his way out of the controls.
Caelan started so bad that they nearly fell out of the hammock. They stared at Shahnaz, eyes wide, and then slowly relaxed. Yes, whatever they were fleeing was very bad indeed. Perhaps he could push the Waves a bit harder, make it to Bassan in two days, then Wittier in five. Getting to Gensyn in less than eight would be truly painful no matter what.
"I've redirected the asteroids so we can begin our journey," Shahnaz said. He called up his projected flight path and trip times, gesturing for Caelan to come look at it. "I could push a bit harder though I would prefer not to. Will these stops work? We could take a different route but the travel time would increase."
"I…" Caelan stopped, staring at the route plan. Their fingers brushed over the screen, right on the total of nineteen days.
"We are quite far away," Shahnaz commented. Waited, hands behind his back.
"Yes, we are," Caelan whispered. "Wittier may… be a problem."
"I have family there," Shahnaz explained. "That's why I picked it. I can always visit on my way back. I will need to stop somewhere to get upgrades to my nanites if I wish to survive visiting Gensyn."
Caelan swallowed a laugh that looked like it danced the edge of hysterical. "If you've got basic nanites, then yes. I'll think about it. Bassan is good. There's several paths we could take from there if we needed to. And there's a good Gensyn population. You could get proper upgrades from them if you have the money."
The studied little look that Caelan gave him made Shahnaz laugh out loud. Caelan's eyes lit up as if Shahnaz's laughter sounded like anything other than the braying of an annoyed donkey. He grinned at them and bowed slightly.
"Money is, in fact, not a problem," Shahnaz said. "As I said, when I inherited the Blessed Prayer I was given quite the trust fund. I find myself amazingly solvent."
"Never would've guessed," Caelan said.
They looked over their shoulder at the books lying open on the floor and counters. Then grinned. The sheer impudence in their eyes made Shahnaz laugh out loud. Again. This time Caelan laughed with him for a few seconds only to stop, still and glance over their shoulder as if afraid someone would come after them for being amused.
So many questions he wanted to ask. It would be terribly rude to do so, especially on such short acquaintance. Perhaps in a couple of days, after they visited Bassan, Shahnaz would broach the question of what Caelan feared. What they were fleeing.
Not now.
"If we're agreed that Bassan is our first stop," Shahnaz paused as Caelan nodded firmly, "then you can watch or search my books for something to read. Perhaps watch vids. I believe I have some vids on the system somewhere. Though they're likely to be terribly old. I rarely watch vids."
"I can't imagine that," Caelan said, corners of their mouth kicking up in a tiny smile that lasted an instant. "Why, I don't know what else you'd do with your time."
Shahnaz grinned as he shrugged.
As Shahnaz returned to his pilot's chair, Caelan curled back up in his hammock. Once, when checking the edge of his new Wave plot for instability causing ripples in the Wave that might cause it to collapse catastrophically, Shahnaz caught Caelan watching him with such an intense frown that he wondered if he'd offended somehow.
But no, it was likely that Caelan didn't understand his control panel setup and thus couldn't figure out what Shahnaz was doing. Understandable. Shahnaz was a very good pilot; he'd trained and certified to fly everything from the smallest freight handlers in port up to the huge space liners the Ceelen ran. Few ships were designed by pilots. They were designed by engineers who didn't understand that having the controls for the Wave steepness on the opposite side of the cockpit from the monitors showing any forward or side debris fields was stupid.
His controls were arranged perfectly logically as far as a pilot was concerned. As far as he was concerned. No one else's opinion mattered.
In the end, Shahnaz chose a Wave steep enough to get them to Bassan in one day, sixteen hours rather than a full forty-eight hours. Caelan seemed fairly concerned about getting home quickly so he would push harder than his wont.
"Oh," Caelan breathed when Shahnaz finished his run-up and engaged the Wave. "That's… stronger than I expected."
"Speed seemed necessary," Shahnaz replied as the familiar effects of a stronger Wave enveloped them.
While his gentle Waves only ever made Shahnaz feel taller than he actually was, strong Waves had much more powerful effects on him. His head swam as if he had a fever, making it hard to focus on the instruments. When he reached to carefully turn on the autopilot Shahnaz could have sworn that he felt the switch before his fingers closed on it. Such an odd effect and none of the physics he'd studied explained it. And that was completely beside the problems with locomotion, changes in the flavors of food and his persistent difficulty sleeping while in strong Waves.
"Will you be able to tolerate this?" Shahnaz asked. He carefully spun his chair and crept out of the command center into the larger room, one hand on the wall so that he could reacclimate himself to his height while under this Wave.
"Mm-hmm," Caelan murmured. They frowned at Shahnaz before casually swinging down out of the hammock as if there were no Wave at all. "I can deal with it. Can you?"
"I would prefer to have a slightly less powerful wave for the rest of the journey but for two days I can handle this," Shahnaz replied. He smiled at Caelan's worried frown. "Truly, I can. Won't enjoy the trip very much but I can deal with it."
Caelan nodded once but they didn't look as though they believed Shahnaz. Oh well. It took too much effort for him to explain that he was fine. That he would be fine. For now, Shahnaz would focus on taking care of Caelan. His inevitable insomnia tonight would simply have to be dealt with when the time came.