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THE RUCKUS IN THE COMMS suite went almost unnoticed anywhere else. When they’d shut off all the speakers but set some computers up to record and listen to it all of it later, they trundled back down the staircase to find the bridge full of staff and Maggot, standing on a box holding court over a complex animation of what looked like planetary orbits.
“Woah, cool!” chorused Lena and Jenny. Cento said nothing, but they had both of their eyebrows raised as high as they’d go.
The projection was a thing of beauty. An orrery of photons floating in a thin fog with Science Officer Jones presiding over it like some creator god speaking to her angels. The orbits were in an animation that Betty was running backwards and forwards with the aid of black gloves. She was a crazed puppeteer in her own little theatre, and she was clearly having the time of her life.
“So where are we going again?” Fazar, sneered from the helm.
“Fazar, I’m not repeating myself for you. If you’re not paying attention, you’ll have to tag along with everyone else.”
“Would you repeat yourselves for us?” Jenny grinned.
“Where have you all been?” Betty asked, frowning.
“Upstairs, eavesdropping on what our ship has been listening to,” said Cento, “which by the looks of it, is what we’re heading towards?”
“Very observant, Mr Cento.”
Cento curtseyed. Jenny was enraptured by the picture, waving her arms and grinning.
The captain raised an eyebrow and said, “When you’ve finished, chief, would you three care to offer us your opinion.”
“Clearly we’re looking at the Sirius system,” Cento said.
“Good, and?” The captain turned to Jenny.
“Sirius Four is not where we’re headed, if that’s us.” She pointed to the blue blinking teardrop shape and its trail on the map.
“Correct again,” said Betty. “I’m always reassured when the average IQ in the room goes up, not down.” Before she could continue, there was a polite cough from the doorway, where Montgomery Stanley stood, trying to attract the captain’s attention. “Oh well, couldn’t last forever I guess.”
Stanley was waved in, went straight over to the captain and whispered in her ear. She held her hands wide and nodded, which was enough of a sign for Stanley to enter to talk to Fazar. He then stood and moved to leave.
“I think you’ll find you need my permission to leave?” Captain Varma said.
Fazar bowed to her theatrically, “With your permission, captain?”
“Yes. Go.”
“Do let me know where we’re getting lost to,” he said over his shoulder on the way out.
The captain closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and turned to face the simulation putting her back to the doorway. “As you were,” she said quietly. “So, Lena, tell me again where the ship says she’s going?”
“To the colony.”
“And does she seem to understand what we mean by that? Are we all talking about the same place?”
“Uh huh?”
“Okay, Ms Lee, can you plot in our most likely trajectories, based on current vector and velocity please?”
The pilot scuttled to a workstation and tickled the keys of a mid-air keyboard. She cocked her head to one side and then typed some more. A series of dotted tracks spread out in front of the ship, hopeful fireworks with no burst.
“Can you zoom out?”
Betty nodded and waved again. The complex dance shrank in view. Betty tapped on the ghost of one of the planets. “This is where the colony should be.” None of the dotted tracks went anywhere near the planet, but went off into the blackness of space surrounding the system.
“We don’t know that the ship isn’t planning a crazy braking manoeuvre,” Lyn Lee said over her shoulder.
“We’re not even sure quite how many of the laws of physics she has to obey,” Betty replied. “If she manages to effectively break the speed of light by skipping out of this dimension or whatever it is she does, she could wink out, slow down and come back.”
The captain caught Lena’s eye. “Are you two talking again?”
“Er, I think so.”
“Do I need to warn my crew of any emergency braking manoeuvres?”
“No, she’s busy heading to the colony.”
“Can she see our map?” Jenny asked.
“I don’t think she ‘sees’ at all.”
“Oh?” said the captain.
“She kind of describes it like a spider’s web, or what she shows me in my mind, kind of looks like that.”
“Well, that’s not ominous at all,” said Cento.
“Like things happen on the threads and she feels them?”
Jenny stood “Can she tell where you are? Like, could you point?”
“I guess?”
“Hmm, that could work,” said Betty.
“Okay,” Lena furrowed her brow, “I’ll try.”
There followed a brief mime act of Lena pointing at the stars, the two planets orbiting the centre of the Sirius system, tracing the orbits of each with a finger. Cento had made her wear a piece of white tape round her index finger, like an old twenty-first century plaster. It meant she knew exactly where she was aiming, and the team tried to guide her in when she was astray. After half an hour of tilting at planets, Lena’s arms were starting to ache.
“Does Arohirohi understand?” said the captain, finally.
“Yeah, I think so,” said Lena. “She’s pleased we’ve shown her how we experience it. It’s helping her understand how to explain it to us.”
“Okay, good,” the captain squared her shoulders, back to the middle of the map again. “Can she show us where we’re headed then?”
“I don’t know, she can’t create photons out of nothing.”
A polite bell that sounded on the bridge, way over to the cabin on the left. On the wall was a small pulsing pink circle. Everyone turned and stared.
“Is that where we’re going?” said Lyn.
“I think so, yeah.”
The pilot tapped a few controls and then put a glove on, coming over to the map. She tapped once at the tiny floating ship icon then ran across the room, climbed onto a chair, and tapped on the pink ‘O’ on the wall. Her computer pinged and drew the line between the two points. “Can you trace that for her and see if it’s right?”
“How will I get up there?” Lena pointed with her non-marked hand.
“Can you reach it on the chair?” said Lee.
“Just, I think?”
“Be careful you two,” said the captain. “I’d hate to have gotten through all the truly dangerous stuff and have one of you break your neck falling off a chair.”
Cento rolled their eyes.
With a little rehearsal, and both Jenny and Lyn holding the chair, Lena managed to trace the whole vector, from crouched on the chair in the middle of the room to a full stretch at the tip of her fingers as she tapped the pink spot on the wall.
“It’s further than that,” said Lena, “but Rowie says the direction’s about right.”
The captain raised her head skywards and then let her chin flop back to her chest.
Cento, still staring at the pink dot on the wall, said, “There have got to be better ways to navigate than this.”
