Log of the Cambric, continued
Jan. 30th, 2006 12:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
avevale_intelligencerWe swarmed all over the ship, Palinurus and I (though of course I didn't let him touch anything), checking it out, and everything seemed perfectly all right. It began to look as if I'd got away with the mittens, which in itself was deeply worrying. The homeship computers may be half mad, but one thing they're rock solid on is getting the right quids for their quo. I still remember Voltimand in the year above me having to stand there and sing The Pirates Of Penzance all the way through three times because he offered them half a green pepper instead of half a red one. And then the ship he got had a chunk of hull missing, and he had to plug it with scrap metal and sealing tape. So I was somewhat concerned that I seemed to have snagged a perfectly spaceworthy ship on the basis of a consignment of gloves six fingers short and with some nasty seams showing.
I haven't mentioned this to Palinurus, of course. It may not have come up in any training lectures, but "Never rattle your rookie" is, I feel, a sound basic principle. I didn't want him jittering all over the place and getting in the way.
We went back to my quarters and collected the necessaries for a middle-distance journey. Once you're onplanet you're expected to forage. Palinurus was bouncing like a puppy, whcih might have been irritating if I hadn't been so keyed up myself. Back at the ship, I ran through preflights while Palinurus stowed the gear and made himself comfortable. Everything checked out right down the line, which was even more worrying, but I wasn't going to let it cramp my style.
I sealed the doors, the bay depressurised and the airlock iris silently opened halfway and stopped. It had been malfunctioning for about as long as I'd been on the ship, and on a normal day halfway was about its lot. Fortunately someone had managed to persuade the computers to stop producing smallships too big to get out. I negotiated the opening with, I may say, considerable skill, and the multi-layered shield wall around the ship parted briefly to let us through. We were out. We were on our own.
As I laid in the course, I thought about what I was about to do. I had selected my coup very carefully from the homeship library: it was a Reversed Archelaus' Fancy, the New Geneva variation, a third-level Purple Triangle with a minimum of grace-notes, perfect for a mid-range world such as the one we were heading for. I had collected all the necessary schematics, background detail, suggested scenarios and so on. I had bound it all together in a neat green folder, and put it on my bed while I went to see what Palinurus was wittering about (it turned out that he liked my sonic toothbrush and wondered where he could get one like it)...
It was at this point I realised that it was still there.
After a moment of sheer blind rage, I got hold of myself. I know what I'm doing, after all. I've pretty much memorised the main points of the coup. Most of all, I didn't want to have to turn round and ask to be let back in because I'd forgotten something. So I decided to tough it out and forge ahead. I'm a Nyrond, after all. I can do this.
Something else not to tell Palinurus, though.
(NOTE: I have of course edited Gaheris' raw log entries, to produce a more fluent narrative. He was in the habit of going back and adding comments later which reflected subsequent developments: the first entry has one obvious example. I have been selective about these comments (of necessity, given the language employed in some of them) and have occasionally adjusted the text slightly to (as we say in the trade) make it funnier. [ZN])
I haven't mentioned this to Palinurus, of course. It may not have come up in any training lectures, but "Never rattle your rookie" is, I feel, a sound basic principle. I didn't want him jittering all over the place and getting in the way.
We went back to my quarters and collected the necessaries for a middle-distance journey. Once you're onplanet you're expected to forage. Palinurus was bouncing like a puppy, whcih might have been irritating if I hadn't been so keyed up myself. Back at the ship, I ran through preflights while Palinurus stowed the gear and made himself comfortable. Everything checked out right down the line, which was even more worrying, but I wasn't going to let it cramp my style.
I sealed the doors, the bay depressurised and the airlock iris silently opened halfway and stopped. It had been malfunctioning for about as long as I'd been on the ship, and on a normal day halfway was about its lot. Fortunately someone had managed to persuade the computers to stop producing smallships too big to get out. I negotiated the opening with, I may say, considerable skill, and the multi-layered shield wall around the ship parted briefly to let us through. We were out. We were on our own.
As I laid in the course, I thought about what I was about to do. I had selected my coup very carefully from the homeship library: it was a Reversed Archelaus' Fancy, the New Geneva variation, a third-level Purple Triangle with a minimum of grace-notes, perfect for a mid-range world such as the one we were heading for. I had collected all the necessary schematics, background detail, suggested scenarios and so on. I had bound it all together in a neat green folder, and put it on my bed while I went to see what Palinurus was wittering about (it turned out that he liked my sonic toothbrush and wondered where he could get one like it)...
It was at this point I realised that it was still there.
After a moment of sheer blind rage, I got hold of myself. I know what I'm doing, after all. I've pretty much memorised the main points of the coup. Most of all, I didn't want to have to turn round and ask to be let back in because I'd forgotten something. So I decided to tough it out and forge ahead. I'm a Nyrond, after all. I can do this.
Something else not to tell Palinurus, though.
(NOTE: I have of course edited Gaheris' raw log entries, to produce a more fluent narrative. He was in the habit of going back and adding comments later which reflected subsequent developments: the first entry has one obvious example. I have been selective about these comments (of necessity, given the language employed in some of them) and have occasionally adjusted the text slightly to (as we say in the trade) make it funnier. [ZN])
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Palinurus again:
Date: 2006-01-31 08:26 am (UTC)Still we got through the hanger bay doors all right and then Gaheris let me call the Nexus to have the shield wall relaxed so we could get through. Which would have been all right but Jeronomy was Watch Officer, and he likes to throw his weight about (motsly because he rarely gets to go on-world nowadays what with the Vigil still looking for him about the missing Arimathean Effigy), and Curtall was actually on the board and what that boy has forgotten from last week's training lectures would take more than a week to tell. So it took ten agonisingly long minutes before the shields were finally adjusted correctly.
And you don't want to try to go through if they aren't -- it's Unhealthy and the Computers get Very Angry and you wouldn't like them when they get Angry.
Then Gaheris even let me do a bit of the steering while he went to get his notes together, which was fun because, again, I'd only really tried my hand on a simulaot (if you ignore me and Golodric and the skunk, but that wasn't my fault, and he did most of it -- till the skunk ... well, it took weeks till the smell ... )
Space is big -- amazingly big. And, while the Homeship is small enough in comparison, when you compare a Smallship to all the immense infinity ...
All I can say is, thank the Cosmic Constant for the occasional planet.
Must close here :: the binnacle needs another rub up.
no subject
Date: 2006-02-01 05:19 pm (UTC)