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])