Out

A series about Mars

    by Daniel E. Machado

Chapter 15
    “Captain Movlinka, may I present the Flying Jib’s youngest passenger; Miss Roselene DeSilva. Roselene, this is Sailship Captain Karena Movlinka.”
    “Please to meet you, Captain Mmava-linka.” Roselene thrust five tiny chubby fingers up at the slender Russian woman with short curly red hair. Roselene likes the captain lady's warm smile and friendly blue eyes as she leans down to take the small child's hand.
    Well, John’s eyes roll up. At least she didn’t call the captain “Miss.”
    A distinction they’d repeatedly practiced on their way up from Blade’s quarters.
    Odd that John thinks of their cabin as Blade’s quarters, as if Fred and Roselene were merely coincidental, because at the moment Roselene has become anything but coincidental.
    For John’s past two Earth-Mars circuits aboard the Flying Jib Captain Movlinka’s ready-room has always held a small collection of holos showing smiling children and several brightly colored attempts at primitive schoolroom art. Hand-prints seem a predominate theme. To her crew Captain Movlinka is a firm sensitive commander capable of both true human compassion and deadly spacer earnest, calculated intent and reassuring empathy. But, to Lieutenant John Forrest the captain has been, and remains, a woman impossible to penetrate. Leaving him feeling functionally, and promotionally, invisible. It’s been this way for his past two Martian circuits. He’s determined that this not be the third. And, apparently not dazzling command with his verifiably impeccable efficiency John decides to try alternate course. Introducing Captain Movlinka to the youngest legal passenger ever to be carried trans-orbit by any sailship strikes John as alternate. Certainly couldn’t hurt.
    The notion occurred to him over an evening's chess match with Fred. Young Roselene had been dancing around the tiny cabin elaborately passing out reluctant good-night kisses when Fred stood up and bowed to Her Royal Majesty as “The ship’s youngest legal immigrate.”
    This simple jest soon came to pester John, and once losing interest in the game Fred immediately trounces him. After the defeat, and the traditional “winners gloat”, John went straight back to his quarters to set loose a small swarm of data-sniffers. They all came back in almost no time. Discounting the handful of accidents born mid-transit, Roselene appears to officially be the youngest person to ever legally immigrate out from Earth. Older children have been immigrating out for decades, but Blade is evidently the first parent ever to get an age-exemption issued using a UN Appearancy Test originally intended to keep physically mature but intellectually challenged children from burdening the original colonies. By default Roselene is Captain Movlinka’s youngest legal passenger. John flashes his proudest smile down at the small girl standing next to him dressed neatly in her perfectly scaled-down sky-blue Atlantis Corp jumper, her two bright blue eyes flashing all around at the bridge's noisy commotion. Smiling up brightly at the two identically uniformed grownups Roselene relaxes her tiny fingers, but leaves them dangling from the captain’s warm soft grip.
    “Ms Roselene DeSilva, I am very much pleased for your acquaintance. Your elder cousin, our good Lieutenant Forrest here, tell me that you are truly only four Es old.”
    “Yes, Miss Captain Mav-linka.” The tiny girl’s head bobs in agreement. “But, my mommy says I’m smart enough to come with her out to Mars.”
    “Don’t say ‘Miss’, Roselene. It’s just Captain Mov…”
    “Let the child be, Lieutenant. She’s conducting herself quite well, thank you. Roselene?” Karena takes the girl’s tiny hand further into her own as she turns to guide Roselene away from the bridge's main hatchway on a leisurely stroll through the sea of busy work stations. “Our Lieutenant Forrest tells me you are here today to learn about our great ship?” The tiny child nods enthusiastically up at the captain. The room feels strange to walk in. Your feet bounce a little when you step. Part of the reason Captain Movlinka still holds on to the child's hand. But, only a small part. A sailship captain she may be, but the woman in her still treasures a child's trusting touch. “Well, we shall. But first I would like for you tell me what is it you already know.”
    Having spent the past two of her four short years living with a mother working hard toward immigrating from Earth to Mars, and then spending almost every evening of the past two months listening to her cousins Fred and John talk spaceships and solar sailing all night, Roselene knows more than just a little about sails and solar winds. Occasionally she contributes to discussions herself. But, Roselene wants the captain lady with the red curly hair to like her, and sometimes grownups don’t like I-know-everything kids, so she decides to let the captain explain. Strolling through the bridge's whirl of systematic commotion no one even comes near them.
    “I know a little. Sometimes cousin Johnny and Fred talk about it at dinner, and the big kids at the Center.”
    “So then, can you tell me anything about the solar wind?” The captain smiles down. Roselene likes the Captain’s warm soft hand, it reminds her of Grandma Meg. The Captain even sort or smells like Grandma Meg's rose hand lotion. “Do you know of this?”
    “It’s sort of like just all these little tiny pieces of star stuff that explode up out from the Sun and push all the spaceships out to Mars.” Roselene’s face twists up into solemn concentration then quickly brightens, like sunlight breaking thunderclouds.
    Such a strangely serious child. The captain muses as she nods down at the child in agreement.
    “Very good. You say you study with some of the older children at the Learning Center. What do your classmates tell you about solar-sailing?” The flash of a finger slips an ear-bud out of Captain Movlinka’s shoulder pocket and up into her ear as she glances a small smile back at Lieutenant Forrest following a respectful two paces behind.
     “Well,” Roselene shrugs, her finger fuddling down into her own jumper pocket. “Sometimes the bigger kids make fun when I ask them questions, so...”
    “And, you don’t like that?” Karena pouts a sympathetic frown. “When the bigger kids make fun.” The captain’s halo of red shoulder length curls reluctantly following the shake of her head in the light .2g as a hurried bridge officer steps up and hands the captain a tablet. After quickly glancing down at its display Captain Movlinka thumbs its ID plate and passes the thin black rectangle back.
    “I don’t like it when big kids make fun just ‘cause I’m littler.” Roselene cocks up a squint.
    “Da.” The captain nods down at the child’s beautiful adult serious face. “I too remember this. I was the youngest in my family, with many terrible older brothers who pestered me endless. I understand about being littlest.” Stopping at the broad semicircle of steps leading up to the command dais the Captain looks off as if considering something for a moment then continues, a slow lopsided grin tugging a light web wrinkles up around her still mischievous eyes.
    “I am thinking, Miss Roselene DeSilva, that there needs to be something for you to take back to these older children at the Center. Something special. What do you say?”
    “Uh huh.” Roselene nods up vigorously. “I mean… Yes, Ma’am. Thank you, please.”
    “Good! Then… now... let me see.” Signaling for her steward to bring an assistant's chair up to her command station the captain reaches over to activate her monitors. "Now, before we begin... Ah… Mister Dees?”
    “Aye, Captain.” The communications assistants sitting on the archive station's outer edge glances up with obvious apprehension.
    “Mister Dees, would you please orchestrate a full archiving at my station for the next several minuets. Our youngest passenger, Ms DeSilva, needs some small souvenir to bring back with her to her classmates. We can accommodate this, can we not?” As the captain’s smile grows warm the crewman’s apprehensions fade.
     “Aye, Captain.” Dees smiles back.
    Forsaking the varied collection of state-of-the-art displays and skilled technicians at her disposal the captain reaches through her command station's bright holographic geometry to take up a football-size scale model of the Flying Jib mounted at its edge. Chief of Engineering Alexander fabricated it for her during one particularly boring return circuit. With Roselene’s tiny shape looking like a shrunken crewman in the adult-sized assistant's chair Captain Movlinka leans across toward the girl, the model's clustered cylinders between them.
    “This big smooth dish up front here is our aero-break.” The captain leans back to switch console modes and the command display's colorful holographic skyline flattens into a multi-hue curved sheet of black edged glass. “Do you know what aerobreaking is?”
    “Uh huh.” Roselene nods. “It’s how you slow down a spaceship. When you get down real close to a planet that has air then you hit up against it really really hard and it slows you down. My mommy showed me once when we went for a ride in my uncle Larry's auton… auton-muss…”
    “Autonomous?” The captain ventures.
    “Uh huh.” Roselene nods vigorously. “Autonomous. My uncle Larry took us out for a ride once in his old-timie car to this old-timie outside farm. We got to roll the windows down all the way and feel the wind go by.”
    “How exciting.” The captain smiles. She’d never even seen an environmentally sealed auto-operating vehicle until she’d come to the United States for college in the sixties.
    “Uh huh.” Roselene nods. “And, when you put our hands out like this,” Roselene holds her hand horizontal out to her side. “And, you tilt it back and forth it makes your hand fly up and down like an airplane. And, when you hold it up flat like this,” The child holds her open palm up vertically, as if gesturing a stop. “Then the wind pushes back real hard on your hand. Mommy says that’s just like an aerobreak.”
    “Very good.” Karena smiles down at the small serious child. “Your mother seems a very wise woman indeed to show you these things. Now,” With a nod Karena directs Roselene’s eyes back down to the model. “You see all around here, how the breaking-shield covers the entire front of our ship? That’s to protect us all from the terrible heat as we approach close to a planet’s atmosphere. It gets very hot, you see. Especially when we are dropping down into Earth’s thick atmosphere. Now,” Karena turns the model sideways pointing her finger along the wide cylinder just behind, and equal in diameter to, the ship’s aerobreak. “Do you know what part of our ship is this?”
    “That’s the gravity-wheel.” Roselene beams. “That’s where we live.”
    “That’s right.” Captain Movlinka then presses one palm against the heat-shield as she raps her other hand around the oppositely protruding cargo-pod. “Now, if you will be so kind as to assist me and push your hand down against the gravity-wheel we shall see how the Flying Jib appears in orbit.”
    Roselene presses the flats of her fingers against the model's hard textured surface until it moves. With several more pushes she has the ship's gravity wheel spinning. It looks just as it does in the holos; a broad curved plate covering a thin cylinder with another much smaller cylinder sticking out the back.
    “Do you see how both the aero-break and cargo-pod stay still?” The captain tap at one of the tiny sail-pods along the shield's parameter. “They construct solar sailers like this because our sails and cargo both require stable platforms, but we humans require something a bit closer to gravity.” With a lingering grind the model's gravity-wheel rolls to a begrudging halt.
    “But, before we talk of solar sails, let's take a look at our ship.” Twisting the gravity-wheel and cargo-pod slowly against one another Captain Movlinka aligns both with some subtle indicator Roselene doesn’t quite see. Then a press of the captain’s finger-tip to one of the retros and the pod pivots open just behind its breaking-shield. Inside lay an intricate maze of passageways and bays, tiny snarls of perfectly reproduced equipment connected by long straight color-coded lines of conduit and ducting. Karena watches this serious beautiful child, smiling at the wondrous marvel beheld in Roselene’s eyes. Just as she had seen when she’d first opened the tiny Jib for her own little Nikki.
    These poor children. Karena observes sadly.  All they know are holos. They are always so amazed when confronted by something both marvelous and real.
    “Do you know where we are right now? Where this bridge is?” The captain questions. Roselene shakes her head no. “We’re right up here. You see this area just behind the shield down next to this main pod clamp? The bridge is very well protected here, and this area gives us physical access to all areas of the ship and cargo pod. Now, can you tell me where it is that you and your mother live?”
    Roselene takes in the wonderfully complex puzzle, its beautiful perplexity. She wants to answer correctly. Playing dumb is perfectly all right when you already know the answers, but not when you don’t. Gravely the child squints down at the opened model's two flat halves.
    Though she’s never really expanded one of them out very far, Roselene has often accesses the ship’s map database, and knows by sight both the Learning Center and her quarters. But just now, looking down at the model's tiny straight walls and perfectly proportioned machinery, it all looks so confusing.
    “Out here?” Roselene points hesitantly to a thin rectangle along the gravity-ring’s outer edge.
    “Very good. Now tell me. Where will you and the other immigrants go when you leave the Flying Jib to begin your decent down to Mars?”
    “In here.” Her bearings finally set, Roselene points with a bit more confidence down into the center of the ship, to a long curved opening between the ship’s cargo-pod and breaking shield. “My mommy told me before. First we go down here,” The child begins reciting in a slightly lilting nursery rhyme meter. “Then we all get into these great big long chairs where we all sit down and wait until the cargo-pod flies out of the big ship. Then after that we all live inside the pod until we get down to Phobos.”
    “That’s right.” The captain notes Roselene’s apparent pride in her explanation. As good as some she's heard from adults. “Just here in the pod's passenger section, behind the maneuvering couches. Do you see the pod's aerobreak shield here?” The captain runs her finger-tip along a curve between the pod and the Flying Jib’s center brackets.” Roselene’s bright-eyed smile bobs up at her. “When your cargo-pod slows down into Mars orbit it uses the same type of aerobreaking as the ship. And, inside the shield here are retractable hatchways, little sliding doors that protect the pod's orbital breaking thrusters during aerobreaking.”
    At first the captain thinks she’s lost the child, but after a short silence Roselene's solemn face looks up.
    “That’s so they won’t have a fire.” Roselene nods as if to herself.
    "How's that?"
    “One of the older boys told me once. He said a door got stuck and there was this really bad fire.” Then the child's nose wrinkles up as if sniffing spoiled milk. “But, he was just scaring me.”
    “But, he didn’t?” The captain shakes down a questioning look.
    “Uh uh,” Roselene’s shakes her head, then slowly reconsiders. “Well, a little at first. But, cousin Fred told me never to believe anything anybody ever told me that was scary about spaceships until I told it to him first. He told me that a long long time ago, when he was a real little kid, they had this bad accident one time with the cargo pod doors. But, they fixed it.”
    Captain Movlinka glances a small sad smile back at Mister Davis, who at the moment seems much more interested in bridge operations than in the chaperoning of his young cousin. The man couldn’t be more than twenty-five Es. To young Mister Davis pod KC208 is nothing more than an ancient childhood story. To Captain Karena Maria Movlinka it all happened just yesterday.
    Two-thousand souls gone in ten seconds. And I knew every one.
    “That’s right, little one.” Karena snatches her thoughts away from their sad drift. “Here, let me show you.” Taking the model into both hands the captain closes its halves with the snap of magnetic locks, then pressing another combination of thrusters on the gravity wheel she gives the rejoined cargo-pod a slight twist. With a clicking snap the stubby center cylinder slides loose from the gravity-wheel. Roselene finds the pod-less ship odd looking. Its center missing. Captain Movlinka finds the smooth shield and thick hollow ring a thing of elegant beauty.
    “Do you see these small doors up here on the pod's breaking-shield?” The captain nods down at the cargo-pod in her hand.
    “Uh huh.” Roselene nods in return, smiling at how much the shrunken cargo-pod resembles a dome-ended can of stewed-tomatoes with the label pealed off. Another tap of the captain’s finger-tip and four round sections of breaking-shield split away into curved quarters that slide up behind the main shield revealing four tiny bays, each holding four microscopically exact thrusters.
    “You see, they once thought it easier to section shield doors into many pieces. These doors were easier to produce and required much less storage, but they also allowed for undetected errors. That old cargo-pod, the one your cousin told you of from long long ago, that pod had trouble because two of its over eighty interlocking doors did not quite line up perfectly. And, because there were so many sections, this small error went undetected, and that made them have an accident. Today we use double re-enforced quadrafracting doors. Only four pieces. This allows for careful inspection of all port seams before aerobreaking.”
    “My mommy works up in the pod.” Roselene's tiny fingernail scratches down at a microscopically perfect thrusters. “She took me up there once. They have this really big doughnut room.”
    “Ah yes.” The captain smiles. “The passage-rings. There are two of these.” Again Karena trips a magnetic switch to flip the pod in half. “These two passages right here.” The captain points down at the two vacant rings separating the pod into three relatively equal sections. “They look very small in this model, but you are right, from inside they are quiet large.”
    “We saw people jumping back and forth. My mommy shouted to one of them and he did a somersault in the air.” Roselene’s eyes flash bright as she bounces back and forth between adult seriousness to girlish bubbles.
    This one's smile could charm the birds from trees. Captain Movlinka nods to herself. Her mother must pay attention.
    John discreetly follows their conversation from Dees’ archive station. He's not officially on duty, so technically speaking after the formal introduction he was dismissed. But, the senior officers all seem reluctant to throw him off the bridge while the captain entertains his young cousin, so they leave him be. Still, this entire exercise was meant to acquire good will, not lose it. Impressing the captain while pissing off the rest of the command structure isn’t exactly what John has in mind. Keeping to crewman Dees’ station seems the perfect solution. Both Forrest and Dees are with communications, both apparently tasked to this educational bridge tour, and both quietily tucked away at an end-station.
    This is great. John smiles. I wasn’t expecting an archive. And from Dees!
    Ensign Dees has a reputation around the Jib for re-mixing the crew’s major planetside posts. His public resume shows he came from one of the big Japanese graphics houses, but all he’ll ever say about it is that he just likes it better living in orbit. Word around the Jib was that it had something to do with some radical Japanese personality cults. John avoided the subject. Over Dee's shoulder John tries to take in the rolling flash of multi-media displays as the man's fingers flick through the station's holo controls. Then a tug at John's jumper sleeve startles him. At first he's annoyed. One of the conditions of this bridge tour was that Fred and John could not converse. If the captain chose to entertain on the bridge, she may. Lieutenant Forrest may not. But, Fred’s seriousness pauses him.
    “What is it?”
    “I’ll stay here with Roselene. You go down to contract cargo.” Fred’s seems much too serious for john's liking, his words in short spacer clips. “It’s your ship.”
    “Mister Dees,” John finds a hard sudden knot twisting up in his gut. “This is Roselene DeSilva’s legal guardian Mister Fred Davis. Please afford him every courtesy.”
    “Yes, sir.” The crewman answers with noticeable distraction.
    “Thank you.” Stepping quickly across the bridge to the ship's contract cargo liaison John, to his great relief, finds a friend sitting station.
    “Pitlyk.” John taps the man’s arm.
    “Forrest.” Pitlyk’s thin dark face snaps back over his shoulder. “I was just about to notify you. There seems to be a situation down at Atlantis. Not a lot of detail yet, but they've declared a contained hazard spill and down crewman.” Pitlyk looks back down at the display. “The crewman's named DeSilva.”
    “How down?” The hard knot in John’s stomach clinches up tighter.
    “Can’t say. But from the insurance publics in the reactant vault it looks like…”
    “Where?”
    “Waste reactant vault three-eighty-six. Up here.” Pitlyk points to one of the station displays just above his head. “That’s current. She seems conscious.”
    “All their suits on copyright?”
    “That was rhetorical; right?” Pitlyk cocks a thick dark brow up at John in mock offense.
    “Sorry. What do you know for sure?”
    “Not much. Waste reactant spill, suit contamination, down crewman, emergency-evac. Waste reactant is some nasty stuff. All contractors are required to sign a sixty-second spill notification clause if they want to use the stuff. The legal notification came in just a little over three minuets ago.” Pitlyk glances back at John’s scowl.
    “You remember Bindell?" Dees asks. "Little guy, gray hair, short beard. You helped him sync Atlantis’ data nodes into our internal network when they first came onboard.”
    “Yah, I remember him. Why?”
    “He’s sitting duty at Atlantis tonight. Your friend Mister Davis was standing right here when the hazard notification popped up, and had me officially notify Bindell that the down crewman’s minor child was currently on ship’s bridge. Anything concerning minor children usually sends corporate legals straight up spastic. Right about now they might even be happy to see you.”
    “Wouldn’t count on it.” John smirks. Contract crewmen have a long-standing rivalry with ship’s company. Although events usually stop short of bloodshed.
    “Me either.” Pitlyk turns back to his station. “But, it might be worth taking a test orbit.”
    “It might at that.” And stepping away from Pitlyk’s station John moves down toward the bridge's lower section dedicated to contract carriers and the cargo-pod. TransOrbital may own the ship, but most the cargo-pods it ferries belong to different contractors. On this circuit the pod is owned by a single-event consortium of which Atlantis Corp controls one-third. Because cargo-pods themselves are just a few ton of mylar and monofilament short of a sailship, their owners command considerable rights, one of which – data communications – is almost absolute. That’s why, when Captain Movlinka notices her Lieutenant Forrest make his way down through Atlantis Corp’s third level of security into their communications section she starts tapping out several security bypasses while next to the her tiny Roselene quietly sits slack-jaw mesmerized by one of her better demonstration holos. A really clever interactive piece, and one not generally accessible to the public, which means Roselene’s little souvenir will have to be checked for copyrights. Another flash of fingers sets that task in motion.
    Answering Roselene's occasional question by rote as she’s done for legions of Chief Executives and UN VIPs over the many years, the captain encourages Roselene to play with the holo's interactives, zooming in and out between ship and solar sail, while her ear-bud mummers fractured com-channel  chatter. As ship's master Captain Movlinka legally has access to all parts of both ship and cargo-pod, but any forced accessing of non-TransOrbital networks are subject to court review. And, contested data-intrusions do not make sailship captains very popular with corporate legal. On the other hand, a good corporate captain keeps the contract passengers on their toes. And, any opportunity to break through a contractor's copyright barriers for reasons of appropriate caution is a good one. Within minuets Karena has gleaned through enough snatches of conversation and log transcriptions to form a general picture of the situation. With a small selection of Atlantis Corp’s com-channels in individually colored text on her display the captain's fingers flash off a quick series of commands. That done her attention returns to young Miss Roselene.
    The orderly's light tap startles Fred so that the man quickly grabs hold of his sleeve to keep him from floating up off the deck.
    “Sorry, sir.”
    “It’s all right. How can I help you, ensign?” Fred asks, his heart pounding at his chest.
    “Captain Movlinka has sent word that, with your permission, she would like the honor of continuing to entertain Miss Roselene through a special Captain’s Mess which is scheduled to begin within the hour. The captain indicates she would be more than willing to authorize any standard short-term contract of responsibility that will make you comfortable. The captain and Miss Roselene are scheduled for mess from 15:00 until 17:00. In the mean time you will find an emergency relationship status upgrade to 'legal spouse' granted for yourself and Atlantis Corp Specialist Blade DeSilva. Your personal access status has also been upgraded to bridge crewmember until 23:00. The captain suggests you dismiss yourself from Miss Roselene as soon as possible in case additional arrangements prove necessary.” The man’s words pound a crushing waterfall inside his head, but the orderly's calm demeanor and Fred’s own spacer training maintain his composure.
    “Where's the nearest consumer console?” Fred draws a sigh.
    “The captain has also authorized you ship’s console time until 23:00. Use one of the stations in operations room A. Out the main hatch and to the right. Big double-wide airlock door. Your regular access codes will get you through the hatch and access at any station.” With a gentle hand to Fred's shoulder the orderly coaxes him up toward the command dais.
    “Right.” Fred nods as he takes a hesitant step up to were the captain and Roselene happily sit discussing the wonders of solar sailing.
    If Blade dies and leaves me out here with this kid, I’ll kill her!
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

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