The curve of space, vast and beautiful beyond comprehension, was no more beautiful than the Drover. Immense for a ship as the immeasurable parabola was for the universe, she was the product of three generations of engineers trained from birth for her construction. The Drover had been intended for a century and more to be the model and prototype for every space vessel to follow. Henceforth, all spacefaring ships would be divided into two classes: those constructed before the Drover, and Real Ships. The illiterate mastercrafters who built her had explored the concept of elegance as motive power to the point of building the fastest, most beautiful vessel in the history of the universe. Fifteen engineers, learning she had been completed, had voluntarily walked into a minefield, and Lag Leman, Inspector General of the Imperial Fleet, had died of heartbreak on seeing the whole ship all at once without due preparation.
The Drover was currently as far off course as she was beautiful. A meandering publicity tour, designed to show off the latest accomplishment of the Imperial workshops, had been woven into her regular work assignment transporting slaves from one work zone to another. On her first two stops along this tour, Imperial citizens marveled at the genius and technology which had created a vast beautiful ship in which some twenty-seven million disposable workers could subsist for up to a generation until they could be unloaded where needed. She was a lightleap forward for Imperial efficiency.
But right now she lurched through space far from her intended cruise of celebration. A lurch, in a vast ship traveling at 930,000 feet per second, can be alarming. Something unplanned had transpired on her third stop. The Drover was still irritated about this.
“You,” said the bridge computer, its voice simulator producing tones of exquisite charm, “Are a lobster-fingered lummox.”
“Ah shut up,” said the pilot. He ran one hand across his stubble chin. “I can fly anything when I’m sober and I haven’t had a drink in three days.”
“What about that Patbad Casual I had to mix you?”
“Call that a drink?”
Bott Garton was out of place. He was less personally elegant than the bolts which secured the lid of the toilet in the captain’s quarters. His hair was blackish-brownish, and badly trimmed; his face was reddish and smudged. His clothes were all of a color most nearly approaching gray than anything else. This offended the fastidious Drover as much as the rest.
“If you insist on spoiling that seat with your presence, you could at least put on a uniform,” she said. “I have eighteen thousand.”
Dark-rimmed eyes jerked back and forth, studying the array of lit and ulit squares on the console before him. “They wouldn’t fit me.”
The computer was as elegantly offended as possible. “I am capable, lummox, of custom designing a uniform to accommodate any number of limbs, size of body, and oddly-placed respiratory organs. AND of constructing it in ten minutes’ time.”
“Those rags still wouldn’t fit me.” Bott pressed two red pads and a green one. His seat seemed to bounce, and the flight path altered one iota.
“Do you know,” said the computer, its tone now gentle and conversational, “I’ve thought about asking where you learned to fly.”
Bott grunted. The computer continued, “Instead, I believe I’ll inquire IF you ever learned to fly.”
His underteeth stuck out. “I flew with the pirates of Philthoothiel. They maybe don’t gly to Imperial standards, but they’re the best pilots in the universe.”
He clicked a green pad off and a red one on. The bridge wriggled as if shaking itself dry.
“Nothing rubbed off, did it?” the computer inquired.
Bott returned the pads to their previous status and then slammed both fists against the elegant undulations of the navigational panel. “All your command pads are in the wrong places!”
“That IS the worst of illegal training,” said the Drover, in tones of warm sympathy. “Illiterates have to learn to console by position. So you can fly only those ships constructed in your own planetary system. My admiration for Imperial control increases by the moment. Ouch.”
Bott had tried a blue pad. The ship’s speed doubled. “Ha! I can fly anything.” His fingers hovered over the rainbow array.
“Want a hint?” the Drover suggested. “Hmmmm? Hmmmm?”
“Quiet!” The pilot lowered his hands to his lap. “If I can just manage the turning sequence, I’ll be set. We’ve been going in too many straight lines, making too many square corners. If you weren’t so fast, they’d have us by now.”
“I know.” The computer emitted a genteel sigh. “It’s one of the curses of superiority.”
A purple pad released a gentle chorus of clarinets. “That’s a meal call,” the computer told him. “How did a fumble-fingered doofus like you ever get past my security?”
“It was only fair,” growled Bott, running a hand through his thick, greasy hair. “They take my ship; I take theirs. A meal call, huh? So the purple pads are all for communications? Shipboard?”
“Maybe,” said the Drover. “How did you do it?”
Bott considered a slanting line of yellow pads, separated by other yellow pads by the purple ones. “Why? Recording this for my trial?”
“Does it make a difference? They will surely never catch so great a pilot.”
“I can steal anything when I’m sober,” Bott replied, looking again for any kind of pattern to the colors. “And I hadn’t had a drink in three days. I gassed a few, and told the rest they were relieved for R&R.”
“They believed you? You?”
“I made sounds like an officer.” His hand went to a pink tab, but on reflection, he pulled it back. “They learn to take anything they get in that tone of voice. And nobody was gonna tell ‘em anything different because this is the Imperial Service. Nobody tells them anything.”
He set on finger against the pink tab. It lit up without any other obvious signs of reaction. “And I just worked my way through the ship, confiscating bigger and better security passes as I went.”
“Some of my security pads require thumbprints.”
“Thumbs can be easier to steal than passes.”
The computer sighed. “I suppose there are ships who would be thrilled to be stolen by a bloodthirsty pirate.”
“Why’d you take off, then, if you’re so smart?” Bott considered a pad of forest green. “You could tell I wasn’t authorized.”
“I am merely the central computer.” The voice was polished but cold. “The navigational computer was the one that…. Yes, you; I’m talking about you. I told you he wasn’t one of ours. Oh, of course. As long as he has the right chip you’ll do anything he tells you.”
This was news to Bott. If he could set the navigational computer to automatic pilot, then, he could risk getting some sleep and let the ship continue on course. If he could figure out how to set a course. Those three green buttons way over here might be the automatic pilot.
The bridge lurched again.
“You didn’t have to do THAT,” complained the computer, as lights flashed around the bridge.
“I thought it might be….” An alarm throbbed higher and higher on a delicately modulated scale which started at Shriek and worked its way up.
“What’s wrong?” Bott demanded. “What’s wrong?” He jabbed at the green buttons, but they seemed to be locked and did not change color.
“None of this is easy to do,” the computer replied, “And it should be impossible. But you have skills. You increased speed, set a new course in reverse, and told navigation to ignore our previous orientation. I am now flying at sixty-two percent maximum speed at an angle I was really not designed to move. Among other things. I will begin to break apart in five point eight minutes. I blame the navigational computer most, if that makes you feel better.”
Bott started pushing pads at random. “Excellent strategy,” said the computer. “The sooner we disintegrate, the less chance they’ll catch you.”
“All right, I give up.” The pilot threw up his hands. “What do I do?”
“Oh, you’re asking me? I am quietly thrilled. Just ease thrust and engage the stabilizing propspondor.”
Bott had actually identified the main pads controlling thrust, so the first bit was simple. “Now,” he said, looking around. “The stabilizing prospondor. Right. I’d’ve thought of that myself if the siren hadn’t been screaming at me. Um.” He looked around and raised an index finger. “The little red one?”
“Some pilot!” exclaimed the computer. “The little red one! The little red one! I wish you wouldn’t use technical jargon, Captain Doofus; we computers have not been programmed to keep up with you. The little red one! Ha!”
“All right, all right! Which one, then?”
The computer sniffed. “The little blue one.”
Bott jammed a finger down. Alarms fell silent. He checked what he could of their heading and, making sure they weren’t aimed at any Imperial prison planets, rose from the seat. His first step was onto a plastic plate, which sent a plastic fork into the air and him back into the chair.
“Couldn’t you let me switch on the automatic maintenance crew? You have my bridge in a state of hopeless clutter.”
Bott settled back against the armrest and waved a hand in the air. “Oh, it was all just a little too sleek. Too smooth. I’d get lost if I didn’t have something to mark my place.”
“I knew it,” growled the computer. “When are you going to get around to painting naked bodies and obscene symbols on my hull?”
Bott leaned back and regarded the elegantly lighted ceiling. “Oh, you know: as soon as I figure out what color looks worst on you.”
“Well!” snapped the computer.
Bott rose again, grinning at getting the last word until she went on, “From your clothing, I had assumed all this time you were color-blind.”
Blogsy Babbles 