assistant.” Gwog regarded Karnis. “The youngling here can whip up a mighty fine Erotin sage root float.”
“Ah. You like to cook, youngling?” Karnis asked.
“I used to help my mother a lot.” Dar wasn’t sure if he’d just opened his mouth and got sentenced to kitchen duty. At any rate, he was happy to be away from Krodus and the other purebreds that made his life miserable. Here, it seemed like he’d fit right in. He knew hard work would be expected of him, and he wasn’t afraid to jump in and do his share.
Vikkis sat in the chair at the charting station. Dar stood behind, watching. He’d been shown to his quarters, dropped his belongings off, and reported to the bridge. It was a large area with several stations in which to work. The whole bridge was painted in a light gray. Instead of grated metal flooring, there was a real, solid floor covered with thin, dark gray carpet. Despite the evident age of the ship, the bridge was neat and tidy.
“All right, everyone, let’s get going.” Gwog wanted to break orbit, so they hurriedly went to work.
“Tell me youngling, this is your first experience in space?” Vikkis asked.
“Yes, sir.”
He worked on the computer. “What draws you to this great, black void?”
“I’ve always liked the stars…They don’t judge me.”
“Get beat up in school a lot?”
Dar sighed. “Yes, sir.”
“Me too. I may be half Halgar, but I was born and raised on Iddris where there were Thokins and many other races of aliens…None of which appreciated a half breed.”
“Same on Erotis, although I lived in Aknarra, which is primarily Satiren, I got the shit beat out of me seemingly every day.”
“Unusual. Satirens are normally a peaceful race.”
“Not to a half breed. A Satiren male won’t even take a female if she has a half breed youngling.”
“Fascinating, I never knew that.” Vikkis programmed some coordinates into the computer. “What do you know of Guonis?”
“It’s where the gold drig strips come from.”
“Correct. We’re heading there, but first we’ll make a stop on Skrinnis to offload some Jamaraian rum.” He reached down, opened a compartment next to his legs and pulled out a rolled map. “Take that over to the chart table and lay it out.”
“Yes, sir.” Dar did as instructed. As he rolled the map out, he gently passed his fingers over, seemingly touching all the planets in the galaxy. Putting his finger on Erotis, he traced the course to Skrinnis and on to Guonis. If he guessed correctly, they were about sixty-three thousand light years from Skrinnis, due to the planet’s location in the Epsilon sector.
“Well, youngling? How about charting our course?” Tregis said as he stood over Dar.
He turned and looked up. “Uh…”
“Come, come, it’s really not that hard.” Tregis opened a drawer and took out some odd looking tools. Dar had used a compass, dividers, rulers, triangles, and a sextant in school; but this equipment had him clueless. “This…youngling, is a Lanterian compass.” He pointed to the device. “And this, a Sirrixian triangle.”
Dar reached over and gently picked up the triangle. It wasn’t even triangular shaped. “I’ve used triangles before, but not like this.”
Tregis picked up another tool. “This is a Bodnarian ruler.”
“That looks a little more like something I know.”
“Now, watch and learn.” He proceeded to use the tools to map out the course, then he jotted it down on a slip of paper. “Here’s our coordinates, and that’s where we’re going. Skrinnis is sixty-three and a half thousand light years from our current position.”
Dar smiled. “Hmm, not a half bad guess.”
“What?”
He drew his finger across the map. “I’d guessed it about sixty-three thousand light years.”
“Was that an educated guess?”
His smile broadened. “Yes.”
Tregis laughed. “Ah, a smart one for once!”
Gwog came over and plopped a big hand down on each of their shoulders. “So? Is the youngling proving his worth?” He looked at Dar. “Although, I shouldn’t call you youngling.”
“I still kinda am.”
“No, no, you’re an adult now…You are, however the little one of the crew.”
Dar wasn’t exactly sure he appreciated being saddled with that nick name. It was true; he was the smallest one of the crew. Even at six feet tall, he lacked the sheer musculature the others had. Jartis happened to be the only other close in size. And Dar felt confident no one dared call the chief engineer little one.
“He needs to learn the tools, but his dead-reckoning skills are quite good,” Tregis said.
“Good,” Gwog replied as he let his hands slide and disappeared back to his place on the bridge.
Dar picked up the Bodnarian ruler. “Uh, sir?”
“Please, call me Tregis.”
“Oh, um, all right…How come we have to chart our course on a map when this ship seems to have loads of fancy computers?”
“What do we do if the computers are down?”
Dar scratched his head. “Well, then we’d use paper maps and do it the old-fashioned way.”
Tregis wagged a finger at him. “You’re missing the point youngling. If we rely on computers all the time, and then one day they don’t work, how many will remember how to ‘do it the old-fashioned way.’ Huh?”
“Point taken, sir.” Dar said softly.
“Now, let’s take what we have and go lay in the course.” He led Dar over to the navigator’s control console. “On most freighters, the majority of the controls are on one console. But because the Cunik’s so damn big, she needs a larger crew to make sure she can safely get through space.”
“If I may ask, how big is this vessel?”
Tregis slid into the seat and immediately started inputting the coordinates. “She’s about a mile long…The forward cargo bay can hold a straight load of just over half a mile…The aft is divided into eight sections for smaller shipments…And the engine room and shuttle bay, of course.”
“How fast is she?” Dar almost felt like his brain couldn’t suck up the information quick enough. But he was going to make a concerted effort.
“Well, all that cargo carrying capacity comes at a cost. She can do warp six on a good day with a solar wind at her backside,” he said with a chuckle. “Captain, course laid in for Skrinnis.”
“Aye,” Gwog replied from his chair on the bridge. “Helm, take us out.”
“Aye, captain,” Vikkis called. He’d “changed hats” and was now at the helm controls. In the short time Dar’d been aboard, he noticed most of the crew had more than one job. He wondered what his jobs would be. He was fairly confident once he learned all the tools, he’d be filling some sort of navigational function. And with Gwog’s praise of his Erotin sage root float, he figured the kitchen would be the other. But, from the captain’s talk earlier, he’d be getting experience in every part of the ship. He couldn’t wait.
5
Skrinnis loomed in the front window of the Cunik’s bridge. It was a reddish planet with a few swirls of white clouds and the occasional splotch of blue-green water. Dar didn’t think it looked terribly habitable, but evidently, there were life forms there.
“Welcome to Skrinnis,” Tregis joked. They’d been in transit for ten days and finally arrived. Since there was no “day” or “night” in space, the crew of the Cunik established their own work/rest cycle. Clocks on the ship were set to one time, and everyone kept to a schedule. Even though most times Dar wasn’t tired, he was sent to bed, and then awoken at the appointed time. He knew this would take some getting used to.
“Ah,” Dar replied with a yawn, still fuzzy-headed after his strange sleep schedule. “There’s life-forms down there?”
“Skrinnians tend to be a subterranean species. You won’t see much on the surface except a space port or two.”
He peered out the window as the planet drew closer.
“Are we gonna land?”
“Far easier to off load three thousand crates of Jamaraian rum if you do,” Tregis kidded.
Gwog strolled onto the bridge from his cabin just off to the side. “Good morning, little one; ready to explore a new planet?”
Dar turned, a smile beaming on his face. “Yes, sir!”
“Have you had breakfast?”
“Yes, sir,” he replied. Meal times, he was quickly discovering, were the best. As a new crew member, all the old-timers felt the sudden urge to recount stories of their travels in space. Dar could have listened to them all night, but Vikkis would send him to bed. They were amazing and fantastic stories of distant planets and species; some ended in tales of exotic joinings on pleasure barges. As of yet, no mention of his sexual prowess (or lack thereof) had been made, and Dar hoped it stayed that way.
“Come here, little one.” Gwog motioned him to the helm control console. “Watch as Vikkis lands us on the surface.”
“Yes, sir.” Dar stood behind Vikkis and observed as they slowly descended.
“Now, see these?” Vikkis indicated to a double row of eight buttons that ran down the left side of the console. “These are the ventral thrusters…You can fire each one individually. Or…” He brought his hand to the bottom where two more buttons were. “…You simply push these two and have full control of all.”
“The Cunik needs all those thrusters to land?”
He chuckled. “At nearly a mile long, I’m surprised she doesn’t have more…But she’s got very powerful ones, and they can land a full load just as soft as a game fowl feather floats to the ground.”
Dar smiled at the