Chapter 9: Gravo-waxing
Life aboard the Attic quickly began to follow a routine. Once Tom had gotten over the shock of meeting Grandas and the other Cragulons, he seemed as eager as Stella did to learn more about how everything worked. They would both spend hours looking out of the telescope in the observatory. Doctor Dodds also taught them how to steer the big steering wheel, and they would take turns piloting the ship.
Tom and Stella stood in the wheel room, whilst Doctor Dodds explained to them how it worked.
“Only one person can pilot the ship at any one time,” Dodds said. “You first, Stella. Just stand right in front of the wheel there and look directly through the middle of the window. See that planet straight ahead?”
A huge green planet loomed in the centre of the great circular window.
“As you can see, we’re heading straight for it, so I’d like you to turn left or, as spacefarers say, to port. Port is the left-hand side, and starboard is the right-hand side.”
Stella stood in position immediately behind the wheel and looked out of the window. On the golden stand that held the steering wheel, there were a number of levers and a pedal on the floor beside it.
“What do these do?” Stella asked.
“Don’t worry about them just now. Today, I’ll just go through the basics. Are your eyes dead centre?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Now keep your head still and look up.”
Keeping her head level, Stella raised her eyes upward. As she did, the deck of the ship slipped into her vision, and in the window, she could see the deck and the Cragulons playing a game of skittles with the chimneys. It was if she were a bird looking down on the top of the ship.
“Where’s the planet gone?”
“What are you talking about? It’s still there,” Tom said pointedly, “and it’s getting closer.”
“I can’t see it,” Stella said, and she jerked her head to one side. This time the side of the Attic slid past her gaze, until she shifted her focus to the dead centre of the window and the planet appeared in view again.
“There is a lens in the middle of the window,” Dodds explained. “It lets you see the whole of the ship, or if you look far enough back, you can even see behind the ship.”
“You mean like looking into a side mirror on a car?” Tom asked.
“Possibly. I’ve never driven in a car,” Dodds admitted.
Stella directed her eyes upwards again. She found if she moved her gaze slowly, she could make out more detail. She could see the deck of the ship, with the solar sails and one of the Cragulons demolishing a chimney pot. Once her eyes were looking directly upwards, she could see behind them. She tried looking down, and the same sensation occurred. This time she could see the hatchway they’d come through and noticed jagged bits of plumbing sticking out of the floor. Next, she looked right, and a row of starboard side portals shifted past her gaze. She could even make out the Mechomator through one of them: cleaning the galley with a feather duster. As long as she kept her head still, Stella found she could roll her eyes and see the whole of the ship. It took a bit of getting used to. If she moved her head too far, she couldn’t see through the lens at all, and it was as if she was just looking out the window.
After a few goes at it, Stella thought she’d got the hang of steering, once she’d stopped getting confused over which side was port and which was starboard.
“Why can’t we just call it left or right?” she asked Doctor Dodds.
But he insisted, saying it was a traditional space-faring practice. Although she hated to admit it, it soon became clear that Tom was the better pilot. He seemed to pick it up quite naturally.
“I knew all those hours playing computer games would come in useful one day,” he said smugly, after swerving the ship through a meteor shower.
Stella stood behind him, secretly envious that he’d managed to avoid them so well. She knew that if she was steering, they’d have probably smashed into a passing moon.
“I feel a bit queasy,” Wendell said. He was hiding behind the sofa. “Why did you have to go so fast?”
“That wasn’t fast,” Tom replied. “A bit quicker would have made it much more interesting.”
Stella sighed. She wasn’t sure whether she preferred the nervous Tom or the boastful Tom. Raising her eyes upwards, she noticed the Cragulons waving at them frantically.
“Hey, Tom, look up!” she said.
Tom turned his eyes upwards and spied the Cragulons. “What’s wrong with them?”
There was definitely something amiss, as they kept gesturing more frenetically and pointing into space. Stella followed where they were pointing to and picked out the flaming tail of a comet. It was moving really fast and coming straight for them.
“Err, I think we’ve got a problem,” Stella said.
“I see it,” Tom said.
He spun the wheel around to try to veer the Attic away from the hunk of rock that was heading towards them at an alarming rate.
“It’s moving too quickly, I don’t think we can avoid it,” Tom said.
“We’ll be blasted to atoms!” Wendell cried.
“You already are atoms!” Tom snapped back.
“Uncle Dodds!” Stella cried, running to the door, but Dodds was already coming through it.
“A comet is heading straight for us,” Stella gasped.
“I know. I was looking through the telescope in the observatory, and it quite blocked out my view of the Sea Horse Nebula,” he said. He seemed more put out than worried.
“Can you turn the Attic to face the meteor, Tom?” Dodds said.
“Yeah, but that’ll mean we just get a better view when it smashes into us.”
“Just do what he says, Tom!” Stella shouted.
Tom span the wheel round until they could see the comet blazing straight into the front window. Wendell started to moan, and Tom flinched away from the sight of the hunk of rock filling the window. His hands gripped the steering wheel so tightly that his fingers had turned white.
Doctor Dodds didn’t seem too concerned; he just stood behind Tom and reached to the pedestal that held the steering wheel in place and pulled on one of the levers. Immediately above him, a trapdoor opened, and four lots of rope dropped down from the ceiling. At the end of each one, there was a handle.
“Oh, the meteor’s not all that big, now it gets up close, is it?” he said.
Stella disagreed. She felt that it would certainly make a big enough hole when it smashed through the front window. Tom just squeezed his eyes shut.
“Hold on!” Dodds urged. “Three…two…one…Now!”
Just as it looked as if the comet was about to hit the ship, Dodds pulled on one of the cords. A large shutter swung down across the window. There was a shower of sparks as the meteor ricocheted away. The ship juddered as the comet hit, but the shutter had swatted it back the way it had come from. There was another clang, as the shutter swung back into place. The front window cleared again to reveal the peaceful scene of stars. Except now you could trace the red streak of the altered trail of the meteorite.
“Shields,” Dodds said, gesturing to the cords above him. “The Attic’s got four of them. A tug on one of these ropes will pull them down. This one for the front, this one for the back, and one each on either side,” Dodds explained and tugged at each rope in turn. Every time he did, there was a clang as they flapped down and back into place again. “You have to be careful to get the timing right. The trick is to hit any object away from the ship just before it strikes you. If you release the shield too early, you miss, if you leave it too late, it’s already hit you. Good thing that meteor was a tiddler, eh?”