Things Were Spiraling... (975 Words)

The captain of a spaceship gets in trouble after fumbling an approach to Earth.

Things were spiraling out of control.

Degmar motioned toward the plastiform bench alongside the wall. “Sit down while I work this out.” Kinsley rolled her eyes, but she stepped over and sat, and Degmar busied himself at his panel. He activated the drag planes so as to slow the ship down a little. Then he lifted a hand to his press-to-talk. “Clem! Are you tracking all this?”

Below decks, inside a torus tank filled with electrified kerosene, a snake-like creature, heavily muscular, swam endlessly around and around and around. Supercomputers in the tank translated Degmar’s question into the creature’s peculiar, taste-based language and pumped the small, carefully proportioned quantities of crude oil, gasoline, and benzene that would communicate the question into the tank. The creature detected these substances, interpreted their meaning, and responded by excreting similarly small, carefully proportioned quantities into the tank. A sample of the result was analyzed and converted to English speech, which was then transmitted up to the bridge. The whole process took only about four seconds. “Yes. I was wondering when you’d give up.”

“I give up!” Degmar said. He peered at one of the displays on his panel. “The drag planes aren’t working.”

A brief pause and then Clem answered. “Start warming up the fuel. I’m going to get us slowed down, then we’ll make a burn for topside.”

“Somebody down there is going to see us,” Kinsley said. “If there’s an inquiry, I’m not testifying.”

“Shut up,” Degmar said.

“I’m not!” she repeated.

“I said shut up.” Then to Clem: “Topside? Are you sure that—” The ship jostled as Clem pumped their excess speed into the fourth dimension or wherever it was that he pumped excess speed to.

“I’m sure. Are you warming up the fuel?”

Dagmar grimaced; his hand flicked a switch on his panel. “Yes, I’m warming up the fuel.”

“Now he’s warming it up!” Kinsley shouted. “What an idiot.”

In his tank, Clem slowed in his endless swim around and around as a larger portion of his folding organs became occupied with the present situation. He was manipulating the spacetime around the ship this way and that, as a duck might move the water around him here and there in order to adjust his own path through it. The ship was responding, slowing its descent, bleeding off its speed. But even Clem couldn’t generate energy from nothing, and getting the ship back out of the atmosphere would require a burn. “Okay, now get Engine Two and Four linked together.”

Dagmar frowned. “Two and four? Are you sure?”

“Two and four!” Kinsley shouted from the bench. “He said two and four! Don’t argue with the pilot!”

“Two and four. Quickly, please,” Clem said.

Dagmar moved his hands over the panel, completing the request.

“Good. Now let’s get the fuel going, and we’ll count down for a burn.”

“Roger,” Dagmar answered. “Fuel is flowing and ready for the count.”

The ship’s descent was nearly halted now. Clem folded spacetime just above the ship, forming a tunnel for the ship to pass through such that during the short burn, the ship would travel about 8,000,000 miles, much farther than the duration of the burn might suggest. He held the tunnel open. “Okay, let’s count from 10, shall we?”

“Counting from ten. Ten…nine…eight….” Dagmar continued, and when he got to zero, he pushed the blue button.

Nothing happened.

“Push the button, you idiot!” Kinsley said. “Push it!”

“I did push it. Clem! No launch.”

Clem, still circulating in his tank, was holding the tunnel open with one arm and moving the other one through spacetime into the guts of Engine 4, which had failed to ignite, causing the entire engine firing sequence to abort. “I’m working it,” he said. Clem couldn’t see—Sciscars didn’t have the sense of sight, and really didn’t understand what sight was—but he felt around and checked things in their operational sequence: the fuel was warm enough, the fuel lines were clear, fuel was reaching the chamber, the ignitors seemed to be all right. Then he got to the oxidizer intakes and felt immediately that they were shut. “Your oxidizer valves are closed,” he said. “Open the oxidizer valves.”

“You didn’t open the valves?” Kinsley snarled.

Dagmar grimaced again and walked around the panel to the valve handles. He grasped both of them and turned. “Valves are open.”

“Now they’re open!” Kinsley said. “Idiot!”

Clem pulled his arm out of Engine Four and then the two engines ignited. The ship responded, and through the window, the fields and trees and small structures started receding as the ship ascended. “Yeah, okay, thrust is stable. We’re through ten seconds now, fourteen to go.”

The rate of ascent was such that already, through the window, the darkness of space was evident, and the entire Earth could be seen. Then the Earth’s satellite—they called it Moon, Dagmar remembered hearing—could be seen. Then the two bodies were tiny specks in the blackness and then they could not be seen at all. The system’s star moved into the window, and it quickly receded to a small bright circle.
Dagmar’s eyes were on his panel. “Shutoff in three…two…one…. Shutoff.”

The engines turned off and Clem let go of the spacetime tunnel through which the ship had been traveling. “All right. Turn off the fuel heaters.”

Dagmar flicked switches, and then he heard Clem say a strange thing: “Uh-oh.”

Multiple red alarms flashed on Dagmar’s panels. Then the stentorian voice of the Commission’s computer sounded on the overhead speakers “Ship Clasius, Commander Penrod, Dagmar B.! You have violated Treaty Rule 448B, remain out of sight of developing races! You will report to Station 11 immediately for inquiry!”

“I’m not testifying!” Kinsley repeated.

Clem’s voice came out of the speaker. “I’m not testifying.”

Things were spiraling out of control.