Thousand+ Words for Nov. 3, 2025

Climer was Asleep when the Collision Bell Sounded; it was Such an Unusual Sound....

Climer was asleep when the collision alarm sounded; it was such an unusual sound that he wasn’t able to place it right away. It obviously wasn’t a fuel leak; it wasn’t an overspeed; it wasn’t an atmosphere disorder. Whatever it was, there was no need for concern; the pilot was in his tank, and Climer was sure the pilot would deal with whatever it was, so he turned over in his bunk and put a loose flap of his fleece coverlet over his head to muffle the sound.

On and on the alarm sounded—why the hell wasn’t the pilot turning it off? Climer flipped the covers off and peered at the panel in his cabin. It was two o’clock in the morning, but it couldn’t be that the pilot was asleep, because Tanser’s Slugs didn’t sleep.

Maybe the pilot was dead.

Climer groaned and swung his legs over the edge of the bunk, blinking his eyes. It was too dry in his cabin. “Hydrate the air in here, will you?” he said aloud. There was no one else in his cabin, but the fans came on and somewhere, a pump started pumping water into sponges mounted in front of the fans so that he air in his cabin would moisten.

He stood up, wobbled slightly, and staggered to the bathroom. That finished, he pushed through the curtain that served as the door to his cabin and proceeded down the passageway to the bridge, and pulled aside that curtain. “Hey, turn off that damn alarm.”

The alarm continued.

Climer stepped into the bridge and around the back console to the pedestal mounted along the port side upon which the pilot’s tank sat. It was a clear circular tank filled with a hydrocarbon fluid mixture roughly equivalent to kerosene mixed with lighter fluid in a ration of 14 to 1. Inside the fluid, a muscular snake-like creature could be seen slowly circumnavigating around the tank at its bottom. Climer tapped on the side of the tank. “Hey! I said turn off that alarm.”

The alarm turned off.

“Thank you,” Climer said. He turned and studied one of the displays on the panel. “Collision? How can we be in danger of collision? We’re out in the middle of nowhere.”

A speaker mounted on the back panel sounded in reply. “There’s another ship approaching us.”

“What?!” Climer said. “What other ship?”

“Unknown.”

“There’s nobody out here but us,” Climer responded. “What’s our track position?”

“Track position is 3255,” the pilot responded.

“Ah. Well, nobody is going to be anywhere near 3255. I’m going back to bed.”

“The object is paralleling our track and seems to be accelerating.”

“What?!” Climer said again, his disbelief rising. “No way!” He sat down in the chair at the navigation station. “Okay, give me the visuals here.”

The panel in front of him changed to a display that showed Cornwall’s position on its predetermined path from Earth to Mimas Station and the position of the contact. Climer studied it in silence for a moment. “Are you sure this is right?”

“That’s affirmative,” the pilot responded.

“Hmm.” Climer turned knobs on the panel that changed the perspective of the display, zooming it in and out. “This says the contact is accelerating.”

“That’s affirmative,” the pilot responded.

Climer looked over to the tank. “Well, don’t you think that’s an important detail to mention?”

There was no response from the speaker in the back panel, but Climer noticed a slight change in the way the pilot was orbiting in his tank. The body slowed for a moment, and then returned to its previous speed, and this was evident because the speed of the body as it moved in the tank could be assessed by the movement of the magenta stripes. Climer was not an expert in Slug body language, but he was pretty sure that this motion was the Slug equivalent of a shrug. Then the speaker activated: “The close rate is pretty slow, I figured it could wait until the morning.”

“When’s the intercept?”

“Six hours, 13 minutes at present close rate.”

“Hmm.” Climer continued to study the panel. “Well, it’s not a company ship, I can tell you that.”

“Well, I didn’t say it was.”

“Oh, for god’s sake, don’t be so obtuse.” Again, the pilot made the shrug gesture. Climer didn’t see it; he had turned his panel to the fuel and engine page and was studying the information presented there. “Okay, we got enough fuel to speed up a little. Let’s do a burn to match the contact’s speed and see what happens.”

“A burn. Out here in the middle of nowhere?”

“Well, if we have to run, I’d rather do it while we have some distance in our favor.”

“A burn.”

“Yeah. A burn.”

“It’ll take an hour to warm up the engines,” the pilot said.

“Okay. Well, start warming them up, and get one of the bugs down there to make sure the vents are clear,” Climer said. “I’m going back to bed, you can beep me when they’re ready.”

“You want to call Mama?”

Climer thought for a minute. “No, Mama will just ask a bunch of stupid questions. I’d rather do something and have to apologize than get double-guessed to death.”

“Yeah,” the pilot said. There was a pause as the pilot turned on one of the automated maintenance robots—a bug—positioned on the outside of the ship. “Okay, I’ve got a bug on the way and the warmers are going. Looks like we’ll be at firing temperature in 88 minutes.”

“Eighty-eight minutes? I thought you said it would take an hour to warm up.”

“That was an estimate. It will be 88 minutes.”

“Eighty-eight minutes, okay,” Climer said. He yawned. “Yeah, I’m going back to sleep. If something else happens, don’t just let the alarm ring, beep me instead.”

“Don’t let the alarm ring, but beep you instead.”

“Right.” Climer stepped out of the bridge and back to his cabin, where he stepped through the open door, jerked the curtain closed, and crawled back into his bunk.

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