Wormbender's Circus

“All systems operational, Captain,” said Casey. “Do you want to take the helm?”

“Okay,” said Sebastian nervously. “Long as you stick around to tell me where I should take it.”

“Ah, look,” said Casey, “the damn thing just about flies itself. We’ve put every star chart we could lay our hands on into the memory. Just have to keep the eyes peeled for the odd bit of rock that’s not on the charts. And the sensors give you plenty of warning of those. It’s only doing jumps that you need to have your wits about you. Could end up anywhere if you’re not careful, and I do mean anywhere.”

Sebastian relaxed visibly. “Where’s Igor?”

“He’s in the workshop, completing the circuitry for the advance publicity probes.”

“He’s a useful little guy, isn’t he?”

Sebastian fed into the control unit a number of directional commands, and felt the surge of power as the ship motored through the outer fringes of the solar system.

Casey went away and got a coffee and came back. He looked out wistfully at the visible star systems. “I haven’t been out here for quite a while. It’s good to be back.” He sighed. “Yes indeed, it’s good to be back.”

The two men stared ahead for a few minutes, lost in thought. “When do we cut to relativity drive?” Sebastian said at last.

“’Bout the time I finish my coffee,” said Casey. He had in fact already programmed the first interstellar jump to carry them across the void, and it would happen regardless of whether he had finished his coffee or not.

He put his cup aside and thumbed the intercom. “Igor, are we ready to do the Doppler?”

“Ready we are,” came Igor’s reply. Casey’s screen flashed a warning that the ship was about to jump.

“Okay,” Casey grinned. “Let’s redshift!”

The ship’s relativity drive came into play. The stars outside became a blur as the ship carved through the fabric of space-time, and Sebastian watched in awe as it happened.

“Wow,” he gasped. “I never knew it would be like this.”

“Quite something, isn’t it?” said Casey, mustering as much cool as he could. “Fancy a game of cards?”

The two men played gin rummy as the Semiramis spanned the light years.

Casey had a winning hand as the ship started to slow to her regular speed. “Jump completed,” Igor announced, melding himself into the ship’s memory banks. “All systems functioning normally.”

“Where are we?” said Sebastian.

“At the edge of the Rann system,” said Casey. “Do you know much about catching an erg?”

“Well,” said Sebastian, “it’s a bit like fishing, isn’t it? You leave a trail of charged particles, don’t you, and then the erg kind of latches on to them.”

“That’s more or less it,” said Casey, “but there’s a lot of luck involved.”

“What about all these stories I’ve heard about them being able to sense whether your intentions are good or bad?”

“Load of horse manure,” Casey snorted. “These are not intelligent beings, as many people would have you believe, but a very basic life form. Very basic indeed.”

“But don’t they imitate the shapes of objects? Ships, even?”

“Sure they do. But they have no more idea of what they’re doing than a parrot does when it imitates your voice.”

“Okay,” said Sebastian, “are we ready, then?”

“Well,” said Casey, “those things absorb a deal of energy. We need to charge up our batteries first. I see there’s a young planet out there. It’s got an atmosphere of sorts, and I guess it’d be pretty stormy down there. We can use some of that surplus energy that’s flying around.”

Sebastian frowned. “Is it safe?”

“Sure,” said Casey. “If we’re careful.” He caught Sebastian’s eye. “Trust me.”

They edged towards the planet. From a distance it already looked a forbidding place, a mass of swirling, brownish-grey cloud in perpetual tortured motion. Deep within the atmosphere they could see violent flashes of light, some white, others reddish.

“This would not be my first choice of a place to die,” Sebastian muttered audibly.

“Relax, will you?” said Casey, firing the thrusters to dip the ship’s nose into the cloud mass. The planet’s gravity seemed to seize the ship and suck it down into its maw. Casey bent over the controls, his face locked in a frown of concentration, while Sebastian stared at a monitor, chewing his thumbnail.

The instruments indicated an external temperature around freezing point and sensors told of a thin veneer of ice forming on the ship’s skin. The ground mappers showed they were over an area of intense volcanic activity.

Without warning the ship was thrown sideways. Sebastian was thrust forward, his stomach wrenched against his harness, and then as violently thrown back into his seat as the ship righted itself. Casey’s saucer was hurled across the cabin against a bulkhead, and then crashed to the floor. Ahead, the side of a mountain suddenly loomed through the cloud, and vanished again as the ship lurched sickeningly away from it. Again something erupted close at hand, and again the ship was tossed sideways.

“Casey!” Sebastian screamed. “Get us out of here!”

“Patience, dammit!” Casey yelled, now back at the controls. “I’m doing all I can!”

Amid the continued rumbling of the surrounding volcanoes, there now came the sound of debris falling on the ship. Warning signals alerted the two men to damage to the ship, while others alerted them to the fact that the ship was losing height rapidly. She shook from stem to stern as Casey fought to keep her on an even keel and steer her away from the volcanic region.

“I think this whole goddam planet’s going up at once!” he moaned.

They felt the impact of something large hitting the ship somewhere near the stern, and instantly their screens lit up with a host of malfunction signals, indicating major engine damage.

“We’ve got to find somewhere flat to bring her down,” Casey moaned. “Anything on the mapper?”

The instruments indicated that the Semiramis was swooping low over the floor of a valley, which was growing progressively wider. The blasts from the volcanoes were now further away, but at the same time, a fierce storm was moving in, and bolts of lightning were beginning to play around the ship’s hull.

“The mapper indicates that this valley opens onto a narrow coastal plain,” Sebastian said.

“Okay,” said Casey, we’re going down.

Short bursts from the thrusters slowed the ship as Casey and Sebastian took in the details of the topography passing beneath them.

An expanse of flat sand opened out ahead, and Casey brought the ship down onto it in a mad roar.

Bolts of lightning still flashed around, while rain continued to lash it.

Casey studied the landscape on the monitors. “I wouldn’t send a dog out there,” he muttered. He hit the intercom button. “Igor, damage control.”

“Okay, boss.”

Armed with a battery of repair equipment, Igor moved out onto the hull of the Semiramis to examine the extent of the damage to the ship and effect repairs. Casey and Sebastian could only watch his progress on the monitors and wait.

“Well,” said Casey, “at least we can get what we came for. This storm will charge up the batteries nicely.”