“Were taking the two o’clock,” said Harriet.
“But we’d have to stand the whole way,” I said.
“Then we stand,” she said. I looked around the station for Bean, my wife, hoping for reinforcement against her mother, but Bean was off picking out post cards, well out of earshot. I turned to the girl behind the counter.
“What time does the next train leave?” I asked.
The girl started to open her mouth, but Harriet cut her off before she could respond.
“It’s a shuttle! They call it a shuttle and it doesn’t matter what time the next one leaves, because Aunt Della is expecting us!” Harriet had both of her hands clenched in tight determined balls; her mouth pinched closed, eyes challenging. I did have to admit she was a bit intimidating with her sharp nose and inflated stack of gray hair.
A fantasy built in my mind as to what I was going to say back to her, something cutting to go with her level of ferocity. I knew it was called a shuttle. I had edited both the user and service manuals. So yes, I knew it was called. But while it’s technically termed a “shuttle,” it looks like a train, has cars like a train, is as long as a train and anybody and everybody call it a “Space train.”
I held my tongue while I searched for kinder words. I didn’t find any, so I remained silent and just stared back at Harriet. The ticket girl broke the dead air.
“There’s a three o’clock flight. I have four seats on that one,” the girl said. Harriet reiterated that the relatives were expecting us at such and such time, so we had to leave as soon as possible. I knew it was total BS.
I turned to my father-in-law. “What do you think, Peter? Is an hour delay going to matter that much to Aunt Della?” As the only two men on our trip, I hoped there was enough male camaraderie for him to second my opinion. But he stood silent and unreadable, his mind off, floating somewhere between choosing not to respond, and not hearing a word; his mouth, slightly agape, vacuous and vapid, like a visual version of the dial tone.
I stared with disappointment, waiting for him to come to life. His thin frame in a suit jacket a size too big, eyes comically oversized through the thick lenses of his glasses. Yes, glasses. Peter still wore glasses while the rest of the universe had moved on to ocular implants, or at the very least Lasik eye surgery. Although, being short-staffed on both hearing and sight struck me as the magic combination of qualities needed to endure 37 years of marriage to Harriet. So, I guess I had to applaud him for staying with what worked.
I turned back to the girl at the ticket counter, “ Alright then, after absolutely no discussion, it looks like four passengers for the two o’clock fight to Antares station.”
She entered some information, smiled and spun the payment terminal to me. I swiped my index finger along it, allowing the machine to sniff my DNA, scan my fingerprint and still require me to enter a pin number. Yes, I agree to the charges. No, I don’t want any cash back. Yes, I’ll donate to the intergalactic orphan’s fund. No, I don’t want to take a few minutes to tell you about my experience.
“What’s taking so long?” Asked Harriet.
“Sorry, I was just picking out our seats.”
Harriet looked at me like she had just tasted something sour.
“Seats? Whaddya talking about? We don’t get any seats on this flight!”
“I know, it was just a joke – or not.”
My humor lost on her, I grabbed the luggage: my lone duffel bag, both of Bean’s suitcases, Harriet’s suitcase, Harriet and Bean’s carry-on bags, and Harriet’s two wide brimmed hats, one orange, one yellow. The latter sported a pimpish-looking and ridiculously long pheasant feather. Since my arms were full, I let both hats hang on my back like stylish twin sombreros, one on top of the other as if they were frogs in the throes of passion.
I had become the pack mule for our journey when Peter pointed out that a true gentleman would never let his wife carry her own luggage. I bit my tongue and cheerfully agreed, although inside I was less than happy. Bean and I had argued about her habit of over packing, so the act of me carrying her luggage seemed like it gave her no deterrent to ever not over pack. I had also somehow ended up with Harriet’s luggage, and secretly wondered if Peter’s tiny roll-along bag was indeed all that he had packed, or if Harriet’s deceptively heavy suitcase possibly contained some of his “classic” hardbound detective novels.
We waited in the humanoid line with the other bipedal life forms. It struck me that our standing room only status could have had us on any of the passenger cars, we shouldn’t necessarily have to be on one with human-sized seating, but then I had a hard time understanding most of the hows and whys of public transportation.
Ahead of us two slender and bluish Lecranonians were holding up the line as the terminal authorities helped them to get their spiky leathery wings tucked into the fight-approved protective casings. It was a frequent sight. Lacroninan wings had evolved to where they were no longer useful for flight, but the Lacronians still considered them signs of virility. I was ok with the delay, as I could empathize with someone not wanting to tuck away their manhood, no matter how damaging it could be to the other passengers. I also knew Harriet could feel every minute of delay.
When it was finally our turn to board, the terminal authorities told us that standing room only ticket holders must carry on all of their luggage. Normally dragging multiple pieces of luggage through the narrow walkway between the seats in a passenger car is an annoyance for the other passengers, both seated and standing, as you bump and grunt your burden through them. But there is a certain magic in wearing two old-lady hats, particularly one endowed with a slender brown foot and a half long feather. That magic is the pity the other passengers feel when they think that maybe the sweaty Earth man with all the luggage and the special hats didn’t get enough oxygen at birth. You could read it on their faces. Even the passengers from Kerlon 5 had their eye stalks drooped in sympathy, and they eat their young. I could have wet my pants while strangling a puppy, and the looks would have been the same: It’s ok, tiger, you’ll get there. You’re doing just fine.
At the end of the passenger car, we found an area large enough for the four of us to stand together with our luggage. The train lurched as it started moving, causing us to throw our arms out. Bean tripped over a bag and grabbed onto my shirt, pulling us both to the floor.
“Thanks, Hon,” I said, both of us laughing as we got back up.
“Be careful with those hats. I got them when I was on Genovia, and they are irreplaceable.” Said Harriet. I nodded, indicating that I would, even though I was sure I had seen a Made in the Philippines sticker on the inside of one of them.
A few seconds later a nasal sounding buzzer alerted us that the train would soon be moving. While incredibly late, the buzzer did seem to bring Peter to life. He announced that he was going to use our luggage to construct some makeshift seating, so we could sit instead stand.
“I’ll give you a hand with it Dad,” Bean said. Peter turned to me.
“I think a gentleman wouldn’t stand by and let his wife struggle with heavy luggage.”
“I agree,” I said. “It’s nice of you to let Harriet off the hook like that.”
“I actually meant for you to – “
“I gotta hit the bathroom,” I said.
Having enough of the luggage and Peter’s gentlemanly notions, I turned and headed for the restroom I had seen on the way in. I felt the hats swinging on my back and immediately wished I would have taken them off, but was too pissed to turn back and lose face.
The single stall restroom contained a myriad of multi-lingual signs and instructions for using the omni-species toilet. A red emergency cord hung from the ceiling, long enough for even a seated Scretonian to reach. None of the signs were written in English. I smiled when I thought of my monolingual in-laws trying to decipher how to use the facilities. Bean would make sure Harriet was okay, but I would let Peter be the one to ask me for help before I volunteered any information to his “not good enough for my daughter” – carrot-munching ass. When I realized I could feel my heartbeat in the back of my neck, I decided to take some extra time in the restroom to cool down before heading back.
When I returned, I was pleased to see that Peter and Bean had indeed constructed a nice seating arrangement out of our luggage. As our group took to their makeshift seats, I realized the construction was more love seat than couch. It was a perfect set up for the width of about three and a half asses. Late to the party, I was the half an ass. I squeezed in next to Peter, right butt cheek fighting for as much real estate as my father in law would allow, left butt cheek hanging in free air. I tensed my legs to hold position and looked across our group to see if there was any more room. Peter, a hardbound Murder on the Orient Express sitting in his lap, shared a bag of carrots with Bean. Harriet was already into her knitting.
It decided it was time for my ass — and the rest of me — to find the bar car. I stood and had both hats off when Harriet stopped me.
“What are you doing? Where are you going to put those?’ Harriet asked.
“I was thinking–”
“I don’t want them damaged. Don’t just leave them unattended somewhere.”
“I thought I could put them right here by the –“
“Is it that much trouble for you to carry a couple hats?” She asked.
I slipped the hats back over my head. “No, I don’t suppose it is.”
“I can take them, Hon,” Bean offered.
“And where are you going to put them?” Harriet asked.
“I was going to wear one and leave the other one in my lap.”
“They’re too wide for that, we are so smashed in here, you won’t be able to keep it on in your lap without rolling it and if you wear them, the brim would hit me in the head and mess up my hair.”
Bean looked at me apologetically.
“Yes, Hon,” I said. “We don’t want to mess up your mother’s horns.”
‘What? What was that?” Harriet said.
“We don’t want to mess up your hair,” I said, shooting a wink to Bean. I turned to leave.
“Now, where are you going?” Asked Harriet.
“I think I forgot to flush,” I said, getting a giggle out of Bean.
“Disgusting,” Harriet elbowed Bean. “Tell your husband he’s disgusting.”
“Mom say’s you’re disgusting.”
“I love it when you talk dirty to me, Harriet,” I said. Bean shook her head.
“I did no such thing!” said Harriet. “Peter, did you hear what your son-in-law said to me?”
Crickets.
“Peter, get your damned nose out of that book and listen to me. Beatrice, get your father to listen to me. Peter- Peter- I know you can hear me. Peter!”
I had nearly traversed the length of our passenger car before Harriet’s squawking was finally drowned out by the excited high pitched cicada-like clicking of a group of Taronian kids. All of them were around four feet tall with the hard chubby black bodies typical of pre-molting Taronian teens. With their enormous mother likely in one of the large species cars, they were free to do as they wished, which seemed to be some game where they bounced an anti-grav ball across the aisle between two teams. As I tried to pass between them, the dense metal ball thuded off the left side of my head and went rolling down the aisle. The teenagers on the right side, in the Taronian equivalent of delight, let out an excruciatingly loud buzz that cascaded into a shriek.
I marveled at the fact I still preferred a heavy metal ball in the side of my head to the rest of my trip, but held faith the bartender would have something a better to offer. And hopefully a little ice I could wrap in a towel.
“Tony” was the name on the tag of the bartender, even though every Glutovian I knew had a four syllable name – things like “Lu-mak-ni-gal”, or “Na-mi-tic-ang.” Glutovians always seemed to be in the service industry. I supposed it was the extra-long double jointed arms or the prehensile tail, or more likely, their unwavering ability to work for days on end before requiring rest. Tony’s big oval head turned to me, large yellow eyes quickly blinked above his minuscule mouth. I couldn’t help but smile. Glutovian heads always made me think of Humpty Dumpty.
“Can I do you, Chef?” He asked while wiping down the bar.
I took his broken English as an offer of bartending service and not a proposition for anything else. I also guessed he meant “Chief” and not “Chef,” but I had a bit of a headache, and was not in the correcting mood.
“Sure, do you have Muldoonian ale?”
“Sorry, Chef. No Muldoonian ale. How about a beer?”
“Sounds good.”
He brought out a container the size of a fish tank and poured at least ten liters of what smelled like lilac, but appeared to be liquefied insects, into it. I looked around the bar for the creature that was going to drink this behemoth, but found no one of suitable size. I turned back in time to see Tony put a small pink umbrella on the drink and use both hands to push it toward me.
“Whoa,” I said. “I think there has been some mistake. When you said ‘beer’ I was thinking something quite a bit more domestic.”
“What’s the problem, Chef?”
“I was expecting Earth beer.”
“Earth beer? A fancy Chef with two hats like you don’t want real beer?”
Of course.
The long feather probably did make me look like I was one of the English speaking Chefs on the ringed world of Draton, a popular retreat planet for Glutovians.
“I’m not – er. This feather is just-” It wasn’t worth trying to explain. “Look, my beer would come in metal cylinders, about so high,” I said, indicating the height of a beer can. “Or in bottles; glass containers that taper at the end,” I added.
“Kiddie drinks?” He asked.
“No. You’re probably thinking of carbonated soda. You know, pop.”
“Please don’t call me ‘Pop, Chef.” He pulled a can of Budweiser out from under the counter.
“Is this?” He asked.
“Yes, that.”
“Kiddie drink,” he said and pointed to the corner where two Taronian boys aged about nine or ten cycles were seated; one enjoying a Bud light, the other a Miller Genuine Draft – possibly drowning their sorrows after not making the cut for one of the grav-ball teams.
“No age limits aboard this train, I see.”
“Age limits, Chef?” He asked, popping the top of the Budweiser.
“Forget it,” I said and raised my glass in the general direction of the preteen beer drinkers. There were probably a lot of things for a multi-species bartender to keep track of and maybe drinking age was a ways down the list. I watched as he slopped the lilac insect slurry back into the serving jug from which it came.
“Do you have any In-laws, Tony?”
“In-laws, Chef?”
“Like the relatives you get when you partner. I see you have courtship stripes. How do you get along with your partner’s parents? ”
“It’s good, Chef. They like Tony. I give them lots of kiddies.”
“Grandchildren?”
“Yes. Grand- yes.”
“Have you ever traveled with your spouse’s parents?”
“Like go away? No. Old Glutovian too fragile for moving.”
“You are a lucky man, Tony.”
“You have difficulty with old Earth parents, Chef?”
“Yes, I am traveling with my in-laws right now.”
“Why so wrong?”
“It’s hard to get along with them. My mother-in-law is always complaining, and my father-in-law is mentally missing in action half the time and letting me know I am not good enough for his daughter the other half.”
“It’s okay, Chef. Old parents same all over the universe. Move slow. Think slow. Not easy to bend.”
“Inflexible?”
“Yes. In-flex – yes. You in fast time now. They in slow time. You be slow, Chef, then everything okay.”
He smiled as much as his tiny mouth would allow and nodded his big egg-shaped head at me. It was rather simple advice based on limited information, but I decided that he might not be completely off. I was against the trip from the start, so I probably hadn’t been giving it the fair shake it deserved.
After two beers, I left the bar. On my way back, I fought through a line of five or six bipeds that were taking up the walkway waiting for the bathroom. When I returned to our group, I saw Harriet’s head rocked back facing straight up, mouth open with light snoring. Peter was gone, and there was a full ass and a half worth of seating available for me next to Bean – in light of things, a blissful sight. As I sat down, Bean looked at me rather disconcertingly.
“What?” I asked. She nodded in the direction of the bathroom line.
“What?” I asked again, not getting it.
“Dad,” she said rolling her eyes toward the bathroom.
I got it.
“Peter’s the one holding up the line? How long has he been in there?”
“Since you left,” she said. I didn’t know how long it took me to drink a couple beers, but I guessed I was in the bar car at least a half an hour.
As I looked at the impatient faces, the door opened and Peter came ambling out of the bathroom. Multilingual rumblings of both relief and frustration came from the line. After his years of training with Harriet, Peter expertly ignored them and rocketed like a snail away from us toward the bar car. I felt a pang of guilt, thinking that I probably should have explained how the facilities worked. I just never suspected he would have occupied the only bathroom for that long.
A bulky Bragonian security guard came bounding down the hall with purpose and impatience, passing Peter as he made his way past the end of the line. Those waiting for the restroom turned to hug the walls as the Bragonian’s girth parted the line. With three splayed fingers, he palmed the scan pad next to the door. It forced an emergency opening, and he then pulled out a half-naked Ithsconian woman. Her rubbery body undulated as she worked to retract her waste ports and pull on her clothing. Both the woman and the guard started talking at the same time. His dog-growl voice a sharp contrast to her warbling, chirping falsetto. The conversation slipped through a few languages before it switched to Klavito, which neither Bean or I spoke.
“What’s going on?” Bean asked me
“I’m not sure.”
Both the woman and the guard seemed to be confused. The guard kept pointing inside the bathroom. When he made a pull-chain motion, I understood what had taken place. I turned to Bean.
“Wow. You are going to love this.”
“What. What happened?”
“Your Dad just sandbagged that woman.”
“What?”
“Okay, here’s what I think happened. After spending an inordinate amount of time doing his business, your dad went to flush the toilet, but there are no instructions in English, so he wasn’t sure how to do that. Instead of flushing, he pulled the emergency cord. After nothing had happened, he must have thought the toilet broken and left. The Ithsconian woman had gone in before the guard had time to get there. The guard pulled her out, thinking she was the one who had pulled the cord signaling for help.”
“No.”
“It gets better. Since the toilet didn’t flush, can you guess what your dad left behind?”
We both paused in silence, trying to push the image out of our minds.
“That’s horrible,” Bean said.
“And I am sure the woman was completely embarrassed because the guard would have thought she made the mess.”
“That is so awful.”
“Your Dad couldn’t have planned that any better. He got off Scot free and is probably enjoying a drink in the bar car right now. His timing was impeccable.”
Suddenly, the right side of the car sounded as though it was starting to rain. It became louder, like hail on a tin roof, and then morphed into a whooshing that continued on for several minutes. The car moved sideways. The interior lights dimmed, and I felt the subtle deceleration of the train, action typical of when the light engine loses the high-intensity highly collimated light beam that powers the engine.
“Uh oh,” I said.
“What’s happening?” Asked Bean.
“It sounds like we hit a debris field. I think it pushed us off rail.”
I heard the whine of the retro-drive thrusters fire to slow the train. The slowing meant that the train was not able to find the beam. It was a good protocol, as even the slightest angular error while we ran under the reserve power could cause us to diverge from our expected course, moving us farther away from the light rail. The sudden slowing brought Harriet out of her slumber.
“What’s going on? Are we there? Where’s Peter?”
“We’re not there yet, and it might be a while,” I said.
“What? What’s happening?”
“We are off rail,” I said.
“What did Peter do now?”
“Well, he didn’t derail the train, Mom. We hit some asteroid debris or something,” Bean said.
“Although he did take the bathroom off-line for a half an hour,” I mumbled. Bean elbowed my ribs.
“So we aren’t moving?” Asked Harriet.
“We’re slowing,” I said. “We’ll stop if they can’t find the beam or our position. The communication antenna is on the right side. I’m sure whatever hit us took that out too, so we’re not calling for help.”
“Well, how long before we get going again? Aunt Della is waiting for us. And where is Peter? He knows he’s supposed to wake me whenever he goes anywhere. I don’t like it he doesn’t wake me.”
“I think Peter is stretching his legs in the bar car. As for how long it will take, that’s anybody’s guess.”
“We have to get going. Can’t you do something?”
“Me?” I said. “Maybe, if they found out a typo derailed the train. I edit technical manuals.”
“You’re no use. Where is the Conductor? I need to talk to the Conductor to see how long this is going to take. And it figures your father is gone when we are in trouble.”
She stood, wobbled, gained her footing and was off, elbows swinging high as she race-walked down the hall. Once she was out of hearing range, I put a cupped hand aside my mouth.
“Harriet, wait! You forgot your two glorious hats!”
“Shut up,” Bean said, smiling and shaking her head.
“Yes Dear.”
To my amazement, Harriet was back a few minutes later with the Bragonian guard. He was trudging down the hall, eyes locked forward, carrying an emergency mist canister. Harriet was talking into the side of his face, chatting at him about how late we were going to be if they didn’t get moving. I saw an undeniable combination of disinterest and exhaustion on his face. As they approached, she pointed to me.
“There he is. That’s my son in law. He designs these shuttles so he can help figure out what’s wrong.”
The Bragonian stopped.
“You can do that?” He said in his dog-growl voice.
“No. No, I can’t. I’m an editor.”
“But you know about this shuttle?”
“Just what I pick up from the documents I see. I’m not a service tech. I edit manuals.” I said, making typing motions in the air.
“Come with me,” he said, and then turned to Harriet, “you stay here.”
The hulking Bragonian led me to a small door at the front of the train, opened it and gestured for me to go inside. From his size, there was no way he was going in. I turned sideways and slid into the cramped engine room. The round bulk of the light drive, with its cables and linkages, sat squarely in the center of the room, past it was the wide clear dome on the front of the train that looked out into the darkness of space. Below and ahead of us, on the outside of the train, was the collector plate about a meter in diameter. Normally glowing like a jewel as it collected energy from the light rail, it was now dark, illuminated only on the backside from the exterior running lights of the train. The Bragonian dipped his head through the doorframe.
“This guy knows how to fix the train.”
“Well, get in here, whoever you are,” I couldn’t see the owner of the nervous sounding voice, as she was obscured by the massive light drive. I stepped into the engine room and looked past the right side of the drive to see a Trax Droppler. With no sense or naming all of them are simply called “Trax.” Waist-high creatures with long hairy arms and inverted bowling pin shaped heads. This one was busy on the engine room console. My father-in-law stood next to her watching.
“Peter, what the hell are you doing in here?” I asked. He turned his whole body taking a good three seconds before responding, completely immune to the impending sense of urgency around him.
“Oh, hello. There was some unpleasantness with some of the other passengers. One man in particular was very upset with me – something to do with his wife and the bathroom. I didn’t really understand what that was all about. The whole crowd was very violent so they thought I would be safer in here.”
“Was he an Ithsconian?”
“Yes, I do believe he was. A very large blubbery fellow. How did you know that?”
“Long story. We’ll laugh about it later. Well, I will.”
Trax leaped, grabbed a handle above the light drive, and swung like a spider money toward me.
“So, Champ, you gonna fix thing or not?”
“Not.”
“Then why did Tragg bring you in here?”
“There’s a misunderstanding. I edit the technical documents for this series of shuttle.”
“So you do know something?”
“Well, no. I don’t know anything that you wouldn’t already know from the manuals.”
“Yeah, about that. We’re not the best at installing the updates.”
“How out of date are you.”
Trax shrugged.
I walked over to the info terminal and scanned a few pages.
“Whoa, this is old,” I swiped to the front cover. “Rev A? You guys are still on Rev A? You’ve never done an update.”
“Nobody does. With the security check and everything, you gotta upgrade the kernel just to install a help file.”
“They’re not help files, they’re manuals! Wait, what do you mean ‘nobody does’? Nobody on this train does?”
“Nobody on any train does. You get running right why risk screwing it up just for a help fi- an update? You hardly ever need those things.”
“Except in an emergency, like when the engine goes off rail and your com is down so you can’t call for help. You know, like right now.”
“Okay, okay.”
I thought back to all of the times I had to stay late or work weekends to get an update done. I could have put my weekly shopping list in every revision and nobody would have known the difference.
“We are also under the gun, the next train will be here in 52 minutes.”
“Can we get out of the way?” I asked.
“No dice, Doc, even if they don’t hit us, we gotta be at least a half kilometer away or their engine wash will tear us up. Well have better luck trying to get back online, but we gotta locate the beam first.”
“Didn’t you use the mist to look for the beam? The Bragonian was carrying a mist canister, what was he planning to do with that?”
“Yeah, we ain’t sure where the ports are.”
“You mean you couldn’t find their location in your Rev A manuals? Oh, I guess not since that location was changed in revision F, and then again in revision P.”
“You don’t have to be a smart ass.”
“How has this not come up before? Don’t you guys have to run emergency drills or something?”
“To be honest, I’m kinda filling in for someone. It’s probably better if I don’t say much more. Just show us where the ports are.”
I pointed to the two plates in the upper corners of the engine room where the walls met the ceiling and two plates in the lower corners where each wall met the floor. Each clearly labeled “service port.”
“Here,” I said, working the ceiling panel nearest me, “Turn these two red levers a quarter turn to remove the cover. That gives you access to the service port.”
I removed the cover plate and exposed the service port, housed in a spherical turret with degreed graduations that allowed precise 180 degree movement in two axes.
Trax sprung up to the port and pulled down the lever to disengage the seal.
“Wait!” I said. The metal disc separating us from the vacuum of space dislodged and retracted. Engine room air rushed out the opening. Trax scrambled, returning the lever to the upright position, resealing the port. Lights dimmed as the environmental generators kicked in to replace the lost air.
“And this is where I point out that the mist canister needs to be in place before the port is opened. Do you even have to pass a test to get this job?”
“There’s a lot of pressure to keep these trains going on schedule. They don’t really care as long as we can keep everything on time.”
“So how is that going for you?”
She gave me a sideways look, grabbed the mist canister from the Bragonian and gave it to me. I found the black arrow on the canister and aligned it with the one above the service port. I pushed in the canister, rotated it a quarter turn, and pulled the disengage lever to release the seal. There was a slight hiss of escaping air that stopped in a “fump” as the canister seated in place.
“Now, how hard was that?” I said.
“Now what?”
“Now, we fire the torpedo.”
“And you do that by…”
“Oh, come on. It’s this red button on the end.” I pressed it and felt the canister shake as the torpedo surged into space outside the upper right quarter of the engine room.
“That will leave a trail of mist droplets expanding into a smoky haze for a half a kilometer. Look out the forward dome, if the beam is in that quarter, we should be able to see it as the light interferes with the mist. You can’t see the beam otherwise. Light needs to hit something to be seen.”
“Thanks, Professor.”
“I don’t see it,” Peter said.
I peered out the dome.
“We’ll have to wait for the mist to fully expand. Let’s load the other canisters.”
Peter helped by adding the completely unnecessary step of holding the canister and then handing it to Trax. I looked out the dome and waited for the mist to expand. No beam. Trax fired the other canisters. We each watched one of the three remaining quadrants for a twinkle of light in the smoky haze. After I was certain the beam wasn’t in my area, I looked to the quadrant Peter was overseeing. There, about fifty meters away, like a brilliant beacon from God, was the light rail shining through the mist. I turned to Peter. He was looking directly at it, yet remained silent.
“It’s right there,” I said, pointing it out.
“That’s what it looks like?” he asked,” I thought that was a reflection from inside of the dome.”
“At least we found it,” said Trax, “I should have us online in no time.” She hopped over to the control console.
“How much time do we have?” I asked.
“After we get everything spooled up and moved, about three minutes to spare before the other train hits us?”
Trax started nudging the thrusters; a game of bumping, then overshooting, compensating, and overshooting again. At one point she overcompensated and it seemed as though the tail end of the train slid just below the beam. I was half-expecting to hear screams and explosions echoing down the hallway.
“Cutting it close, aren’t we?”
“This ain’t as easy as it looks, Ace.”
Trax recovered, bringing the train parallel to the beam a meter-and-a-half below it. The red general alarm light started blinking and buzzing.
“Reserve’s dead,” she said.
“How?”
“I dunno. The environmental system probably took some juice off the top.”
“Or you over-maneuvered and used it up,” I looked outside. “We are right below the rail, is there any chance the three o’clock train can stop in time?” I asked.
“None, coms out and they will be going too fast by the time their radar sees us.” Trax said.
“Other power sources?” I asked.
“We could reroute the environmental generators or artificial G – if we had a few hours.”
I looked through the dome and visually aligned the hazy rail to a support strut inside of the engine room to get a bearing on our angular speed. We were drifting. We’d be perpendicular to the rail by the time the other train came through, but not out of the way.
“Can we block the beam to cut their power?” asked Peter.
“Sorry gramps, the rail burns through almost anything. I saw a Kerlonian cruiser after it had crossed a rail – sliced them in half like a hot blade through Cerotto fruit. What we need is a way to get that energy into the collector.”
“How much would it take?” I asked.
“It sucks juice like a sponge, probably a few seconds.”
“What about a mirror?” asked Peter.
The collector plate was less than two meters from the rail, but it might as well have been a million miles away. Even if we had something that could deflect light, we still had to get it to the beam.
“Hmmm. Maybe,” I said. “Call down and have Tony bring drinking glasses from the bar.”
“What’s the plan?”
“Peter’s idea,” I said. “I think we can divert the beam – at least partially – by tossing reflective or diffractive objects into it. If we get any energy to the collector, it may be enough to move us back on rail.”
“How do we get these items out to the beam, Champ?”
“We’ll have to jettison them out the service ports.”
I grabbed one of the empty mist canisters, walked over to Tragg, who was still outside the doorway of the engine room and handed it to him.
“Do you think you can break this off?” I asked, pointing to the red button at the end of the canister. He took the canister and with one finger pushed the button. It cracked, fell inside the canister, rattled down its length and dropped out. He handed it back to me.
“Perfect,” I said. “Now, go find reflective items; mirrors, glass objects, things like that.”
Tragg grunted and walked off. Immediately after he left, Tony showed up carrying a rack of drink glasses.
“I don’t think we have much time,” said Peter. “The collector plate is turning with us.”
I looked out the dome. As the train rotated, the front of the collector plate was turning away from the beam. The longer we took, the harder it would be to deflect light into the collector. Eventually, it would become impossible.
“Trax, get on the controls. If we get juice, steer toward the beam,” I said.
“Peter, hand me the drink glasses.”
“Should I use the ones closest to me first, or should I –”
“Anything, Peter, anything.”
As Peter handed over the glasses, I loaded them into the modified canister. To my disappointment, it held only three. I replaced the old canister with the loaded one and swiveled the turret, aligning it with the hazy beam. I pulled the lever to open the port. Engine room air rushed out the hole where the red button used to be and jettisoned the glasses into space. I closed the service port, and stopped the escaping air. Environmental generators hummed to life.
Peter stood against the dome, watching the drink glasses as they tumbled through space. Two of the glasses missed the beam by a small margin, but the edge of the third rolled into the beam and vaporized in an intense flash.
I blinked, trying to erase the white spot from my vision. Trax tapped the console. “We got a little from that. Keep it up, Sarge”
“I’m going to try again. Peter, I could use help.”
“I’m blind,” he said. He must have been looking at the beam when the flash occurred. His thick lenses surely didn’t help.
“Turn toward my voice and sit down,” I said.
I gathered three more glasses, reloaded the canister, and jettisoned them toward the beam, making sure I turned away from the flash.
“Nice one,” said Trax, working the controls, slowly rotating us toward the beam.
“I’m dead stick again,” she said. I looked to see that only three glasses remained.
“Where the hell is Tragg?” I asked. Trax tried the com.
“He’s not answering.”
“We’re out of ammo. I need something else.” I looked around the room for anything that might be a bit reflective or able to act as a lens or prism.
“Will this work?” Peter asked, holding up a wrench from the service kit, blinking at me through his big lenses.
His monstrously big lenses.
“Give me your glasses.”
“Why?” then realizing, “No, I wouldn’t like that.”
“It’s an emergency.”
Silence.
“Peter?”
“Alright,” he said, handing his glasses to me. I popped the thick lenses out and gave him back the empty frames. He shrugged and put them on. Without lenses, his eyes looked worn and small.
I popped off the canister, put one of Peter’s lenses into it, seated the canister and fired. My heart sank as the lens tumbled past the beam without contact.
“Not good,” said Trax.
I removed the canister and grabbed the last lens, taking time to feel its weight. I resisted the temptation to kiss it for luck as I placed it into the canister. I made a last second correction to the alignment, and pulled the lever. Trax and I watched as our last hope – the left lens of an old man’s eyeglasses – tumbled toward the beam.
“What’s–” Was all that Peter got out when the second lens came squarely into the path of the beam. I turned, putting my arm over my face. Flickering heat danced across the exposed skin on the back of my arms and neck. As the light died out, I heard glass breaking from the doorway. I peeked out from under my arm to see Tragg had returned and, caught in the unexpected flash of light, dropped the box of reflective items he had collected. I was relieved to see Peter facing away from the dome.
Trax pulled up. The light drive whined to life as the collector found the beam. We were back on rail.
#
After the excitement died down, Tony’s offer of “free drinks for the Heroes” had us back at the bar.
“You handled that situation very well,” said Peter.
“Thank you. You didn’t do so bad yourself,” I replied. Peter’s face turned serious. He looked down, then back up to me.
“Look, I know things aren’t always smooth between us.”
“I have indeed noticed some tension between us,” I said. “Let me guess I don’t quite measure up to Brad.”
“Brad her college boyfriend?” Peter asked.
“Yes, I know he’s an attorney now and way better off and more stable than I am with my freelance work.”
“Brad’s a pompous ass. He earns a lot but she is way better off with you.”
The comment knocked me back. I had never heard Peter bad-mouth anyone like that before. I did, however, agree with his assessment.
“Then why have you been giving me such a hard time?”
“Because you never took me for steak before you got married.”
“What?”
“My permission. You never asked for permission to marry my daughter.”
“But I mean— I—”
It made sense now. I remembered Bean’s stories of her father’s lineage and their history of the men taking the girl’s father out to dinner – always for steak and then at the end of the meal, asking formal permission to marry the man’s daughter. The father had to answer before they finished dessert and it was a game of drawing out the decision until the final bite. She had told me how Peter was that last male in their lineage, so he was the last man in their bloodline to ever go through the ritual. I had always assumed this meant the custom ended with him.
“I’m sorry, Peter. I didn’t ever think you would want me to keep on with the tradition. I should have come to you.”
“It’s alright. After all we just went through, I realized life is too short for me to hold a grudge.”
“Is there any way I can make it up to you?”
“Well, once we get to Della’s, I could use your help getting to an optometrist. I am useless without my glasses.”
#
We arrived at Aunt Della’s and found a holo message at her door. She apologized for not being home, saying she would be gone for a few days visiting her relatives on Earth. Packages should be left with the Andersons next door.
Bean and I looked at each other and started laughing. Peter and Harriet were too dumbfounded to react. Peter squinted a centimeter from the holo.
“Has she gone to visit us?” He asked.
“Yup,” I said.
“How could this happen?” He asked.
“Well, Mom?” Bean said. We looked at Harriet. For the first time in a very long while, I saw her smile, and then, even more incredibly, laugh.
“We were so stuck on dates, I guess we never clarified who was visiting whom.”
I put a hat on Harriet and one on Peter, making sure Peter got the one with the feather. After giving up his lenses, he earned it.
“On the way back,” I said, “let’s not take the train.”
Bean turned to me, smiling.
“It’s called a shuttle, Dear. It’s called a shuttle.”
Breaking Into The Craft 