Star Winds

“Where we’re going is to my uncle’s own domain, the Castarpos Moons. It’s only a small corner of Maralia, and rather dull and gloomy, really.” She let loose a sigh. “That’s why I came along on this trip. I thought it might be fun. It hasn’t been so far, though.”

“Well, we must, er, see what we can do,” he stuttered, and his arm went round her waist. Excitement mounted in him. At the same time new ideas began to invade his brain. All was not lost, he told himself. New frontiers lay ahead—and there was still a chance, he thought stubbornly, that he could somehow get hold of the alchemical book, still a chance that he could learn the secret of making gold.

Apart from that, he speculated, allowing his thoughts to spiral crazily, what if he were to become related to Baron Matello? Married to his niece?

Unaware that there was no chance of a commoner marrying into the nobility, Rachad sank down onto the soft bed with Elissea, and soon, for a while, forgot all his ambitions and disappointments.

***

For two months the Bucentaur sailed along a glittering star arm, traversing several degrees on the great galactic circle by which interstellar flight was reckoned. In the latter half of the voyage her crew, showing great skill, guided her onto invisible running contours which the layers of ether wind created as they slid against one another—for the interstellar ether was far from homogenous but formed tunnels, streams and inclines as it swirled and boiled around the stars. The Bucentaur’s sails were able to gain leverage on these contours and use them by which to decelerate, so that as she approached the borders of Maralia her velocity steadily dropped.

Finally she fell below lightspeed and began picking her way through a vast natural obstacle that lay between Maralia and the region of space in which Sol lay: a great screen of cosmic rubble, a Girdle of Demeter on a stellar scale. It was the chief reason, in fact, why ships rarely penetrated in that direction.

Zhorga spent his time being put through a military training routine by Captain Veautrin, together with a squad selected from his former crew. At first it irked him to be under the tutelage of a younger man, but he applied himself to the drills with zeal and grew to like Veautrin, who in many ways was a man after his own heart, though less hasty in his judgments and more disciplined in his actions.

Toward the end of the training period Zhorga expressed an interest in how the Bucentaur was run. He had heard that her captain commanded her from a control room deep within her hull (though there was a second, rarely used bridge towering over her main deck) and he was puzzled to know how this was done. As a favor Veautrin arranged a visit to this control room.

There, by chance, Zhorga learned of the nature of the enemy he might well spend the rest of his days fighting.

The control room was a large, wood-paneled chamber. The captain, a spare, bearded figure, sat in a straight-backed chair on whose arms were fitted a number of wheeled handles. Occupying the opposite wall, receiving his full attention, was an extraordinary device which answered Zhorga’s question.

It consisted of a circular screen nearly ten feet across, made of milky-white frosted glass. At first Zhorga thought that it was a porthole into space, or that it was painted, for it showed the rock-strewn void through which they were passing. Then the captain twirled one of his handles. The picture expanded; they seemed to hurtle dizzily through space, toward a distant group of irregularly shaped asteroids.

Captain Veautrin leaned close, muttering an explanation to Zhorga. “A system of lenses, prisms and mirrors projects a view of external space onto the glass screen. The system can also function as a telescope of enormous power, as you have seen.”

“An invaluable aid,” Zhorga remarked, getting his breath. Once again he was astonished at the technical excellence of the starship. Compare this with his own fumbling journey to Mars!

“It would be difficult to cross these reefs without it,” Veautrin agreed, “but in essence the device is simple. It works on the principle of the camera obscura.”

The image of the rock cluster had stabilized in the center of the screen, quartered by its cross-hairs. Again the captain fiddled with the handles and the rocks shifted, moving toward the circumference where the screen was scored with calibration lines. He turned his head and spoke to the officer standing behind him.

The first officer took a couple of steps and barked an order into a speaking tube. Shortly afterward the floor shifted slightly under their feet. As the ship changed course, the asteroid group disappeared from the screen.

The captain relaxed. The screen continued its scanning, sweeping space to and fro in search of danger.