problems.’
‘Exactly. Not knowing the problems, that’s my edge. People who know the problems never start. We’ve got Guinevere to help us. She knows what makes the whole thing work. She knows what’s wrong, she knows how we can help fix it.’
Harold was looking at the main screen. It was where they had seen her face and it seemed natural to speak to it. ‘Is that right, Guinevere? You know how we can help mend you?’
‘Aye.’
‘And if we mend you, you’ll take us home?’
‘If I do so, I am outlawed.’
‘What are you supposed to do, just sit here and obey all the rules and regulations and die?’ Zachary’s loathing of authority echoed in his voice.
‘Transmit a message pod, and wait for rescue.’
Harold addressed the screen again. ‘We have to trade, Guinevere. If we help heal you, you have to get us home.’
‘No!’ Zoe rolled off the couch and onto her feet. ‘No, dammit, we don’t have to trade!’
Harold stared at her. ‘Zoe, I’ve played hundreds of hours of war games and strategy games and fantasy role playing games and believe me, at this point you have to trade.’
Zoe bunched her fists. ‘You want a punch in the face?’
‘That doesn’t answer the point I’m trying to make.’
‘It will in a minute if you don’t shut up, Harold.’ Zoe turned to face the others, her eyes bright with angry tears. ‘Guinevere is hurt, she is human, and therefore we try to help her. You got me? Because it’s the right thing to do and if we don’t do it, we’re less than human. And I don’t care if any of you want to help me or not, because I’m available, Guinevere, you understand?’
‘I thank thee, Zoe. I thank thee.’
There was a long silence.
‘Well I guess there’s nothing else to do to fill in the time,’ Zachary said.
‘Agreed. I’m in,’ said Meg.
‘You people don’t know the first thing about negotiation,’ said Harold, and paused. ‘But okay. I mean at least I’ll be learning how a starship works. I never got a chance to take apart anything this size before.’
The replay of the space battle faded from the screen and Guinevere appeared. ‘I shall take ye home. I would see my home world again, see grass, smell flowers, feel the air. There, Harold, thy bargain is complete. Help heal me, and indeed I’ll take thee home.’
Harold had gotten his own way. He could not understand why he felt so bad about it.
16: FIRST AID
It was a strange way of going about things. If each of them had had to predict how you went about mending a damaged starship, each would have seen the job in terms of welding metal and soldering electronic connections.
But it turned out to be much more like surgery than engineering.
Parts of the ship had been blasted away entirely, and were simply sealed off. As to the rest, there was damage to Guinevere which had to be repaired.
Within the walls of the starship was a densely packed crystalline substance which was an extension of Guinevere’s brain. Within the substance, she established what she called “lines of force” which amplified both her normal mental powers, and her special talents of prescience and telepathy.
‘A starship reaches forward to journey’s end,’ she told them, ‘and then Leaps her ship to that place through Time.’ It seemed that she did it at the level of instinct. She made the Leap in the way that a footballer might leap for a ball, or a dancer might leap into the arms of a partner. The footballer does not consciously compute the speed of the ball, the air resistance, the curve of the path it is travelling along, and then make a conscious calculation of how far and fast he must leap. Nor does the dancer when she leaps to her partner’s arms. The body of each “knows” where the ball or the partner is going to be. It is a combination of talent and practice. In the case of, say, a racing car driver or a musician using an electric guitar, it is talent and practice amplified by mechanical means.
And thus
‘Exactly. Not knowing the problems, that’s my edge. People who know the problems never start. We’ve got Guinevere to help us. She knows what makes the whole thing work. She knows what’s wrong, she knows how we can help fix it.’
Harold was looking at the main screen. It was where they had seen her face and it seemed natural to speak to it. ‘Is that right, Guinevere? You know how we can help mend you?’
‘Aye.’
‘And if we mend you, you’ll take us home?’
‘If I do so, I am outlawed.’
‘What are you supposed to do, just sit here and obey all the rules and regulations and die?’ Zachary’s loathing of authority echoed in his voice.
‘Transmit a message pod, and wait for rescue.’
Harold addressed the screen again. ‘We have to trade, Guinevere. If we help heal you, you have to get us home.’
‘No!’ Zoe rolled off the couch and onto her feet. ‘No, dammit, we don’t have to trade!’
Harold stared at her. ‘Zoe, I’ve played hundreds of hours of war games and strategy games and fantasy role playing games and believe me, at this point you have to trade.’
Zoe bunched her fists. ‘You want a punch in the face?’
‘That doesn’t answer the point I’m trying to make.’
‘It will in a minute if you don’t shut up, Harold.’ Zoe turned to face the others, her eyes bright with angry tears. ‘Guinevere is hurt, she is human, and therefore we try to help her. You got me? Because it’s the right thing to do and if we don’t do it, we’re less than human. And I don’t care if any of you want to help me or not, because I’m available, Guinevere, you understand?’
‘I thank thee, Zoe. I thank thee.’
There was a long silence.
‘Well I guess there’s nothing else to do to fill in the time,’ Zachary said.
‘Agreed. I’m in,’ said Meg.
‘You people don’t know the first thing about negotiation,’ said Harold, and paused. ‘But okay. I mean at least I’ll be learning how a starship works. I never got a chance to take apart anything this size before.’
The replay of the space battle faded from the screen and Guinevere appeared. ‘I shall take ye home. I would see my home world again, see grass, smell flowers, feel the air. There, Harold, thy bargain is complete. Help heal me, and indeed I’ll take thee home.’
Harold had gotten his own way. He could not understand why he felt so bad about it.
16: FIRST AID
It was a strange way of going about things. If each of them had had to predict how you went about mending a damaged starship, each would have seen the job in terms of welding metal and soldering electronic connections.
But it turned out to be much more like surgery than engineering.
Parts of the ship had been blasted away entirely, and were simply sealed off. As to the rest, there was damage to Guinevere which had to be repaired.
Within the walls of the starship was a densely packed crystalline substance which was an extension of Guinevere’s brain. Within the substance, she established what she called “lines of force” which amplified both her normal mental powers, and her special talents of prescience and telepathy.
‘A starship reaches forward to journey’s end,’ she told them, ‘and then Leaps her ship to that place through Time.’ It seemed that she did it at the level of instinct. She made the Leap in the way that a footballer might leap for a ball, or a dancer might leap into the arms of a partner. The footballer does not consciously compute the speed of the ball, the air resistance, the curve of the path it is travelling along, and then make a conscious calculation of how far and fast he must leap. Nor does the dancer when she leaps to her partner’s arms. The body of each “knows” where the ball or the partner is going to be. It is a combination of talent and practice. In the case of, say, a racing car driver or a musician using an electric guitar, it is talent and practice amplified by mechanical means.
And thus
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