Melissa Scott Burning Bright
Part One
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Day 30
High Spring: Parking Orbit,
Burning Bright
Quinn Lioe walked the galliot down the sky, using the shaped force fields of the sails as legs, balancing their draw against the depth of gravity here in the planets shadow. Stars glowed in the mirror display in front of her; spots of dark haze blocked the brilliance of sun and the limb of the planet, so that she could see and read the patterns that gravity made in the vacuum around her. The lowsail, under the keel of her ship, vibrated in its cup: the field calibration had slipped badly on the journey from Callixte to Burning Bright, would have to be adjusted before they left orbit. She sighed, automatically easing the field, and widened the crosssails field to compensate. Numbers flickered across the base of the mirror as the ships system noted and approved the changes; she felt the left crosssail tremble under her hand, as its draw approached the illusory depth of hyperspace, and shortened it even before the warning flashed orange and red across her screen. The galliot continued its easy progress as though there had been no chance of grounding.
Beacon, she said to the ship, to traffic control waiting somewhere ahead of her in the parking pattern, and a moment later a marker flared in the mirrors display, ahead and slightly to the left of the galliots course. She sighed, wanting to hurry, wanting to be done and parked and free for the five days or more that it would take to recalibrate the fields, but disciplined herself to safe and steady progress. The galliot crept forward, sails beating slowly against the weak currents of hyperspace that were almost drowned by the local gravity. Her hands rested lightly on the controls; she felt the depth of space in the pressure of the sails, saw the same numbers reflected in the slow swirl of the currents overlaid on the mirrors mimicking of reality.
At last she brought the galliot to a slow stop almost on top of the unreal marker, and shortened the sails until the system gravity took over, drawing the ship neatly into the designated space. She smiled, pleased with her precision, and kicked the lever that lit the anchor field. Lights flared along the mirrors basefamiliar, but nonetheless satisfyingand the ship said sweetly, On target. Anchorage confirmed.
Nicely done, a familiar voice said, and Lioe glanced over her shoulder in some surprise. She hadnt heard Kerestel enter the pilots dome, had thought he was still back in cargo space sorting out what had and hadnt gone on the drop. And, to be fair, cleaning up after the bungeegars .
Thanks, she said aloud, and ran her hands across the main board, closing and snuffing the sail fields. She set the anchor field then, watched the telltales strengthen to green, and turned away from her station, working her shoulders to free them of the nights mornings , she corrected silently, it was the beginning of the new day on Burning Bright painstaking work. Hows it look back there?
Bungeegars, Kerestel said. He leaned against the hatchway, folding his arms across his chest. His hands and bare arms were still reddened from the embrace of the servo gloves he used to move the canisters that held the cargo safe during the drop to the planets surface. Gods, theyre a grubby lot.
Looking at him, Lioe bit back a laugh. As usual, Kerestel was wearing a spacesuit liner, this one more battered even than usual, the long sleeves cut off at the shoulder to make it easier to work the servos. He had stopped shaving two days into the trip also as usual and the incipient beard had sprouted in goatish grey tufts. The hat that marked him as a union pilotthis one a beret of goldshot grey brocade, pinned up on one side with a cluster of brightly faceted glassperched, incongruously jaunty, on his balding head.
Kerestel had the grace to grin. Well, you know what I mean. And Christ, the pair of them couldnt make up their minds what was to go in the dropif they had minds.
Lioe nodded, and turned to the secondary board to begin shutting down the mirror. Bungeegars, the hired hands who rode the drop capsules down out of orbit to help protect particularly valuable cargoes from hijacking after landing, were generally a difficult group to work with you have to be pretty crazy to begin with, or desperate, to take a job like that and
the two who had come aboard on Demeter had been slightly more bizarre than usual. What I dont care for, she said, is running cargo that needs bungeegars.
You got a point there, Kerestel said rather sourly, and Lioe allowed herself a crooked smile. Cargoes that needed bungeegars were valuable enough to hijack in transit as well as at the drop point, and the free space between the Republic and the HsaioiAn was loosely patrolled at best, with no one claiming either jurisdiction or responsibility. She shook the thought awaythere had been no sign of trouble, from Callixte to Demeter or afterand keyed a final set of codes into the interpreter. Overhead, and across the front of the dome, the tracking overlays began to fade, first the oily swirls that showed the hyperspatial currents, and then the allbutinvisible blueblack lines that showed the depth of realspace. The stars blazed out around them, suns strewn like dust and seed, tossed in prodigal handfuls against the night where the plane of the galaxy intersected the mirrors curve. Then the shields that cloaked sun and planet vanished, and the brilliance drowned even the bright stars. Lioe blinked, dazzled, and looked away.