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Stories from the Verse
A Dozen Verses
Chapter 30: Cooper 82
Table of Contents
Previous chapter: Kondor 265
After opening the door, the first thing that struck Cooper was the extra long flexible feet with a luminescent skin along with a very prominent nose on a hairless head. The whole body structure spoke of being well adapted to swimming.
But the next thing was a large golden cross on the wall that caught his eyes. More closely examining it, he decided that it indeed looked like a Christian cross, although more Catholic, a crucifix which had the crucified Savior still on the cross. Pleased and confused, he turned back to the resident of the room.
"I m Navigator Ortan for The Energetic, and you must be a Terri, and are wondering about the Cross."
"Also what planet you're from, and do you swim a lot?" Cooper quickly added. Toko, the First Mate, excused himself after getting a noteboard from the Nav, and the Nav smiled broadly with many teeth.
"Sit please. I sense a kindred spirit. Curious about the wonders of the Creator's creation."
Cooper took the nearby seat, a lightweight construction, more to tie one's self to than to provide actual support at the moment.
"Yes, very much so."
"Well, I m a Neptunian, and we have vast oceans. Undersea caverns with oxygen for our cities, and many thousands of islands, but no great landmasses, although we do have polar ice caps that we use as well. So we spend at least half our days in the oceans or lakes in the cities."
An alarm shrilled, and the Neptunian braced himself.
"Half G--now." A roaring thunder shook the ship, and it strained and then weight fell on Cooper. At first it was harsh, and then he realized it was not bad. They were underway again after the pirate attack, and probably fixing any damage. He wanted to ask about that too, and Ortan laughed in sharp, almost ultrasonic trills.
"And the Cross, are you a Christian, or Roman Catholic?" Sure, he had been put to the stake to be burnt by the Inquisition, but he did not hate the Catholics. It had all been part of God s plan, and the Inquisitor had been mistaken, but sincerely trying to do right.
Another alarm was followed as they waited by another thundering boost that smoothed off to a steady thrum.
"Full G," the Nav said. The weight settled on both them, and his chair creaked underneath, but held. The Neptunian appeared more pressed down.
"Don t you need to calculate the new course?"
"Already did; that was what was on the noteboard I gave to our fat ball of Plutonian First Mate. Ah, don t worry. He calls me a fish. Some two hundred years ago we had the Neptune-Pluto War. Now we mostly get along although we still insult each other."
Brian glanced more fervently to the Cross and decided prayer was indeed a good option. The Nav laughed again in the high trill.
"You really do desire knowledge. Very well, my new friend, about two thousand years ago there were not many spacegoing races. Neptunians, Saturnians of course, and Mercurians. Everyone else either desisted, or mostly could not. A merchant ship was delivering to Mercury, and had taken the long route around to avoid Saturnian customs ships which tried to tax whoever passed anywhere near their space. But they lost fuel, and had to land on Terra.
"This was practically a death sentence as Terra was terribly primitive then. Not only did they not have electricity, or iron fission, but much of the planet did not even have running water. Worse, they had to land in a desert region. They had been aiming for a large protected sea but missed.
"They were struggling to fix the ship, hoping that the local barbarians would not find them and eat them, as at the time my people were quite prejudiced against Terrans. We thought every one of them was a cannibal. A Human man came up, and asked if we needed help.
"Now the thing is, he spoke pure Neptunian.
"Well, you can imagine my people's shock. Not only a courteous offer of a civilized person, but in fluent Neptunian as well! Nor had he charged us with cooking knife in hand intent on cutting off pieces.
"'We could use help, but do you understand iron fission and inertial alignments?' the Captain had asked.
"'Of course, I made them.'
"The Captain thought he had misunderstood, but was willing to have any help at all because he really had no way of fixing things. So the human began working, using stones to knock things about, and every time the Captain started to say no, stop he d realized that the smacking of rocks had improved things by opening up a container to get at something that needed to be cleaned, or realigning a controller. What was more astonishing was that the man was by hand aligning things that needed to be just so, within a thousandth of an inch.
"After many sweaty hours, the two of them, with the rest of the crew helping as they could, had fixed the craft. At this point, as was Neptunian custom for a friend, and for the launching of the ship, they would have a feast, and the Captain gladly invited the human to the feast.
"'No, I cannot. It is my time of testing in the desert. Soon the Shadow Snake who hides from the Starlight will come to test me.'
"'Forgive me, friend, but you seem a kindly and civilized being. What would the Evil One have to do with you?'
"'I am his Great Enemy,' the human said, and it was as if a veil had dropped from all their minds. Fixing an inertial modifier with a set of rocks really was impossible.
"'Now I must go.'
"'Please stay,' they all cried, and so the Man sat down, as did they all, and he taught them until the stars came out--at which time, he told them they needed to go because their presence would confuse the story being set up by his Father. With many bows, pledges of allegiance, and tears, the Neptunians left.
"Over the next century, the rest of Neptune converted to The Way of the Desert Walker."
Almost glowing with satisfaction, Cooper reached out a single hand and spoke one word.
"Brother." It was reciprocated.
The two spent the next four hours talking to each other until it was time for more food pills. It was there that he learned his new jobs from the second mate.
As to the old stories that have long been here:
