Next thing to do was find the nav.
Computer, does the Mark 7 have a navigation system.
The Mark 7 is equipped with a pre-programmable destination system.
Does it have a navigation display?
Yes, the navigation display is in the porthole.
What is the command in New Raceli?
Nabi Tsukeri.
The man moved up, back into the cone and looked out through the porthole. “Nabi Tsukeri,” he said.
Instantly the porthole screen showed several systems with one blue dot in the middle: his little escape pod. Another green dot blinked off to the left corner of the display. He zoomed in and found planet names in English under the New Raceli. The pod was headed straight for the green dot: planet Sol in Fed space.
Fed space is good, right? he thought. I’m a Federation captain of some kind of ship, he thought. Unless the dreams are just dreams and not memories. They’ve got to be real. The girl is real.
The man started to ask the computer if he could query the nav system but tapped on the green dot and time to destination popped up. 89365.347 RHZ. The three decimal points at the end constantly changing, almost randomly, but then the time changed to 89364, and then to 89363 a little while later.
Computer, what is RHZ?
New Racelian time.
How many Federation standard hours is 89363 RHZ?
352 hours.
He sucked in a long breath of dry air. I’ll be DOA, he thought. In the excitement of lights and nav he’d almost forgotten about the more pressing issue. Staying alive.
Supplicant
Bakanhe Grana Homeworlds
Warumon 5, in The Temple of Warufal
The Bakanhe Emperor, a black-robed mech giant, strolled back and forth in front of the two, smaller, softer Vellosians. Merthon and Jamis were on their knees, in supplicant position, thumbs to forehead and eyes down. One mustn’t look directly into the eyes of a superior, Merthon had been instructed many times before by the lesser BG in preparation for an audience with the Emperor. But they don’t really have eyes, Merthon would think.
But nonetheless, he stared at the iron floor, a clear view of the BG leader’s heavy mech lower limbs, two front alacyte pads and one in the rear for feet. Birdlike, he thought. Odd that the feet the BG crafted would be similar to a bird given the heart and brain of the beings was nothing more than a frail wormlike creature encased in a metal chestplate. The essence of their being Merthon could hold in his hands, could toss into one of the million birthing tanks and watch drown. They were as worthless and weak as a human infant, but yet here we were, he thought, the bastard could pick us both up with his metal arms and break our bodies against the wall or simply crush us in his long metal fingers.
The Emperor had begun to drag Merthon and Jamis in regularly for lectures. Was he getting nervous? thought Merthon. Is this a show of weakness?
“…so the children must be fully grown by the time of the Corduin Festival when the moons align and the Federation fools grow fat and sleepy,” said the Emperor. “You two will be richly rewarded when the Bakanhe Grana take their rightful place as the benevolent masters of the worlds.” You mean kill us and hold the ignorant Federation planets hostage, thought Merthon.
“Did he land yet? Jamis asked, later, in the great production hall where the Emperor’s children grew in birthing tanks.
”The BG smell like tide pool slugs on Vera, back home,” said Merthon, changing the subject, tired of Jamis’s incessant nagging and worrying.
“Perhaps they are related,” said Jamis, playing along for once.
“All I have left is the memory of a smell,” said Merthon.
“Don’t get melancholy again.”
“It’s okay. I’m going to kill them all.”
“Yeah, right, you skinny frog,” said Jamis. “You couldn’t even fire a BG weapon.”
“I don’t need one of their crude weapons. I have a weapon of my own. And he’s coming back for us soon.” The conversation always came around to this.
“Are you sure?”
“He’ll come. His mind is bent on it. I made sure.” Merthon gazed out over the vast array of round tanks. “He’ll kill them all.”
“Sometimes you scare me, Merth,” said Jamis. “All of this scheming and plotting is not our way. We are creators.”
“Our way!” Merthon yelled, a few of the curled up children in the tanks nearby sloshed around. “Our way is gone. They took all of it.”
“They took our home, but not our ways. If we lose that, what are we then?”
Bullet in the Blue Sky
Escape pod.
242 hours to the edge of Federation space.
The man woke up with a scratchy throat, the air dry and his skin like leather. Computer, how can I access the life support computer on the Mark 7?
There is no life support computer on the Mark 7. Life support is either functional or non-functional.
The man unfastened himself and floated up to the port screen, pulled up the nav display and checked the time to destination. 341 hours to planet Sol in Federation space. 11 hours since he last checked. He did a rough calculation based on the size of the pod and total cubic feet of air remaining and decided he had, at worst, 36 hours until he was sucking a higher percentage of carbon dioxide than oxygen.
He took a hard look at the
