Excerpt: Valkyrie's Flight

This was not the way my life was supposed to be! I had plans - solid, grand plans for my life after school. And this was not part of them! The worst part is nobody even asked me! Isn’t that just like grown-ups? Make plans for the whole family but don’t discuss it with us. Not a word. Sheesh! ‘Cause they know what’s best for us, don’t they? Crud!

Most of my belongings, at least those I was allowed to take, were already aboard the ship. They’d been packed, labeled, stacked in the front hall of our house, and then whisked away by the loading crew. That was two days ago, and everything left, everything I didn’t have in my boarding bag, was handed out to my friends as I bid them farewell. Well, I said goodbye ( who says ‘farewell’, really?), and hoped to see them again someday.

But I doubted I’d ever see them again. Not ever. I just knew I’d end up being a farmer on wherever this crummy planet was that we were going to. Dad could say whatever he wanted to about opportunities and scientific studies and all the rest of that crud. I dreamed of being an artist - a painter. All my life that was what I dreamed of and now we were heading away from the only place in the Solar System - heck in the whole Galaxy! - where I could reach that goal. Crud!

So on the appointed morning there I was, with Mom and Dad, and, yes, my little brother Chuck, standing in the departure Hall, waiting for our turn to wander down the loading tube and into the ship - a big passenger-liner-turned-colonial-transport called The Valkyrie. I guess I was a little excited about it, but I was grumpy, too. And I made sure my Folks knew it.

I doubt Dad paid any attention to my mood - this was a big deal for him, as he’d told me, over and over - but Mom noticed and kept patting me on the back and squeezing my shoulder. That made me feel a little better, I guess. At least she seemed to understand what I felt. But danged if I was going to improve my mood one little bit! Nossir! I remained grumpy.

“Ain’t this great, Tim?” my brother asked, tugging at my sleeve.

“’Isn’t’, dear,” my mom murmured.

“Isn’t,” Chuck grumbled.

“Yeah,” I grumped, “just dandy.”

“I hope we get to see the Flight Deck, Tim. That’ll be neat!”

My mom ruffled his hair, “I don’t think we’ll be allowed to go there, Charles, but we’ll see.”

“Cool!”

I just shook my head and stared off into the distance. It would be kinda neat, really, but I was grumpy and was not about to change. Across the Hall I saw the Flynns looking out the windows at the launch area. Dr. and Mrs. Dr. Flynn (they’re both scientists, and they’re both doctors) with their red hair and tall bodies were hard to miss. With them was Moira, their daughter. She’s my age and went to the same classes I did. Until we left the school to prepare for our trip - my Exile, I thought to myself - and I hadn’t seen her in two weeks. Which was just fine with me.

Moira is a pain in the butt. She’s kinda tall - Dad says I have a growth spurt coming, so I shouldn’t worry - and red-haired like the rest of the Flynn family. She has dark green eyes and some interesting curves. But she’s a girl, and a know-it-all, and seems to take too much interest in the things I’m doing. She’s a buttinski. I looked away.

A man approached us and spoke with Dad. He nodded, and turned to us.

“Alright, gang, grab your stuff. We’re boarding now.” He hefted his bags and Mom’s while Mom picked up Chuck’s. I slung mine over my shoulder, trying to be as nonchalant as possible - no big deal, right? - and sauntered after them.

The one nice thing is that we weren’t called to board over the paging system. So I managed to get to the tube without having to speak to Moira. Down the brightly lit tube we went, all four of us, following the crew member who’d spoken to Dad. It sloped upward and finally ended at the ship’s hull. The hull port was open and we entered, finding ourselves in a very large room - the main air-lock for the passengers - and were guided through. Outside the air-lock we found ourselves in a wide corridor and were met by an officer.

“Good afternoon,” he said, smiling at Mom and Dad. “Doctor Everett,” he addressed Dad, “Dr. Everett,” he addressed Mom - both of my folks are Doctors, eggheads, real smart people, with a mess of degrees between them. I must be one heck of a guffing disappointment to them. I have no interest, really, in science - “if you’ll follow me I’ll take you to your cabins.” As he turned he spoke over his shoulder. “You will notice that at each level of the ship we’ve provided a ground-plan, if you will, of that level, as well as a map of the main corridors of the ship. That should make it easy for you to find your way around, or find your way back, if you get lost.”

He looked at me and smiled.

Why me? Did I look like I got lost easily? Did I look dim? Sheesh! I just shook my head. Chuck twisted and turned looking at every door and every gizmo on the corridor walls as we made our way to the main interior tram. The Valkyrie has a dual-tram system in each of her six cylindrical living areas. Like a tiny, swift train, the tram can zip you from one end of the Valkyrie to the other in a few minutes. There are boarding portals every few hundred feet along the main corridors. Handy, I have to admit.

We entered the tram, the portal hissed shut, the others sat in the soft seats, and we were pushed back for a moment as it whisked us forward toward the nose. The tram was pretty big, and instead of sitting I leaned against the far wall, being terribly nonchalant. When the tram stopped, the wall I was leaning on hissed open, and I found myself laying on the deck, blinking up at my mom’s concerned face.

“Are you alright, Timothy?”

“Depending on the level or destination, son, port and starboard sections of the tram are actually doors. I should have warned you,” the officer said, pulling me to my feet with alarming ease. He was stronger than he seemed in his dress whites. He was a short man, black-haired, with a golden cast to his skin, and brown almond-shaped eyes. And he had just picked me off the deck like a piece of paper.

“Thanks,” I murmured, and decided I’d better find out how to do a little exercising while on board. I didn’t want to seem soft and weak, did I?

We followed the officer until we reached a branching of the corridor and found ourselves looking at three doors in a small alcove. The officer pulled a small plastic-looking pad from his pocket and looked at it, then reached to the central door - marked with a small brass plate, reading “17-B” - and punched a series of numbers on the pad adjoining the door. It hissed open, and we went in.

“Each entrance has its own code. We have a master code so we can enter in an emergency, and so on, but you are responsible for making sure your code is not given out to all and sundry.” The officer led us into the small cabin. “This is Passenger Level Seventeen. There are three levels of Passenger quarters ahead of you, and,” he grinned, “sixteen behind. Once we are on our way, we refer to the directions as ‘fore and aft’.”

I rolled my eyes. D’uh, I thought.

“I’m Ship’s Second Officer Daniel Nagumi, by the way. If you need anything you just call me and I’ll do what I can for you. This is going to be a long trip, so we want to make sure everyone is as comfortable as possible.”

I looked around, seeing the smallness of the cabin, and grumbled, “Gonna be hard getting comfortable in this little box.”

Officer Nagumi cocked an eyebrow at me, then led my folks to a narrow door, he tapped a button on the side and it hissed open. “I think you’ll find the Master Suite to be adequate, Doctors.” My folks thanked him, entered, and began unpacking their bags. Nagumi turned and opened the next door on the wall, looked at Chuck, and said, “Mister Everett, I trust this cabin will meet with your approval.” And guided Chuck in.

“Cool!” And Chuck began to unpack, too.

Opening the next door at the end of the wall, Nagumi went in and I followed. It was tiny, barely room for the drop-down wall bunk at the left side, and no window - porthole! - at all. He indicated the small panel at the head of the bed.

“These are the controls for your room, son. You can open your storage bins here, as well as control lighting, air temperature, even the ship’s music station, and the inter-ship communications. In the main cabin is a porthole, a monitor linked to the ship’s computers, and the vid set. Space is always at a premium aboard ship, so no personal cabin has its own vid screen.”

I shrugged. This was going to be like a prison. And I was the condemned.

Nagumi leaned against a bulkhead and crossed his arms, frowning at me. “What’s the skid, sonny?”

I sat on the bunk and looked at him. “I don’t want to be here. I don’t want to go to some stupid colony planet. I hate this! It’s ruined my life!”

He nodded. “Yep. That’s what I thought. Look, sonny, you’re what, twelve?”

“I’m thirteen! Fourteen in a month! Dad says I have a growth spurt coming.”

“Sorry,” he said, though he didn’t look so much sorry as amused.

“Look, at your age you think you have one path to take, one trail to blaze. And anything that stops you is ruining your life. Well, I’m here to tell you it ain’t so. Got it? Whatever you had planned for your life, you can probably still do, with some limitations, mind you. But you’d best resign yourself to the facts.

“You are going to Hamshare’s Planet. If your folks thought you could do fine on Earth, then they’d have found someone to take you in. They didn’t. So here you are.

“This trip is going to take months. If you want to be a grumpy, little kid ...”

“I am not a little kid!”

He nodded, “Fine. If you want to be a grumpy teen throughout the trip, that’s up to you. I doubt you’ll make any friends that way, and I’d bet most folks will steer clear of you, but that’s your choice. But I honestly think you’ll do well to lighten up. In the months we’ll be in space all you’ll accomplish is to make people dislike you. You don’t want that.”

Nagumi waved at the cabin walls.

“Now, as far as tiny, well, you should see my cabin; it’s smaller than this. And I live there, son. That’s my room; my home.” A small, wry smile flashed on his face, “So shut yer yap. Some folks have it worse.”

“Worse than this shoebox?” I could hardly believe that was possible.

Nagumi waved at the small room. “You have your own personal sleeping cabin. That’s because your Dad is important. Some folks have to sleep in communal cabins with tiered bunks. So, yes, worse than this shoebox.”

I stood up, found my self so close to Nagumi I could almost see my own reflection in his eyes and sidled to the left. “That doesn’t make me feel better.”

“Doesn’t matter. This is your home for the next few months. Get used to it. And remember: you don’t have to spend your every waking hour in this cabin.”

I eyed him with suspicion.

He nodded, boosting himself off the bulkhead. “We have a good library aboard, a gymnasium - you’ll need to keep fit, I think - and plenty of things to keep you occupied between classes. And if you get bored you come see me and I’ll find interesting things for you to do.”

His look did not reassure me.

“What was your plan for the future, son?”

“My name is Tim, Officer Nagumi, not ‘son’.”

He chuckled. “Sorry, Tim. You’ve gotta speak up, y’know. We don’t read minds aboard. So what was your life’s dream?”

I turned away, stared at the empty back bulkhead of my cabin. “I was going to be a painter.”

“Heck, Tim, this ship always needs a new coat of paint somewhere.”

I whirled around, as livid as I’ve been in a long time, “Not that kind of painter! An Artist!”

Then I realized he was grinning at me. I felt my face grow warm enough to fry an egg.

“When you’re settled in, and we’ve left orbit, come find me. I’ll be busy until then. But I think I can show you something that will make you a bit happier.”

I gaped at him, “Like what?”

He shook his head, “Not now. Later. Come find me.”

He moved out of the cabin, turned and spoke quietly to me. “Smile, enjoy what you can of this trip, and start acting like you are actually growing up.

“Now get your things stowed away and start thinking about exploring the ship, okay?” He was smiling.

I shrugged, smiled back, and he was gone. So I unpacked and put my things away - stowed my gear! - then checked up on Chuck.