Board Stiff (Xanth) (16 page)

“And you know,” Captain Grey continued, handsome in his double-breasted woolen naval pea-coat. “Several years ago the centaurs launched a colonizing ship bound for Alpha Centauri, where they hoped to find a planet without magic or puns. They promised to report on their progress every year. At first they did, employing the Very Large Array of enhanced magic mirrors, and the settlement seemed to be progressing well. They were building many stalls in the expectation that more centaurs would soon be going there. Eventually they hoped that all centaurs would live at last totally free of egregious puns and obscene magic.

“But then they stopped communicating. The Array seemed to be in order, but we could evoke no answer from the colony. We have not heard from them in two years, and fear mischief. Hence this space mission, commissioned by my wife, King Ivy, and staffed with the very best personnel, including our three daughters, Princesses Melody, Harmony, and Rhythm, who comprise the Special Assault Team.” He gestured to the three young women, who smiled fetchingly. They looked to be about eighteen, and Kandy knew they all were general-purpose Sorceresses whose power squared or cubed depending on how many of them acted in concert.

Grey paused, letting the significance sink in. Any mission that required the services of all three princesses was serious indeed. Kandy knew that one of them, Harmony, was destined to be King after Ivy, because she was the most sensible of the three. There had been clumsily squelched rumors of phenomenal naughtiness on their part, such as employing a temporary aging spell to violate the Adult Conspiracy, or tackling the notorious Ragna Roc bird, but they seemed to be shaping up to becoming reasonably responsible citizens.

“Now we do not know what is out there,” Grey continued after a pause of approximately the right length. “Whatever might have prevented the centaurs from contacting us might also prevent us from returning home safely. So this may be a dangerous vision, going where no human has gone before, only centaurs. Whatever is a threat to centaurs may also be a threat to Xanth itself. Our mission is to discover what has happened, to search out and rescue survivors, and to return as quickly as possible to Xanth. Under no circumstances are we to attack. Is that understood?” Grey’s gaze fixed sternly on the three princesses, who reluctantly nodded in unison.

“This is primarily an intelligence gathering mission. We are not a battle cruiser and we have none of the assets of one. While all of you have been chosen for your unique talents, to make this mission possible, you are also here because you believe in Xanth, and because you believe in and care about each other. We do mean to rescue the centaurs, but to do so without violence if at all possible. Nothing can stop us when we work together.”

He paused, and when there was no response, spoke once more, briefly. “I am now turning the mission over to our First Officer.” He nodded to Ease.

Oops! Kandy had assumed that the members of the Quest were more or less invisible spectators. Certainly they did not belong in this mission, about which they knew nothing. How could he be a First Officer?

But Ease handled it as if he belonged. “Thank you, Captain Murphy. I believe we stand ready to proceed.” He turned to Astrid. “Chief Engineer, is the ship operational?”

Chief Engineer? What did Astrid know about engines? She wasn’t even human!

Astrid smiled. “Most systems are now operational, Ease, but they are of course untested. We need to be far away from gravity wells such as from planets or moons before we can warp away to interstellar space. That means maneuvering the main engines to about Jupiter’s orbit. But first the engines have to be ignited. All I need now is your word.”

Jupiter’s orbit? This was sheer gibberish!

“Astrid, the word is given. Start ‘em up!”

There was a keyboard before Astrid. She set her hands on it. “This is our second star-ship,” she murmured. “Xanth only knows what would cause the first one to fail. Here’s hoping.” Her fingers touched the keys. “Raising rods from the heavy water in the nuclear fish’in pool. Power now at eighty percent. Ninety. Full power.” Her index finger hovered over her panel. “Ready to dump the fish’in energy into the sunflower fusion plants. NOW!”

This was absolutely crazy! She had to be making it up.

Astrid stabbed her finger into the icon on her board. All the lights on the bridge went out, leaving everyone in darkness. They came back on seconds later, brighter than ever. There was a muffled roar from the bowels of the ship, and a deep shudder of power.

Astrid smacked her right fist into her left hand. “Yes!” she whispered to herself. Then, to the captain: “We now have self-sustaining fusion reaction! Main engines are yours, sir.”

“Outstanding, Engineer,” Grey shouted over the noise. “We are on our way.”

The crew relaxed as the ship moved out. They had little to do while the ship forged through space. That gave the members of the quest a chance to get together.

“What have we gotten into?” Mitch asked. “I’m the Communications Officer, but I don’t know anything about the mission apart from what the Captain just told us.”

“And I’m the Refreshments Officer,” Tiara said. “Have some hard tack.” She proffered a plate of biscuits made in the shape of tacks.

“Pewter, what do you know about this?” Mitch asked.

“I am the ship AI,” Pewter responded. “That is, Artificial Intelligence. I actually operate most of the systems, out of sight; the people merely give the commands. Ultimately I control the ship, and could, if I deemed it necessary, eliminate the people.”

“You wouldn’t!” Tiara said, horrified.

“Fortunately I am unlikely to deem it necessary.”

That was not a completely reassuring answer.

“You have not answered my question,” Mitch said. “What do you know about this? How can we be here, filling positions for which we are not qualified, accepted by folk who don’t know us? What is going on?”

“It’s a dream,” Pewter said. “A gourd setting. Your bodies are lying comfortably on the ground while your minds are participating in this communal dream of a space mission. You are not actually in physical danger.”

“You’re a machine. How can you be in the dream?”

“I am in it because I choose to be. The realm of the gourd is marvelous and intricate, with many variants. I did not deem it appropriate to allow you mortals to flounder unsupervised.”

“Each sequin setting has contributed something to our Quest,” Astrid said. “Either a participant or an insight. What is the point of a dream?”

“That is what you will need to discover,” Pewter said. “Your best course is to carry on until you learn the point of it.”

“That actually does make sense,” Mitch said. “So we might as well enjoy the ride.”

“Some ride!” Astrid said, but she did seem mollified.

The three princesses approached them. They were attractive girls of Tiara’s age, wearing little crowns. “I am Melody,” the first said. She wore a green dress with matching hair and blue eyes. “I am the prettiest one.”

“I am Harmony,” the second continued. She wore a brown dress with matching hair and eyes. “I am the most sensible one.”

“I am Rhythm,” the third concluded. She wore a red dress with matching hair, and green eyes. “I am the naughtiest one.”

Kandy found their candid introductions interesting, but she doubted that there was very much difference between the three in pretty, sensible, or naughty.

“No need to introduce yourselves,” Melody said.

“We know who you are,” Harmony added.

“And what you seek,” Rhythm concluded.

“But we do wonder how you got added to this space mission,” Melody said.

“And what your two fellow travelers are up to,” Harmony continued.

“And how your hair relates,” Rhythm concluded.

Fellow travelers? That meant they knew that Demoness Metria was along, and Kandy. What else did they know?

“It’s my dress, with the Sequins of Events,” Astrid explained. “When a sequin comes off, the dress turns translucent, and that distracts any local menfolk. When we put the sequin back on, it triggers an Event. This is an Event.”

The princesses eyed Astrid. “It’s a nice dress,” Melody said.

“And a nicer body,” Harmony added.

“And you’re nice too,” Rhythm finished.

“For a cockatrice,” Astrid’s hair said.

“For a what?” Melody asked.

“Mythical monster, bird-lizard, death-glare, poison breath--”

“Basilisk?” Harmony asked.

“Whatever,” the hair agreed crossly.

“Hello, Metria!” Rhythm said.

“So what are you doing here?” Melody asked.

“I’m keeping Tiara’s hair neat.”

“And snooping on what does not concern you,” Harmony said.

“That’s my nature!”

“And perking up dull scenes like this one,” Rhythm said.

“Of course. It’s a dirty job, but somebody has to do it, lest we all perish of boredom. So can you bothersome Sorceresses figure out what hair has to do with the price of beans in Bohemia?”

The three circled a glance. “Not yet,” Melody said.

“But we’re working on it,” Harmony added.

“And there must be a hint on this centaur mission,” Rhythm concluded. “That’s the way the Good Magician’s Quests work.”

Then the three moved on, ending the dialogue.

“That was actually interesting,” Mitch said. “Too bad those pretty princesses are already taken.”

Tiara’s hair swelled up indignantly. “Too bad?” it demanded.

“Not that I have any interest,” Mitch said quickly.

So Metria was now supporting Tiara the way Kandy supported Ease. That, too, was interesting.

“It is time,” Captain Grey announced. “We are crossing the orbit of Jupiter. Officers and stations, report readiness for our first space warp.”

“Space warp,” Tiara’s hair muttered, keeping the volume low enough so the Captain would not overhear. “Science fiction is polluting our fantasy. It’s loathly.”

“It’s what?” Tiara asked.

“Distasteful, hideous, repulsive, revolting, loathsome, foul, yucky--”

“Disgusting?”

“Whatever,” the hair agreed crossly. “Nothing’s sacred any more.”

“This is a dream,” Mitch reminded the hair. “Anything goes, in a dream. It doesn’t have to make sense or remain unpolluted.”

“It’s still a shame,” the hair muttered.

“First Officer?” Grey asked.

“Ready,” Ease said.

“Chief Engineer?”

“Similarity drive at your discretion,” Astrid said. Privately she muttered “I have to say it. It’s in the script.”

“Navigator?”

A centaur spoke up. “Equations written and checked for one light year out.”

“Thank you, Chet. Tactical?”

A female centaur answered. She was clothed in the centaur manner, which was to say, not. “The complex curves have been calculated, sir. One is a damped sine wave with larger amplitude on the left and right hand sides, but having no amplitude in the center. The space-time wave has been plotted.”

“Thank you, Chem. Com Pewter, are you functional?”

“Yes,” Pewter said shortly. He too had to follow the dream script, though he obviously didn’t like it.

“Commence warp countdown.”

“This is all pseudo-science gibberish,” Tiara’s hair muttered. “In real life, the Captain would just push a button and it would happen. No fuss, no muss, no discommode.”

“Bother,” Tiara said, cutting the routine short.

“That’s what I said.”

Meanwhile a large white dot appeared on the left of Captain Grey’s viewing screen. It traversed the sine curve, bouncing up to the top of it, then to the bottom, slowly making its way to the center of the screen. Astrid tapped out some commands on her console. The sound of huge turbines started slowly and quietly, then gained in speed, loudness, and pitch. “Fusion plants dumping power into the warp flywheels,” she reported. “Rotations now increasing to five hundred per minute . . . a thousand . . . five thousand . . . ten thousand and increasing.”

“Just one button would do it,” Tiara’s hair muttered.

As the turbine sounds became deafening, Astrid’s control panel began chirping in time with the dot’s traversal of the sine waves on the display. “Fifteen seconds, Captain,” Chem Centaur declared. “Com Pewter is locked on the space-time fabric.”

“To be sure,” Pewter agreed, annoyed about being locked.

“One lousy button.”

“Twenty thousand rotations, Captain,” Astrid reported.

“Ten seconds, Captain. Nine, eight, seven--”

“Get ON with it!” Tiara’s hair snapped.

“Six seconds. Five . . . four . . . three . . . two . . .”

Captain Grey took a deep breath. His hands gripped the chair rests as he saw the dot almost at the center of the display.

“One,” Astrid said.

“WARP!!!” Grey shouted the order.

“What utter crap!”

To the view of the outside observer, the ship slowly became transparent. Then it completely disappeared. Kandy knew this because one screen showed the external view. They were warping.

Inside the ship, the tactical display changed to show stars elongating into streaks, forming into a tunnel for the ship to zoom through, creating a shortcut across vast amounts of time and space.

The rescue mission to Alpha Centauri was on its way.

“Actually it is sort of impressive in its cliche fashion,” Tiara’s hair admitted.

*

The ship emerged from warp near Alpha Centauri. There was the centaur colony planet, lovely in the glow of the triple suns of the constellation. The technicians activated the large magic mirror set at maximum magnification and saw the centaurs happily going about their business. Some were cultivating mundane crops, while others were constructing highways suitable for galloping.

“Try the communication band,” the Captain suggested.

Mitch was the Communications Officer. He twiddled with settings of his console. “Calling Alpha Colony. Calling Alpha Colony. This is Xanth ship Beta. Come in, Alpha.”

To their surprise there was an answer. A centaur appeared on the screen. “Welcome, Beta! You are cleared for landing. Come on down!”

A perplexed look hovered in the vicinity. No contact for two years, then this sudden welcome? It was distinctly suspicious.