Jerry Pournelle - King David's Spaceship

Landry glanced about him, and Kleinst quickly assumed the blank stare typical of the others. The midshipman scratched his head, muttered that that was all he was allowed to say anyway, and asked for another drink. MacKinnie noted that the boy would usually have exactly three drinks, and would always leave their company as soon as he had consumed the third one. He also noticed that the midshipman seemed to be a great deal more talkative when Mary Graham was present.

Days were measured by the ship’s clocks, which were geared to a standard day somewhat shorter than that of

Prince Samual’s World, as Samual’s years were slightly shorter than those of Earth. MacKinnie noted that the Imperials tended to use many expressions and physical devices traditional from Earth.

On the twenty-second day, they were once again warned to go to their cabins, and later each was personally inspected by Landry. “Don’t panic, no matter what you think you see or hear,” he warned each. “The Alderson drive affects different people different ways. It’s very usual to feel disoriented. Just be calm and everything’ll be all right.”

An hour after the boy left them, MacKinnie was in a cold sweat, waiting with nothing to do. He hoped that the others would remember their instructions. As he inspected his mechanical watch for the twentieth time, there was a strong thrumming sound which seemed to permeate the ship. This went on for several minutes, then there was an imperceptible lurch, as if intolerable acceleration had been applied for a time so short that it had no chance to affect them.

At once, Nathan was aware of a sensation of intolerable wrongness. He looked at the walls and other now-familiar objects, and they seemed the same in every detail, yet somehow different. Strange sensations crawled across his scalp. The thrumming sound was gone, but something of it lingered, and it did not sound like anything he had ever heard before.

Then there was a moment of silence. It was too brief to be completely perceived, but it seemed to be a silence which had a tangible quality, a deadening effect that sucked up sound, and perhaps heat and light and everything else. Then there was the sound again, which rose and died away, and after that weight returned, oriented toward the circular section which MacKinnie had come to think of as the walls of his cabin. With weight, his universe returned almost to normal, although somewhere inside his brain there was a tiny terrified awareness that everything was wrong.

They were in a new star system. MacKinnie tried to comprehend that, but it was impossible to believe. Yet it must be true. The stars outside the ship were subtly different, some constellations remaining as before, but others altered.

The journey to Makassar took another twenty-four days, with the transition from acceleration to deceleration taking place in the middle of the night. They were gathered in the main lounge, with Stark acting as a serving man, on the “afternoon” of the last day, when the hatch opened and they were joined by Landry and Renaldi.

“We have nearly arrived, gentlemen,” Renaldi announced importantly. “I have requested Midshipman Landry to allow you to see the object of all your attention, and he has graciously consented. It will be visible through the ports over there.” As Renaldi spoke, Landry removed the locks from the observation ports and opened them.

Makassar was a tiny ball, hanging in the dark of space. The most prominent feature, easily visible even from this distance, was a pair of enormous ice caps. Much of the world between them was water, with a single continent, mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, swimming westward like an enormous whale. Two large islands, almost continental in size, hung above it in the Northern Hemisphere, and the shallow seas were dotted with smaller islands. There were two distinct colors to the seas where the sun shone upon them, and Kleinst remarked that it must be due to a dramatic difference in depth. Deep water was mostly in the Northern Hemisphere, with the continent surrounded by the pale blue marking much shallower depths.

“It’s a lovely world,” Landry remarked, standing next to MacKinnie and pointing out some of the more visible features. “Smaller than Earth. Gravity is about eighty-seven percent of that of Earth, which makes it about, oh, let’s see.” He withdrew his small computer and wrote directly on one face of it with an attached stylus. “I make it seventy-nine percent of the gravity you’re used to, Trader. Your men are going to be very strong compared to the locals down there. That might be useful.”

“It might be indeed,” MacKinnie muttered. “Are those ice caps normal in size? I seem to recall our maps of Samual show much smaller ones.”

“Makassar is a bit colder than Samual. Orbit’s more eccentric, enough to make some climatic differences. The inclination of the planet is also greater. Turns out it’s summer — by planet inclination — in the Southern Hemisphere when the planet’s farthest from the sun. I don’t know, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the two big islands in the north were uninhabitable, or nearly so. It would be pretty cold there. You’re arriving in the middle of spring on the main continent.”

MacKinnie recalled the maps they had been given. Except for a few sea trader towns, the entire population of Makassar was concentrated on the main continent, at least as far as the Imperials knew. The maps weren’t very accurate, but at that they’d be the best obtainable.

They watched the planet grow larger and larger as the ship approached. Each member of the expedition stood in silence, lost in his particular fantasy, dreaming of other worlds. Then the alarm sounded, and they scrambled for the landing boat.

The Imperial base was located in a small trading town by a great bay at the western end of the planet’s single continent. A scattered chain of islands led across the shallow seas to a series of large islands from which trading ships and sometimes pirate raiders came. Because of their depredations, the area around Jikar was largely uninhabited, which suited the Imperials well. Their presence in the town was disturbance enough; they had no desire to be seen by any large number of the people of Makassar.

A light rain was falling as they left the landing boat. They stood on the stone dock and stared about them in silence.

“Another world,” Mary Graham said. “It’s hard to believe.”

“It is that,” MacKinnie said. He sniffed the air, but could smell nothing. The rain had washed away any alien odors, and kept them from seeing very far. He turned back to Graham. “This is the first chance we’ve had to talk alone,” he said. “What was the long heated conversation you had with Renaldi yesterday?”

“It was nothing-”

“Your pardon, but I do not believe that.”

“He wanted — I tell you, it was nothing.”

“The Trader invited her to dinner,” Longway said.

“Alone?”

“Yes. Of course I refused,” Graham said.

MacKinnie looked at her grimly. “You should have told me. I am—”

“My guardian,” Graham finished for him. “Yes, and what good would that have done? You would have challenged him. He would have been horrified and thought us barbaric. Nothing would have been accomplished-”

“But-”

“She’s right,” Longway said. “By his standards there was nothing improper about the invitation.” He put his hand on MacKinnie’s sleeve. “I know,” he said. “The invitation implied that she might accept it. Since free-born ladies would never visit a man in his quarters, he implies that she is no more than a tavern girl. But he does not know that, Trader MacKinnie.”