Two Space War Part 6

He looked once more upon all this beauty, and he knew again where "Kilmeny" had been.

. . . Kilmeny had been where the c.o.c.k never crew,

Where the rain never fell, and the wind never blew.

But it seem'd as the harp of the sky had rung,

And the airs of heaven played round her tongue,

When she spake of the lovely forms she had seen,

And a land where sin had never been;

A land of love and a land of light,

Withouten sun, or moon, or night;

Where the river swa'd a living stream,

And the land a pure celestial beam;

The land of vision it would seem,

A still, and everlasting dream.

Flatland, or two-s.p.a.ce (or the Calacirian, to call it by its Sylvan name), was what the sailors called the universe, the environment, the realm that they sailed in. Flatland was also what they called that blue, two dimensional barrier: the plane, the "sea" that the sailors sailed upon, which contains the whole galaxy.

In two-s.p.a.ce the whole galaxy was squashed flat as a disc. Flatter than the flattest disc you can think of. Impossibly flat, since there was no third dimension. Except where they carried it around with them. This was Flatland. On a s.h.i.+p you could view it from above or below, but the only way to get into real s.p.a.ce is to go into Flatland, into the "real" galaxy.

The Keel, and the Elbereth Moss that grew in it and around it, created a field in which a piece of three-s.p.a.ce could exist in two-s.p.a.ce, in Flatland. Flatland wanted to squeeze you flat. It constantly compressed your little piece of three-s.p.a.ce from top and bottom, and that downward, compacting pressure created a "wind" that pushed against their sails. The field of three-s.p.a.ce concentrated the gravitational forces of flatland the way a sharp point will concentrate the electrical forces on a charged piece of metal, the way a lightning rod attracts the electrical forces above it. These stronger gravitational forces "above" the s.h.i.+p, on both sides of the plain, caused a downward flow of pressure on the s.h.i.+p that could be "caught" by the sails. The pressure was constant, a steady downward "wind." By using forward-leaning masts and sails they could partially capture the force of this wind, making it possible to truly sail the sh.o.r.eless seas.

Their galaxy was squashed flat, but other galaxies could be seen above and below them, as stars might hang above a flat earth. Above him hung old friends, spread thickly and densely across the black "sky" of two-s.p.a.ce. Hanging directly above was Remmirath, a stunningly beautiful group of galaxies known also as the Netted Stars. All he had to do was look up at the Netted Stars to know that he was on the "upper" side of the galaxy, as convention and tradition agreed to call it. With one glance at this constellation, or any other patch of the Flatland sky, he could immediately orient himself to the cardinal directions.

To the "north" was red Borgil, and directly to the south was the constellation known as the Swordsman. One galaxy, its disc seen from the side so that it made a linear formation, formed the Swordsman's s.h.i.+ning belt. Two similar galaxies joined end-to-end to form his gleaming sword, thrusting to the west. The Swordsman was also known as Menelvagor to the Sylvan. Westerness had embraced it as a symbol of their kingdom, their vigorous young empire expanding to the galactic west from their beginning on Old Earth.

Direction of travel across the galaxy was designated as north toward the galactic center, and south toward the galactic rim, also sometimes called Hubward and Rimwards. Viewed from an arbitrarily agreed upon "above," west was to the left, or Turnwise, when facing north. And east was designated to the right or Widders.h.i.+ns.

They had only been able to loosely relate what they found in two-s.p.a.ce to what astronomers saw in three-s.p.a.ce. The galaxies that hung above and below them in two-s.p.a.ce, and the destinations they arrived at, often could not be made to match any "known" location in three-s.p.a.ce. It drove astronomers mad trying to relate the sights and destinations of Flatland to what they "knew" existed in the "real" world.

A sailor popped into two-s.p.a.ce. He sailed across the endless seas of Flatland. He navigated by the "stars" to a new world. He popped back into three-s.p.a.ce, and the stars were different. Who cared about some astronomer's reckoning? He knew where he was, and he knew how to navigate home again. What more could any sailor ask?

Many high-tech worlds flourished in the galaxy, but none of them had ever developed interstellar travel through three-s.p.a.ce. Why should they, when the mystery, the beauty and the vast expanse of two-s.p.a.ce and its "hither sh.o.r.es" awaited them? Why would any planet expend the vast resources needed to develop and conduct interstellar travel? Any civilization could sail to a virtually infinite number of worlds with no more difficulty than the sailors of eighteenth-century Earth traveled to distant continents. If they learned the secrets of the Celebrimbor s.h.i.+pwrights, and if they were willing to play by the rules of the Elder King.

This, this! was the gift of the Elder King, thought Melville, as he rejoiced in the far flung galaxies that hung so close above him. Flatland compressed distances, so that travel between worlds was practical. It also compacted distances so that the galaxies hanging above him looked as near as the Moon from Old Earth. Like most sailors he never got tired of looking at them. On the world below him he'd almost given up hope of ever seeing them again and now, for a brief moment, he rejoiced in it.

After a sailor's brief, orienting glance at the sea and the sky he turned his head and looked at the Kestrel, dreading what he'd see. The rope ladder hung from the s.h.i.+p's bowsprit, and from here he could see no damage. All he could see was the bow of the s.h.i.+p, and only the portion of the bow that was "above" the plain of Flatland, that vast, two-dimensional plain in which the three-dimensional form of the s.h.i.+p floated. There might well be great damage to her flanks, stern, or below the plain of Flatland, where he couldn't see.

The Kestrel was of the Falcon cla.s.s, constructed over 100 years prior with her sister s.h.i.+ps, Falcon, Sparrow Hawk, Pigeon Hawk, Peregrine, Meriadoc, and Gyrfalcon. She was what the Westerness Navy was pleased to call a frigate, with three masts extending above and below Flatland.

She was constructed of white Nimbrell timbers, which were coated with the Elbereth Moss, making her a beautiful, pure white. Except where she was painted with red trim on the "red" side, and green trim on her "green" side. She was like a great swan resting in pure blue water.

The old concepts of port and starboard, left and right didn't work when there were essentially two s.h.i.+ps, slapped together keel to keel. So convention established that all of one side was the "green-side," while the other side was the "red-side."

Flying from her mainmast, both above and below, she flew the Westerness flag, a four-armed, pinwheel galaxy on a royal blue background.

She carried forty 12-pounder cannon, twenty above and twenty below the plain of Flatland. She was intended as much for cargo, transport and exploration as for war, with a large hold, a large complement, and six cutters. Swish-tail, Sharp-ears, and Wise-nose were on the deck "above" Flatland. b.u.mpkin, White-socks, and the captain's barge, Fatty Lumpkin, were lashed to the reverse deck, arbitrarily and universally referred to as "below" the vast plain formed by Flatland.

She was down to four cutters now. Swish-tail had been intentionally beached on the world below, her Keel used to form the Pier.

b.u.mpkin was lost, along with their second mate and a small crew, in an earlier exploration of a nearby world. She'd been beached on a sh.o.r.e and her Keel didn't raise back up into two-s.p.a.ce. After several weeks of waiting they had no choice but to bid their comrades a sad farewell. If they hadn't raised a Pier yet, they never would. They marked this spot on their charts as a "reef," warning others away from what treacherously and deceptively looked to be a habitable world.

Melville leaned to look as far as he could down the red-side of the s.h.i.+p, which was her starboard or right side from above the plain of Flatland. He saw their carpenter, Mister Tibbits in Wise-nose, lashed alongside the Kestrel, where a repair crew was working on a portion of her flank.

"Ahoy Chips!" he shouted.

The carpenter looked up from his work. "Mr. Melville! I'm so very glad to see you, sir!"

The carpenter held a warrant officer's position. He seemed to be the senior officer present, so Melville called out to him, "Permission to come aboard!"

"Aye, sir! Come and join us here, if you will, sir!"

Melville was already scrambling the rest of the way up the ladder to where he could flip up onto the deck. Hans, Broadax, the middies, and finally Lady Elphinstone followed to begin their a.s.signed tasks.

From here he could see that the upper deck had been savaged by the most severe blast of grapeshot imaginable. The white Nimbrell timber of the mainmast was chewed almost all the way through. Great chunks of railing and decking had been blown out of existence. Much of the rigging was recently repaired, with pieces of shrouds and ratline still hanging in shambles.

The s.h.i.+p's crew all wore work clothing made of old, off-white sailcloth. Sailors hung in the rigging like a flock of dirty white birds, chattering and toiling efficiently. Throughout the s.h.i.+p, seamen were working under the carpenter's guidance. Several were in the cutter working beside him.

Melville went to his left, toward the red-side, moving around the cutter lashed to the deck on the s.h.i.+p's bow. He hurried over to the waist and looked down at Chips in the cutter below. He grabbed a bit of railing and hopped carefully down to land beside the carpenter.

Elphinstone went straight to the dispensary to tend to the wounded. Hans, Broadax and the middies went about their tasks, but the two NCOs made a point of staying where they could hear the conversation in the cutter below. Little Aquinar stood immediately above in the s.h.i.+p, awaiting Melville's orders. Throughout this part of the s.h.i.+p the sailors continued to work, but they s.h.i.+fted subtly so that they also could see and hear the conversation on the cutter.

"Dear Lord, Chips, what happened?" Melville asked. "What could have done this kind of damage?"

"Aye, sir. But this is nothin' compared to what the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds did with their d.a.m.ned huge round shot below. May the Elder King curse them to vacuum!"

"Tell me about it," said Melville, putting a hand on the old warrant officer's shoulder.

"Well sir, after we dropped you and your company off in the world below we left and went on a short explorin' trip eastward of here. It was all slow easy sailin'. All Asimov days you might say. Lots of plot and character development but precious little action. The kind of adventure I'd write for myself if I was doin' the writin', if you take my meanin'." The old carpenter leaned up against the cutter's mast and continued with his story, while Melville sat on the railing.

"We was about ready to turn around to come back to link up with you, when we runned into a Guldur s.h.i.+p comin' from the east. It was a mite smaller than ours, and she only had four guns to a side, two above and below. They was big guns, but we reckoned they could only be low velocity carronades. So we wasn't too worried. They signaled to pull up for a talk, and what with Westerness tryin' so hard to stay neutral and keepin' out of the Elder Races' squabbles and all, it never occurred to us that they'd sucker-punch us!" At this point Tibbits began gesturing in accompaniment to his tale.

"But old Captain Crosby was always a savvy one, he was. Our gun ports all had their hatch covers closed, nice and peaceful like, but behind the hatch covers we was loaded with double shot in every gun, manned and ready. But so did the enemy! Lootenant, those guns was no carronades! It shouldn't be possible to build cannon that big. Everyone knows that the Keel charges can't be designed to give that much energy. For hundreds of years it's been so. But they fired at us, right through their closed hatch covers, and did us more damage with one volley than we could with a dozen. I tell you, sir, it ain't natural to have guns that big and powerful.

"They let rip with grapeshot in the two upper guns, and ball in the lower. The captain, Lord bless him, the first mate, and the marine lootenant all met down on the red-side in the upper waist to come over to that Guldur b.a.s.t.a.r.d. The grapeshot ripped our red-side like nothin' you ever seen before! The whole boardin' party, an honor guard of six marines, and the bosun pipin' them, all disappeared! We've only got b.l.o.o.d.y bits and pieces left to bury! Four guns were destroyed, and the crew killed or wounded on two others, leavin' only four guns on the upper red-side. You see what it looks like here, but that's after weeks of fixin' and patchin' while we was on the run, with that b.a.s.t.a.r.d right on our tail all the way.

"The real damage was done with the cannonb.a.l.l.s that hit us below. They punched through the hull, shattered the mainmast housin' for the lower and upper sides. Then they punched right on through and out the green-side! On the red-side they destroyed three guns, leavin' only seven below." Now the old carpenter began to pace the deck of the little cutter.

"But sir," said the old sailor as tears began to flow down his cheeks. "Sir, the vacuum-cursed dogs cut our Keel! The Keel's only holdin' together with splinters. Lady Elbereth's Gift, the Moss on the Keel, is all that seems to be holdin' the charge. And sir, the s.h.i.+p is dyin'! Only the s.h.i.+p, old Kestrel herself is holdin' us in two-s.p.a.ce. If not for her, we would'a popped into vacuum days ago, and she can't keep it up much longer. She's dyin' sir!" The old carpenter sat and began to sob.

"Sir," he said, looking up through his tears, "you know that besides the captain, the other person the s.h.i.+p talks to, just a little, sometimes, is her carpenter? With the captain dead she's talkin' to me. She's mad for vengeance. She wants at that b.a.s.t.a.r.d of a Guldur, but she can't, sir. She can't. I've done all I can, but she can't keep hangin' on. Any second now she's gonna pop into vacuum and we'll all die. We gotta get outa here!"

"Chips! Mister Tibbits!"

"Yessir?" he asked, looking up through tear blurred eyes at the young lieutenant.

Quietly Melville continued. "It's time to act like an officer of the Westerness Navy. Kestrel needs us now, more than ever, to do our duty. Our full duty. Whatever that may be. Whatever cup is set before us, we must take it. Now, tell me the rest of what happened."

"Aye, sir. Sorry, sir."

On the s.h.i.+p above them all pretense of work stopped and everyone watched. This was the cue for Broadax and Hans to go into action.

"Ye d.a.m.ned blueboys!" shouted Broadax, turning her cigar stub and withering, concentrated, bloodshot Dwarrowdelf glare on them. "Git yer tails to yer business while yer betters tends to theirs!" She randomly selected a poor soul to torment. " 'At means you, Andrest! If ye was any denser, I swear light'd bend 'round ye!"

Not to be outdone, Broadax's fellow NCO added his two bits. "An jist wat do ya think yer doin' Jonesy!" said Hans, spitting a stream of tobacco juice overboard as he selected another random victim. "You pay attention ta yer work. Nothin' is foolproof fer a truly talented fool like you!"

Then the two NCOs went about the age-old task of glowering at subordinates, but they stayed close, where they could hear the rest of the carpenter's tale.

Tibbits drew a deep, shuddering breath and continued. "The b.a.s.t.a.r.ds opened fire, but it must take forever for those big guns to reload. We was stunned, but we had all the red-side guns manned, and we fired right back. Ol' Guns, Mr. Barlet, he let 'er rip, right through our hatch covers, with four above, and seven below. Thirteen 12-pounders, all loaded with double shot at point-blank range can do the Elder King's own damage sir! As we was pullin' off, we hit them again, and then again, all on what we'd call their green-side. We musta hurt the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds, but all the shots was into their hull, none of their masts or riggin' was damaged much, so it didn't seem to slow them down any."

"Chips, this may be very important," Melville said, gripping the old sailor's shoulder. "As you remember it, do we have an advantage of height in the waist?"

"Aye sir, over a yard's height advantage, all the way across, except where there was a funny little half a quarterdeck. It's really more like a connin' tower on the corner, astern. Above, their quarterdeck is on the red-side, while below it's on the green-side. They have a little jollyboat on davits hangin' off the quarterdeck on each side, so it'd be tricky to board from their rear quarter. That boat'll keep you from gettin' close.

"Their guns are rigged all weird, too. On the green-side they have the guns all for'ard above the plain of Flatland, and all astern below. On the red-side, all the guns below are for'ard, while the ones above are squished back astern."

"Good. As I understand it, the jollyboat would hamper boarding astern, on either side. But on the red-side, above, they don't have a gun for'ard. And we could board her from there, from the for'ard upper red quarter, without worrying about those guns?"

"Aye . . . aye, I guess so, sir. Unless they swing that gun up for'ard, as a bow chaser. But so far they haven't done that above, just the one gun below. It must be d.a.m.nable hard to swing the gun up front, and they probably want a full broadside on at least one side. I know I would, if I only had four guns to a broadside.

"But, Lootenant," Tibbits continued, "the ones below will rake us like h.e.l.l's own furies."

"Aye Chips, but we won't be below. They don't know that our s.h.i.+p is dying. We'll smash our bows together, red-side to red-side. Everyone, including the cook and her cat, will be hidden away, ready to board from that one quarter. Even if we begin to sink from the impact, it won't matter, because we'll all be on their s.h.i.+p. Meanwhile, down below, they can board our s.h.i.+p, and they'll die with the s.h.i.+p! Can you think of a more fitting end for the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds?"

"Aye, sir," said the old carpenter, looking up through his tears with a faint glint of hope in his eye.

"Now, you say we had double shot in the first volley. Did that volley penetrate their hull?"

"Aye, sir. Punched clean through the hull on this side. I don't know where they went after that."

"And the other volleys? Did they penetrate?"

"Aye, sir. Best I can tell they did."

"Good," said Melville. "And did they have a lot of their Goblan 'allies' up in the rigging?"

"No, sir. No, they made it look all peaceful like. Almost no one was in the riggin'. That was most of why we managed to get away. Everyone, curs and ticks both, musta been packed in below decks. You think we mighta chopped them worse than we can know?"

"Oh, aye, Chips. Aye." Melville knew that he was also speaking to nearly a hundred listening ears as he said, "Read here the moral roundly writ

For him who into battle goes a"

Each soul that hitting hard or hit,

Endureth gross or ghostly foes.

. . . blown by many overthrows,