In a Season of Storms
by Harry Lang
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Table of Contents parts: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 |
part 2
“Good morning, Mr. Zant,” the young man greeted with a bow. “Mr. Vin at your service. May I join you?”
“Your servant, Mr. Vin,” acknowledged Philip with a nod. “Did you get Miss Olivia settled in?”
“I’ve done my part,” answered Vin as he took his seat. His intelligent smile told Philip that Vin was a man who took things in stride, a minimal requirement for success in service.
“How long have you been with the family?” asked Philip.
“Just over a year,” answered Vin as one of the kitchen staff brought him a pot of tea and a plate of kippers. His habits were known. “Barely long enough to learn my way around the place.”
“Do you plan to stay for the duration?”
“Hard to say,” answered Vin. “I suppose the Kwons are just like any other great family. Which is to say they are completely unique, furnished with their own strengths, weaknesses and idiosyncrasies. I do confess some fascination with their Asian roots.”
“They like to trace themselves back to King Sejong,” observed Philip. “Ironic, since nearly every trace of Asian ancestry has been bred out of them, leaving only the name. One of those idiosyncrasies, I suppose.”
“Or a weakness,” offered Vin. “Continuity has its advantages and can’t be worn as a stylistic affectation.”
“You’ll have a hard time finding hereditary continuity in the 23rd century,” said Philip. His voice was smooth and cool, even gentle, but his displeasure at Vin’s effrontery was unmistakable. “We make our own continuity, Mr. Vin.”
“I mean no disrespect, Mr. Zant,” Vin said in a conciliatory tone. “Truly. And I suppose my generation easily forgets how different things are for you chaps made for the long haul. Still, I have to wonder; have you ever considered serving another family?”
“I was made for these people.”
“But you came here by way of the Gray Estate, when Miss Muriel married Mr. Hugo,” observed Vin. “Isn’t that right?”
“It is,” answered Philip, reflecting upon happy days as the Gray family pilot. Miss Muriel Gray was a precocious little girl when they had met, and there was always a twinkle in those green eyes of hers. “A nearby destination doesn’t always mean a short, straight path, does it?”
“True enough!” affirmed Cook as she bustled past the table on her way back to the kitchen. “True enough!”
“You’re a philosopher then!” said Vin with a wry grin. “I’ve heard of such thoughtful fellows, though it’s odd to find one content in service.”
“Hardly,” replied Philip, who had no patience with meaningless identifications or laziness of mind. “I just observe. Consider the simplest example from nature herself. All men die. Death is their destination. A few meters away lies the lethal atmosphere of this planet. Ever-present death quite near, according to anybody’s reckoning. Yet men take decades to reach death as they tread the knotted, serpentine paths of their lives.”
“So, it is vanity?” returned the porter. “I’ve heard that too. How does one live with such knowledge?”
“One works,” answered Philip. “‘Wherefore I perceive that there is nothing better than that a man should rejoice in his own works, for that is his portion: for who shall bring him to see what shall be after him?’”
The porter was rendered speechless by Mr. Zant’s citation of the ancient book. It would take time for the young man to learn just how much there was to these “chaps made for the long haul.”
“I say,” remarked Philip, sitting up suddenly and looking alert, “did you feel something?”
“Feel something? Why no... Mr. Zant?”
Philip was on his feet and out the door.
The bridges between the servants’ module and the main house were full of staff making their hurried way back and forth. Philip moved quickly but without apparent urgency. It wouldn’t do to distract the staff from their business on this of all days, when the lady of the house was to be honored and laid to rest.
He paused as he came upon a relatively quiet spot and looked outside to confirm his impression.
He was right. The house was underway.
Clouds moved in wrong directions and modules bobbed gently in the slipstream as the massive thrusters mounted on the support frame hanging from the center of the house did their work. The acceleration was smooth, certainly unnoticed by the family members, mourners and staff, caught up as they were in the emotions of the day. There was only one house captain with such a delicate touch, and he would never undertake such extraordinary action without the best of reasons.
Philip made it to the main house, returning greetings and excusing himself from exchanges of pleasantries with the many old faces he encountered on the way. As he found the fork in the passage leading down to the support decks, he spotted Olivia by a window, carrying on an animated conversation with a tall, rough and handsome man whom Philip recognized as Ross Hayley.
“Of course I didn’t bring her!” hissed Olivia. “Why pretend you care?”
“Pretend?” Hayley was cool but intense. “I’ve had detectives crawling all over the planet trying to find her! You had no right to take her to Earth...”
Philip headed down the deserted corridor. Sumptuous décor soon yielded to bare deck plates and exposed, color-coded pipes and conduit. Philip appreciated the luxuries and comforts of the great house, but he felt more at home among its bones and muscles down on the support decks.
The corridor ended at the central service shaft, which ran the length of the support frame hanging below the main house. Normally, Philip would have taken the spiral stairs winding along the diameter of the shaft, but the lift was faster.
The small passenger capsule dropped with dizzying speed then slowed to a stop. When the door slid open, Philip found himself in a different world than the one he had just left. There was no pretense here, where the unadorned nerves and arteries, gears and wheels of the estate fired and pulsed, clanked and spun.
Philip followed a dimly lit, overstuffed passageway scented with ozone and dust, where electric current hummed and relays clicked, careful not to bash his head on low-hanging junction boxes. The low, steady growl of the thrusters sent shivers through the deck. Arriving at the end of the gauntlet, he cracked an airtight hatch and stepped into the wide-open space of the wheelhouse.
“Mr. Zant, of all people!” cried S. A. Ivor Halz, the house captain. He was standing on the transparent deck at the center of the invisible bubble of the wheelhouse, surrounded by open sky, fingers busy as holographic control panels appeared and vanished. The somber black uniform of the day contrasted sharply with the ferocity of his unruly mane of snowy hair and whiskers and the sparks that flew from his eyes. “Come to help me save the grand old place have ye?” he thundered. “Very well then! Man the weather station and call out my marks!”
“What’s it all about, Captain?” asked Philip as he took his post.
“Alert from Yuhwa Control. Look at the panel. You’ll see!”
Philip saw indeed. The cyclone that had nearly clipped his wings in the wee hours was rumbling along the third parallel, headed straight for the house.
“Not good enough for you to dodge it,” grumbled Captain Halz. “You had to bring it with you!”
“My apologies,” said Philip. “You’re here alone,” he noted. “Where is Mr. Jinks?”
“You’ve not heard?” answered the captain sadly, eyes on his work. “Old Jinks took the plunge. He went outside for a routine inspection and missed a step. Down he went. For all I know, the devilish wind may still be flinging him about, poor creature. They gave me one of the young ’uns to train to take his place, a Mr. Gyl. Sharp enough, but he doesn’t have the feel yet. Give us a reading from the Yuhwa feed.”
Philip read off a string of data points then watched a cloudbank shift position as the wheelhouse and propulsion module rotated to their new heading. “They used to leave navigation to the machines,” observed the captain as he verified the change in direction. “Problem was, if anything went wrong, there was no one to blame. Nothing worse than no one to blame.”
“Where is Mr. Gyl?” asked Philip. It felt good to be in the wheelhouse under the direction of a fine skipper, but duty was duty. Hopefully young Mr. Gyl wasn’t shirking his.
“Maintenance bay, starboard main thruster,” answered the captain. “We’re having a spot of bother with a temperature sensor. Beastly sky below, wouldn’t you say, Mr. Zant?”
A long, flat tentacle of steely gray coiled through the bright, puffy cloudscape like a spreading infection, growing fat as it sucked up the icy mists and gases around it. Another look at the Yuhwa data and some quick calculations told Philip that they should be able to skirt the edge of the storm and move out of its way, but the sky looked ominous.
“Captain Halz,” came a voice out of nowhere, “Gyl here. The sensor is cooked. I can replace it, but we’ll have to shut down the starboard main thruster.”
Philip and Captain Halz exchanged looks but not a word. There was no question of shutting down the thruster.
“That’s no good, Mr. Gyl,” answered the captain. “We’re running away from a storm. What else have you got?”
“I can stay here for the duration of the burn and monitor the temperature myself,” answered Gyl.
“Is that necessary?” asked Philip, well aware of how uncomfortable the maintenance space was and the risks of prolonged radiation exposure.
“We recorded a temperature spike on the last static test,” answered the captain. “Probably due to the sensor malfunction, but we don’t know for sure yet. I’d be uneasy leaving it unattended.”
“Begging your pardon, Captain,” said Philip, “but all staff are expected at the service. It’s nearly time to go.”
“You surprise me, Mr. Zant,” returned the captain. “The safety of this house takes precedence over any ceremony, no matter how significant.”
“The two are not at odds, Captain,” said Philip. “Let me have a look at the test data.”
Philip reviewed the data from the static test. “As I thought,” he approved, “the worst case shows the temperature reaching the critical level after three hours. That’s assuming there is a problem apart from the faulty sensor. The service starts twenty-eight minutes from now and lasts two hours. By then, we’ll be beyond the reach of the storm, and we’ll have time to shut down the thruster.”
“You’re a fine mathematician,” said the captain, “but you’ve left out some variables. Suppose the problem lies with a component that was further damaged by the static test? Suppose a failure of, say, the heat exchange equalizer triggers a catastrophic failure? Suppose there’s a delay at the service?”
“Abstract risks, unsupported by available data,” answered Philip. “I believe the known risk is acceptable. And I believe Madam Kwon deserves our respect.”
“You know she has mine,” answered the captain. He knew Philip well enough to know his remark was not an accusation, but it felt like one. “I hardly think that blowing her house to bits is an appropriate expression of respect!”
“Captain,” persisted Philip, “all staff are commanded to attend, without exception.”
There was no need for Philip to elaborate upon “without exception.” But the unconvinced captain stroked his bearded chin as he thought things over.
“You know,” he finally said, “when Jinks went over, there wasn’t a word from the family. Not a bloody word! Business as usual. Except for Madam. She... she sent flowers.”
Philip followed the captain’s gaze to a small shelf bolted to the bulkhead. There was a vase with dry, brown flowers crumbling to dust. The shelf was littered with petals blown off when Philip had opened the airtight hatch.
“Mr. Gyl,” called the captain, “how’s that temperature reading?”
“Optimal and steady, Captain.”
“You had better be sure of your math,” the captain said to Philip. “As sure as you are of your damned psychology! All right, Mr. Gyl. Button up that sensor panel and get up to the hall for the service.”
“But, Captain...”
“You heard me, Mr. Gyl.”
“Aye, Captain.”
“We are taking chances, you know,” said Captain Halz as he switched operations to automatic. “My job is to reduce chances, not trust lives to machines and fate!”
“You’re doing the right thing, Captain,” Philip assured him. “Don’t worry about the fate of the house. Maybe we’ll find there’s a God after all.”
“You expect Him to reward carelessness, do you?”
“No, Captain,” answered Philip. “But I hope He’ll have patience with love.” Madam Kwon’s petals swirled in the rush of air as they opened the hatch and left the wheelhouse.
* * *
Copyright © 2018 by Harry Lang
