by Jim Laughter
“Hi, Captain Alor,” said Mee and offered her a mechanical hand to shake. Myra shook the grip, which Mee then withdrew. Myra noticed the other hand held a folded magazine. Bobby saw too.
“Hey, Mee!” he said in a somewhat perturbed voice. “Don’t bend my magazine!”
The little ship seemed to somehow look sorry and silently handed the creased magazine to the boy. Bobby took it and absentmindedly folded it in half again and stuck in his back pocket. Myra thought this amusing but kept her mouth shut and her features neutral.
“Bobby?” said the little ship, its mood changing. “Do you want to go flying again? I’ve been practicing.”
The ship turned sideways and opened its hatch.
“Sure,” answered Bobby and stepped inside. He looked back at Myra and then asked, “Can Captain Myra come too?”
“May,” corrected Myra.
“Huh?” Bobby puzzled.
“When you’re asking for permission, you say may I, not can I,” Myra corrected Bobby. “It’s obvious I can go inside, but the question is, may I?”
“You sound just like my school teacher,” Bobby quipped. “Ok then. Mee, may Captain Alor come aboard?”
“Sure she can,” replied the ship.
Myra shrugged her shoulders and stepped inside. She looked over the controls and the resemblance to the interior of Baby was obvious. She watched Bobby sit in the pilot’s chair and buckle in. Remembering her first unofficial flights in Baby made Myra smile at what she was witnessing. The hatch closed behind her and she sat in one of the extra seats.
Bobby never touched the controls while the little ship flew around and around the cavern doing snap rolls and inverted spins. At one point the little ship hovered vertically, something Myra didn’t know these ships could do in a gravity environment.
After a few minutes, Myra decided she better get off. Seeing the motion from back here instead of from the pilot’s position made her feel a little queasy.
“You better let me off. I need to go tell Baby and the others about this.”
“Okay,” said Bobby, fearful. “I hope I’m not in trouble.”
“No, I don’t think so,” Myra said with a smile. The ship stopped circling and floated up the tunnel into the mine.
“We decided to save you a few steps,” said Bobby from the pilot’s chair. Myra watched with interest as the little ship negotiated the tunnels carefully without scraping.
“Here you are,” said Bobby when the ship landed and the hatch opened. Outside, Myra could see the vent shaft sloping upward.
“How did it get in here?” she asked.
“From what Mee told me, he flew in here looking for a dark place to hide. Apparently, he hit one of the timbers when he came into the tunnel and caused it to collapse behind him, trapping him in here,” answered Bobby. “Show her, Mee.”
The little ship turned up his lights brighter and Myra could see the main tunnel ahead. The cave-in was obvious and she suspected several yards thick.
“I better go tell everybody,” Myra said as she started back up the vent. “You stay here and wait for me.”
“Okay,” said Bobby and Mee together.
Myra climbed up the vent shaft and hiked over to Baby who saw her coming and opened the hatch so she could enter and get out of the cold. Myra decided it would be best to stay here in case Bobby were to come out. He didn’t have on much protection and the wind was picking up. As Baby closed the hatch, Myra reached for the comm set.
∞∞∞
Back onboard the Mary Belle at the village, Gary was explaining what he knew about the pattern of pebbles.
“You mean they’re in a cavern near here?” asked Betty.
“Yes,” answered Gary, indignantly. “That’s what I was trying to tell you back at your institute.”
Empress Ane reddened.
“Don’t be too hard on them, Gary,” Mary’s voice cut in from a speaker near him. “They’re only children compared to old fogies like you and me.”
Gary looked around the room.
“I see they’re still letting an old bucket of bolts like you fly around without a cane,” Gary said. “Seems to me someone would have better sense.”
Empress Ane was surprised that anyone besides her could speak so irreverently to Mary.
They must be very good friends.
“At least I can make a decent cup of coffee,” Mary quipped. “Not like that sludge you and that pack of old miscreants you hang around with drink.”
Gary laughed.
“I’d compare it any day to that bilge water you call coffee.”
“You two really do know each other, don’t you?” Ane said.
“You never told the empress about us?”
“Not until recently. Guess it slipped my mind,” answered Mary. “It’s been decades since you served onboard. I didn’t want her to think I was getting old.”
“Mary said you served on the Mary Belle when my grandmother Melinda was empress?” Ane asked Gary.
“Who do you think installed the computers on this old bucket of bolts?” Gary answered. “My proudest days were serving on this old tub when your grandmother Melinda was empress and Prince Girt founded the mountain railroad. We stay in touch from time to time when the tin-plated wench doesn’t have anyone else to pester.”
“I never knew,” Ane said.
“From the reception I received at the palace yesterday, I don’t doubt that.”
“Mr. Gary?” Ane said. “I deeply apologize for my staff disregarding the information you brought to us. Can you ever forgive us?”
“Nothing to forgive, My Lady,” Gary answered. “Just seeing this old girl again is good enough for me.”
“Gary?” asked Mary seriously.
“Yes, Mary?” Gary whispered.
“Do you really know where my baby is?”
“Baby?” Gary asked. “I don’t know anything about a baby.”
Empress Ane laid a hand on Gary’s arm and motioned for him to remain quiet.
“Gary is here because he found a clue to where the bundle might be,” she said to Mary. “He was about to tell us how to get into a mine where we think the bundle might have been.”
A sniffle of remorse emitted from Mary’s speaker. Gary could tell his old friend was hurting.
“As I was saying,” Gary continued, “the only way down there is through a small vent shaft sloping down into the adjoining mine tunnel.”
Just then a trooper came into the upper mess to report to Ane.
“I have a message for you, My Lady,” he said. “Captain Myra said she was going to check out a lead. She lifted about twenty minutes ago.”
Ane thought for Myra and Baby to leave at a time like this must mean it was pretty important.
“Is there anything else, Trooper?” she asked.
“Yes, My Lady,” the trooper replied. “Captain Myra left with a boy about ten years old as a passenger.”
Gary recoiled at the mention of a boy. Bobby was the only boy that age in the village. What was going on?
“All we can do is wait.” said Ane. The trooper left to return to his post.
The conversation resumed.
“So you saw no way anything bigger than a man could enter the mine and the cavern?” Dean asked.
“No,” answered Gary patiently. He wondered what this was all about and what it had to do with the pattern of pebbles he’d found.
Just then they felt a rumble shiver through the ship. “What’s going on?” called Ane to the trooper she could see through the passageway on duty in the control room.
Before he could answer, Mary exclaimed through the speakers.
“They found my baby!”
The echo rattled both the interiors of the ship and the surrounding village. Thinking fast, Ane and the others rose from the table in the upper mess and called to the trooper up front.
“Call the guards aboard. We’re about to lift!”
Rushing into the control room, Ane saw the las
t of the troopers come onboard and the hatch snap shut behind him. Through the front windows, they saw they were lifting, and were soon above the trees. Swinging around over the village, they soared over the station and the ridge beyond.
“We’re headed toward the mine,” commented Gary, watching the scenery pass beneath them.
They topped the ridge and saw the remains of the mine below. Up on a rise behind it, Baby was parked in a space little larger than she was, her pink color standing out sharply against the snow.
Mary swung around and settled down on a level area in front of the mine. Baby lifted and flew down to join them. Both hatches opened and everyone was soon standing in the Mary Belle as Myra ran over and up the ramp.
“We found the missing ship!” cried Myra as she entered the control room. “It’s trapped in the mine.”
“Where’s Bobby?” asked Gary, concern written on his face.
“He’s back in the mine with the ship.”
“How did the ship get in there?” Betty asked.
“It told Bobby it flew in through the main shaft and the entrance collapsed,” Myra said. She then filled them in on the situation down in the mine and cavern. Gary fleshed out the details Myra missed and drew them a crude map of the underground passageways.
“How are we going to get it out?” Dean asked. “It’s too big to fly out through that vent shaft.”
“We could use a blaster to clear the main entrance,” Betty offered. “If they’re on the lowest settings, we should only cut a tunnel twenty or thirty feet through.”
“No,” said Gary, familiar with the effects of a blaster from his years as a trooper. “Even that much power could damage the mine tunnels further and cause the whole mine complex to cave in on Bobby and the ship.”
“What would you suggest?” Ane asked the retired trooper.
“I think the only safe way to do it is to dig it out the hard way,” Gary replied, “by hand.”
Down in the mine, Bobby and Mee waited together for what seemed like hours for Captain Alor to return. While they waited, Mee quoted to Bobby his favorite parts of the articles in the magazine. After that, the ship rambled on about the captain.
Bobby listened but was thinking about their situation. He knew they wanted to get the ship out but couldn’t figure out how they’d do it. Maybe they’ll use blasters! He would enjoy seeing that and started thinking about taking the ship back to the cavern so they would be safe.
Just then they heard the sound of someone coming down the vent shaft. Myra soon appeared and entered the waiting ship.
“How are you two doing?” she asked.
“Fine,” they both answered.
“Well, we’re going to have a little more of a wait,” she told them. “They’re going to have to dig out the old mine entrance by hand since any other way would be too dangerous.”
“What about using a blaster to clear the cave-in?” Bobby asked.
“No,” replied Myra. “Your grandfather said a blaster even on its lowest setting would be too powerful and thinks there’s too great a chance it could cause the whole mine to collapse.”
Bobby was a little disappointed that he wouldn’t get to see a blaster being used, but the images that came to mind when Myra told them about the risks involved with blasting gave the boy second thoughts.
“We’re going to be here for a while,” said Myra. “What do you want me to tell you about this ship?”
She smiled when she observed Bobby’s astonished reaction. She’d seen the way the boy and the ship interacted with each other and had few doubts who would eventually be the captain of this little vessel. Remembering her own early days with Baby, Myra patiently explained the ship and how it worked.
∞∞∞
A few hours later, a large team of experienced workmen and volunteers from the village were assembled in front of the collapsed mine entrance. Because of the limited space to land, Mary shuttled back and forth several times to the station bringing up the workmen. Gary, being the most knowledgeable on the scene, assumed command and took the foreman of the crew down into the mine to inspect the other side of the cave-in.
Myra, Bobby, and the little ship moved back into the cavern out of sight of the workmen. Mee was afraid at first, but soon felt better when Myra explained the situation to him.
Soon the sounds of manual digging echoed through the mine for the first time in many, many years. Because of the instability around the cave-in, Gary and the foreman decided not to have any workers in the mine digging on the backside of the debris.
With many experienced hands, the work moved along but not as fast as they would have liked since they could only work from one side. Slowly, the piles of debris from the work facing grew larger. The ring of pick and shovel was a constant song as the men labored to break through.
Mary lifted a back-hoe over the ridge and set it down at the mine entrance, so work really began to quicken. As they progressed, the foreman became concerned about the unstable ceiling of the new entrance. Mary shuttled back and forth between the mine and the village, bringing timbers to shore up the new bore.
Experienced workmen carefully put the new timbers in place as the slow work progressed further into the hillside. Gary and the foreman estimated they would have to bore about twenty-five to fifty feet before the entrance would be clear enough to fly the little ship out.
It was well into the afternoon when the workers holed a tunnel the size of a man through the rubble. Work progressed quickly now as the men dug to enlarge and shore up the opening. Finally, just as the sun was setting, the foreman pulled his men out and declared the bore ready.
With the bore now open, Myra was able to use the comm set in the little ship to call out.
“How are things going out there?”
Myra, Bobby, and Mee were still waiting back in the cavern so there was some interference caused by the raw ore still in the mine walls.
“It looks good out here,” replied Betty who had now taken charge of coaxing the ship out. “Come on out.”
“Okay,” answered Myra, “here we come.”
She turned and spoke to Bobby who was back in the pilot’s seat.
“Are you ready, Bobby?”
“Almost,” said the boy. After a moment, he asked nervously, “Will I ever see Mee again?”
Before Myra could answer, Mee cut in. “Bobby not go!” he said. “Bobby is my captain and my friend.”
Myra smiled again, remembering her first encounters with Baby.
“You’ll be seeing plenty of each other,” she replied to the boy’s question. “I’m sure of it.”
Satisfied with her answer, the boy turned toward the front. “Let’s go, Mee,” he said simply.
The little ship rose for the last time from its nest in the cavern. It turned and looked once more at the pattern of pretty pebbles it had so carefully placed on the floor. Turning back toward the opening between the cavern and the mine, he glided through the darkness and out into the open air.
As the little blue ship floated out of the mine tunnel, everything seemed to hold still for a moment. The Mary Belle rose up and floated over to the hovering ship.
“My baby,” she whispered.
“Mama?” asked the little ship.
Mary extended her outside arms and the little baby-blue ship floated into them.
Epilogue
The atmosphere was quite happy on the bridge of the Mary Belle as the ship sailed through space heading toward Firstas. Inside were Ane and Betty along with their families. Ramor had requested that Mary come to Firstas and dropped some hints about what he discovered about how Baby and Mee were animated. Taking the families along gave them a chance to have a bit of a holiday while the engineers worked on the ship.
Out the front windows, Empress Ane and Betty could see two little ships, one pink, one baby blue, flying escort for their mother. They would occasionally fly barrel rolls around each other or chase each other around their mother’s hull.
Th
e situation was relaxed, Ane knew, because beyond the three ships, two fleets formed a protective sphere around them. The Red-tails seemed to have abandoned their latest tactic for now but it was best to remain alert.
Watching the antics of the little ships, Ane spoke to Mary.
“Tell me, you brassy girl,” she said. “How did you know Mee was a boy?”
“I’m not a brassy girl!” came back Mary. “I may be a tin-plated wench, but I’m not a brassy girl!”
Ane and Betty smiled at each other. It was good to have Mary back in her old form. The reunion of Mary with her lost baby a few months back had worked wonders.
“You didn’t answer my question, girly,” Ane said in mock sharpness.
“Oh, that was obvious,” answered Mary.
“Why? He didn’t have on a diaper?” Betty asked, joining the conversation. Both women grinned at each other as they remembered the incident when Baby was new. Mary had complained that Baby wasn’t yet potty trained, so she tried to get a diaper for the little ship.
“No,” responded Mary. “It was obvious that Mee was a boy because he’s painted blue.”
When they approached Firstas, the two youngsters waved good-bye to Mary and headed to the surface. It would be nightfall there pretty soon and Mee still slept at night beside the Mary Belle just as Baby did.
Myra had taken Bobby and the new little ship under wing and was acting as both instructor and babysitter. Myra often complained the two boys would give her gray hair. Reaching the protective force field, Mary began the slow process of lowering herself through.
Krel and Ramor greeted them at the landing pad. The men were arguing about some native on a closed planet somewhere. They invited the adults for an evening meal. They made child-care arrangements for the children, and soon they were well in hand. The kids enjoyed being here, and their mothers knew they would hear all about some adventure when they returned.
With everyone seated and the courses served, the empress herself offered thanks to the Unseen One for his protective hand over herself, family, and friends. The adults enjoyed a rare evening without pressure. Right in the middle of saying something, Krel looked over at the simple radio he kept in the corner of the dining area.
