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Aft gang a-glay, yadda yadda. So said
Burns. He was right too, and you dinna
need to be Scottish to know.
But when you mix starships and time
travel, och aye, there's ganging a-glay
and then there's Ganging *A-glay.*
<Squeak!!>
(That's a spoiler. Certain fur fans are gonna *love* this one.)
.
............................................................................................................................................
............................................................................................................................................
>>>>> Best Laid Plans. . . <<<<<
© Fred Brown, Aug 3/2004 rev. Jul 27/14
Story icon: Mouse credit to
MindMusic
Galaxy credit to the ESO Paranal Observatory (NGC 1300), found HERE.
Story can be downloaded from here: BEST LAID PLANS... - RTF
............................................................................................................................................
............................................................................................................................................
❱❱❱❱ NOTA BENE: This copy is in a clearer, better-readable font, and can only be read on DARK screens.
The Enhanced text copy that's readable on cyan screens is here: Best Laid Plans... (Enhanced text)
............................................................................................................................................
............................................................................................................................................
|
| Page Links: ·1· ·2·
|
=============================================================================
"Fifty thousand years in space. I still have trouble with it," Sheila Johnson
said nervously, drumming her fingers idly on the instrument-studded console in
front of her. "If something goes wrong, we could make it home and find
everything changed. If home would even still be there."
In the spacious command module of Earth's first starship, the Copernicus,
the three scientist-astronauts were rapidly running out of things to do. Johnson,
at Navigation, had finished work first. The course was laid in with dozens of
layers of redundancy.
At the Engineering station, Bill Richardson finalized some last-minute
tweaking of his beloved engines. Captain Dennis Martin was almost done
programming the Time-Jump systems. By far the most critical job.
"Hey, if you're too spooked we can always turn around and go back,"
Richardson grunted, peering at a display. He typed in a command string and the
display altered to his satisfaction.
The long (and intolerably boring) flight to the edge of the solar system had
been accomplished on conventional rockets. Nobody wanted to chance
Copernicus's deadly fusion engine exhaust drifting anywhere near Earth.
Once beyond Pluto, however, the great ten kilometer-long ship could safely
launch itself into the void. But even at a respectable percent of lightspeed the trip
would still take thousands of years.
"Turn this ship around and you'll be the first homicide victim in space,"
Johnson snapped. "There's astronomy I want to do at Tau Ceti and I'm damned
well going to do it."
There had been a bit of friction aboard over the past months.
"Joking, joking," Richardson muttered absently, still typing. "Don't pretend
you're the only one here with professional ambition, Blondie. If there's life in that
system I'm the biologist who's going to find it. Although to be honest 50,000
years kinda croggles me too."
"You can knock it off with the Blondie, Fatso," Johnson snarled.
Richardson was not a small man. He shot her a poisonous look, then
continued to work.
All of them held multiple doctorates. There would be enough science to do at
Tau Ceti to keep a whole university busy. But the energy demands of the ship,
and the Time-Jump system, meant room for three, and three only. Unfortunately.
Captain Martin suppressed an irritated sigh and leaned back in his chair. He
was getting tired of doing the peacemaking thing with these two. But the
Time-Jump systems were set, so what else did he have to do?
"Let's just say we're all tense and forget it, that being as close to an order as
I'm going to make it," Martin growled. He was tense too.
"And it's not really 50,000 years for us," Martin said more calmly. "The ship
will take that long getting to Tau Ceti but we get to bypass that. Soon as the ship
is on autopilot, we use the Time-Jump to travel ahead 50,000 years into the
future. We step into the Time-Jump tubes here and now, and step out when the
ship is at Tau Ceti. Everybody clear on that?"
Johnson and Richardson exchanged significant glances.
"Then we do the same thing on the return trip. Then when we get back to
Sol we Time-Jump the whole ship 100,000 years back in time and end up... we
end up..."
Martin trailed off at the look on their faces.
"Are we being patronized?"
"Sounds like it to me."
"Certainly he's in lecture mode."
"When we all know Time-Jump theory inside out and backwards."
"Maybe his Captain's shorts are riding up on him?"
"Could be."
"Grrr," Martin snarled wordlessly at his two sarcastic shipmates. He'd given
them a chance to gang up on him. Again.
So much for projecting an air of command authority. But at least their
tension was broken.
Albeit at the expense of his temper.
"Richardson, how close are you to done?" Martin said through clenched
teeth.
While Johnson smirked, Richardson tapped his console with a final flourish.
"Done I am, oh Talkative Leader. And I think I've squeezed about a half a percent
more efficiency out of the second stage tritium injector system."
Johnson raised a silent eyebrow in query.
"We're going to save some fuel," Richardson translated. "More to play
around with at Tau Ceti."
"In that case, good job," Martin said. "Then here goes." He flipped up a thick
shield on his console and threw the innocuous toggle switch underneath.
All the consoles flickered down to stand-by status. The autopilot was now in
control.
Martin unstrapped from his chair and floating up in zero-g. "The computers
are sequencing for engine ignition. There's going to be some radiation backwash.
Let's get on with the Time-Jump."
"Not to mention the radiation from 50,000 years of interstellar gas and
high-energy particles hitting the hull," Johnson added. "Don't even want to think
about that. Enough to mutate our chromosomes into a whole new species if we
stick around."
She reached up for a handhold and pulled herself gracefully after Martin,
who was already out the door to the room containing the Time-Jump tubes.
Richardson was clumsier, but followed the other two out of the Command
Module. "Everything that needs shielding has it. The ship will be fine," he said,
puffing a bit. "And even with the expected rad levels you wouldn't get new
species in only 50,000 years."
At the lockers, the three scientists began putting on the silvery protective
suits that would guard them from the discharge of the Time-Jump fields.
"That's pure speculation," Johnson scoffed as she hauled on the stiff zipper.
"If there's enough radiation, and given the right organism, the right population
base, the right ecological niche opportunities, you couldn't help but get plenty of
mutations that would lead to new species."
"I don't tell you how supernovas work so you don't tell me how evolution
works, okay?" Richardson shot back as he tucked the hood over his head. "You're
presupposing a bucket of conditions. Success or failure of new survival
adaptations in the face of survival pressures, and how fast they spread and
differentiate in a population, is what drives speciation, not necessarily the base
mutation rate alone..."
"Yeah, but..." Johnson began to interrupt but Martin, dressed first, got in
faster.
"If you two don't object to me reminding you of the mission goal, we are
supposed to get to Tau Ceti one of these days," Martin said acidly. "Why don't we
do it now?"
He waved at the waiting Time-Jump tubes, the doors open. "There'll be so
many more fun things to argue about once we're there. Trust me on that,
children," he said sweetly.
Richardson and Johnson glowered at the Captain (Ha! Got them back). But
the argument was successfully quashed. For the moment.
"Let's mutiny," Richardson grumbled to Johnson as he pulled himself into a
Time-Jump tube.
"Can't. His uniform won't fit either one of us," Johnson cracked as she
fastened the safety straps in her tube.
Martin was in his tube and doing the same. He activated the master control
panel.
"All secure? Med packs in place?"
"Secure" came two voices over the intercom. But not calm; the medical
monitors strapped to their arms were showing high heart rates.
So was Martin's. He licked his lips, took a breath, then tapped on the control
panel. "Slaving your tubes to mine, closing the doors now..."
Three tube doors slid shut with a solid <Clunk!>.
"Annnd starting time-capacitor charging sequence... Charging systems are
all green and nominal... Time-Jump circuits reporting green and nominal...
System will Time-Jump in thirty seconds from... now!"
The fields grew with a crackling of stray power. They'd gone through short
Time-Jumps in training--a Jump was an instant thing, theoretically faster than
quantum mechanics should allow--but it was the build-up that was the
nerve-wracking part.
25... 24... 23...
More and more power. A rising whine began to pierce their ears.
18... 17... 16...
Blue-white static flames flickered inside each tube. Titanic controlled
energies were about to twist and warp into them, right down to the level of the
component quarks in their bodies.
9... 8... 7...
The whine became a howl. The static discharge became a firestorm.
Helpless, they were frozen in place by the fields.
5... 4... 3...
The Time-Jump system prepared to tunnel them through. Then the circuits
screamed...!!
2... 1... 0...
<Hiatus>
... And they were through.
Martin gasped, and fell slack against the safety harness. A wave of dizziness
hit him, then cleared.
To be sure, a Time-Jump was no piece of cake. Nobody came through
without paying a price. The med packs were set to administer stimulants and
emergency drugs if necessary.
The med monitors said the other two were alive. "Report," Martin rasped.
There was a moment of pause. "Johnson. Here. Shaky but here," came a
weak voice.
A light glowed on the control panel. Richardson's med pack had decided to
administer a dose of stimulant. Martin felt like he could use one too.
"Richardson? Report!"
"Argle. Umph. Ohhh, my head. I'll never drink again. Oh wait: Tau Ceti..."
"He's alive. Not any smarter, though," Johnson said dryly.
"I heard that. Open these doors, Captain. There's a blonde astronomer I
want to beat up. Oh jeeze, my head..."
Martin allowed himself a laugh. He unstrapped himself and toggled the
control panel. "Doors opening now, but I think she'll have the edge on you...
you... youuuu…"
The door to his tube slid wide open and Martin all of sudden found himself
without words. Or the ability to make them. Or even able to remember what
words were.
Earth-shattering shock will do that to a man. Martin's jaw sagged.
Staring at Martin (and looking just as surprised), a meter-and-a-half tall,
white-furred, animal-like creature stood on its hind legs in the Time-Jump room.
There was a musky smell in the air.
The creature's legs and arms were thin and spindly and ended in narrow
clawed fingers and toes. It wore a sort of smock with a lot of pockets, some filled
with bits and pieces of electronic hardware.
A clearly recognizable spray-bottle of cleaning fluid was clutched in one hand
(paw?), a rag in the other.
There was a long naked tail.
What really zapped Martin, though, were the perfectly ordinary pair of
glasses that perched above the long narrow nose (muzzle?) and whiskers. The
nose projected out from a skull that featured a high forehead and two somewhat
triangular ears set upright.
"I say, you're early. You must be..." the creature began to say.
An ear-splitting female <SCREAM!!!> filled the room, followed by an equally
loud shriek:
"ALIENS!!!"
Startled, the creature jumped back a pace.
Equally startled, Martin cleared the door of his tube just in time to watch
Johnson topple over in a dead faint on the floor.
Richardson wasn't doing much better. He stood in front of his tube, arms
slack, eyes glazed and bugged and locked on the creature.
"Buh, buh, buh..." was all that came out of slightly drool-covered lips.
The creature reacted. "Oh dear, oh dear, this is not good, not at all!" it said
in distress. "Listen, wait right here, please don't be alarmed. Let me go get the
Captain. I'm only a cleaner!"
The creature turned and fled the room. The door opened, then zipped closed.
Martin shook his head hard. Hallucination? Time-Jump side effect? No,
clearly the others had seen it too.
And with that fractured thought, fragments of his Captain's training started
coming back to buttress his sanity.
Somebody had to lead. That somebody was him.
So get on with it.
"Buh, buh, buh..." babbled Richardson.
=============================================================================
PAGE 2 OF 2 >>>
Burns. He was right too, and you dinna
need to be Scottish to know.
But when you mix starships and time
travel, och aye, there's ganging a-glay
and then there's Ganging *A-glay.*
<Squeak!!>
(That's a spoiler. Certain fur fans are gonna *love* this one.)
.
............................................................................................................................................
............................................................................................................................................
>>>>> Best Laid Plans. . . <<<<<
© Fred Brown, Aug 3/2004 rev. Jul 27/14
Story icon: Mouse credit to
MindMusic Galaxy credit to the ESO Paranal Observatory (NGC 1300), found HERE.
Story can be downloaded from here: BEST LAID PLANS... - RTF
............................................................................................................................................
............................................................................................................................................
❱❱❱❱ NOTA BENE: This copy is in a clearer, better-readable font, and can only be read on DARK screens.
The Enhanced text copy that's readable on cyan screens is here: Best Laid Plans... (Enhanced text)
............................................................................................................................................
............................................................................................................................................
|
| Page Links: ·1· ·2·
|
=============================================================================
"Fifty thousand years in space. I still have trouble with it," Sheila Johnson
said nervously, drumming her fingers idly on the instrument-studded console in
front of her. "If something goes wrong, we could make it home and find
everything changed. If home would even still be there."
In the spacious command module of Earth's first starship, the Copernicus,
the three scientist-astronauts were rapidly running out of things to do. Johnson,
at Navigation, had finished work first. The course was laid in with dozens of
layers of redundancy.
At the Engineering station, Bill Richardson finalized some last-minute
tweaking of his beloved engines. Captain Dennis Martin was almost done
programming the Time-Jump systems. By far the most critical job.
"Hey, if you're too spooked we can always turn around and go back,"
Richardson grunted, peering at a display. He typed in a command string and the
display altered to his satisfaction.
The long (and intolerably boring) flight to the edge of the solar system had
been accomplished on conventional rockets. Nobody wanted to chance
Copernicus's deadly fusion engine exhaust drifting anywhere near Earth.
Once beyond Pluto, however, the great ten kilometer-long ship could safely
launch itself into the void. But even at a respectable percent of lightspeed the trip
would still take thousands of years.
"Turn this ship around and you'll be the first homicide victim in space,"
Johnson snapped. "There's astronomy I want to do at Tau Ceti and I'm damned
well going to do it."
There had been a bit of friction aboard over the past months.
"Joking, joking," Richardson muttered absently, still typing. "Don't pretend
you're the only one here with professional ambition, Blondie. If there's life in that
system I'm the biologist who's going to find it. Although to be honest 50,000
years kinda croggles me too."
"You can knock it off with the Blondie, Fatso," Johnson snarled.
Richardson was not a small man. He shot her a poisonous look, then
continued to work.
All of them held multiple doctorates. There would be enough science to do at
Tau Ceti to keep a whole university busy. But the energy demands of the ship,
and the Time-Jump system, meant room for three, and three only. Unfortunately.
Captain Martin suppressed an irritated sigh and leaned back in his chair. He
was getting tired of doing the peacemaking thing with these two. But the
Time-Jump systems were set, so what else did he have to do?
"Let's just say we're all tense and forget it, that being as close to an order as
I'm going to make it," Martin growled. He was tense too.
"And it's not really 50,000 years for us," Martin said more calmly. "The ship
will take that long getting to Tau Ceti but we get to bypass that. Soon as the ship
is on autopilot, we use the Time-Jump to travel ahead 50,000 years into the
future. We step into the Time-Jump tubes here and now, and step out when the
ship is at Tau Ceti. Everybody clear on that?"
Johnson and Richardson exchanged significant glances.
"Then we do the same thing on the return trip. Then when we get back to
Sol we Time-Jump the whole ship 100,000 years back in time and end up... we
end up..."
Martin trailed off at the look on their faces.
"Are we being patronized?"
"Sounds like it to me."
"Certainly he's in lecture mode."
"When we all know Time-Jump theory inside out and backwards."
"Maybe his Captain's shorts are riding up on him?"
"Could be."
"Grrr," Martin snarled wordlessly at his two sarcastic shipmates. He'd given
them a chance to gang up on him. Again.
So much for projecting an air of command authority. But at least their
tension was broken.
Albeit at the expense of his temper.
"Richardson, how close are you to done?" Martin said through clenched
teeth.
While Johnson smirked, Richardson tapped his console with a final flourish.
"Done I am, oh Talkative Leader. And I think I've squeezed about a half a percent
more efficiency out of the second stage tritium injector system."
Johnson raised a silent eyebrow in query.
"We're going to save some fuel," Richardson translated. "More to play
around with at Tau Ceti."
"In that case, good job," Martin said. "Then here goes." He flipped up a thick
shield on his console and threw the innocuous toggle switch underneath.
All the consoles flickered down to stand-by status. The autopilot was now in
control.
Martin unstrapped from his chair and floating up in zero-g. "The computers
are sequencing for engine ignition. There's going to be some radiation backwash.
Let's get on with the Time-Jump."
"Not to mention the radiation from 50,000 years of interstellar gas and
high-energy particles hitting the hull," Johnson added. "Don't even want to think
about that. Enough to mutate our chromosomes into a whole new species if we
stick around."
She reached up for a handhold and pulled herself gracefully after Martin,
who was already out the door to the room containing the Time-Jump tubes.
Richardson was clumsier, but followed the other two out of the Command
Module. "Everything that needs shielding has it. The ship will be fine," he said,
puffing a bit. "And even with the expected rad levels you wouldn't get new
species in only 50,000 years."
At the lockers, the three scientists began putting on the silvery protective
suits that would guard them from the discharge of the Time-Jump fields.
"That's pure speculation," Johnson scoffed as she hauled on the stiff zipper.
"If there's enough radiation, and given the right organism, the right population
base, the right ecological niche opportunities, you couldn't help but get plenty of
mutations that would lead to new species."
"I don't tell you how supernovas work so you don't tell me how evolution
works, okay?" Richardson shot back as he tucked the hood over his head. "You're
presupposing a bucket of conditions. Success or failure of new survival
adaptations in the face of survival pressures, and how fast they spread and
differentiate in a population, is what drives speciation, not necessarily the base
mutation rate alone..."
"Yeah, but..." Johnson began to interrupt but Martin, dressed first, got in
faster.
"If you two don't object to me reminding you of the mission goal, we are
supposed to get to Tau Ceti one of these days," Martin said acidly. "Why don't we
do it now?"
He waved at the waiting Time-Jump tubes, the doors open. "There'll be so
many more fun things to argue about once we're there. Trust me on that,
children," he said sweetly.
Richardson and Johnson glowered at the Captain (Ha! Got them back). But
the argument was successfully quashed. For the moment.
"Let's mutiny," Richardson grumbled to Johnson as he pulled himself into a
Time-Jump tube.
"Can't. His uniform won't fit either one of us," Johnson cracked as she
fastened the safety straps in her tube.
Martin was in his tube and doing the same. He activated the master control
panel.
"All secure? Med packs in place?"
"Secure" came two voices over the intercom. But not calm; the medical
monitors strapped to their arms were showing high heart rates.
So was Martin's. He licked his lips, took a breath, then tapped on the control
panel. "Slaving your tubes to mine, closing the doors now..."
Three tube doors slid shut with a solid <Clunk!>.
"Annnd starting time-capacitor charging sequence... Charging systems are
all green and nominal... Time-Jump circuits reporting green and nominal...
System will Time-Jump in thirty seconds from... now!"
The fields grew with a crackling of stray power. They'd gone through short
Time-Jumps in training--a Jump was an instant thing, theoretically faster than
quantum mechanics should allow--but it was the build-up that was the
nerve-wracking part.
25... 24... 23...
More and more power. A rising whine began to pierce their ears.
18... 17... 16...
Blue-white static flames flickered inside each tube. Titanic controlled
energies were about to twist and warp into them, right down to the level of the
component quarks in their bodies.
9... 8... 7...
The whine became a howl. The static discharge became a firestorm.
Helpless, they were frozen in place by the fields.
5... 4... 3...
The Time-Jump system prepared to tunnel them through. Then the circuits
screamed...!!
2... 1... 0...
<Hiatus>
... And they were through.
Martin gasped, and fell slack against the safety harness. A wave of dizziness
hit him, then cleared.
To be sure, a Time-Jump was no piece of cake. Nobody came through
without paying a price. The med packs were set to administer stimulants and
emergency drugs if necessary.
The med monitors said the other two were alive. "Report," Martin rasped.
There was a moment of pause. "Johnson. Here. Shaky but here," came a
weak voice.
A light glowed on the control panel. Richardson's med pack had decided to
administer a dose of stimulant. Martin felt like he could use one too.
"Richardson? Report!"
"Argle. Umph. Ohhh, my head. I'll never drink again. Oh wait: Tau Ceti..."
"He's alive. Not any smarter, though," Johnson said dryly.
"I heard that. Open these doors, Captain. There's a blonde astronomer I
want to beat up. Oh jeeze, my head..."
Martin allowed himself a laugh. He unstrapped himself and toggled the
control panel. "Doors opening now, but I think she'll have the edge on you...
you... youuuu…"
The door to his tube slid wide open and Martin all of sudden found himself
without words. Or the ability to make them. Or even able to remember what
words were.
Earth-shattering shock will do that to a man. Martin's jaw sagged.
Staring at Martin (and looking just as surprised), a meter-and-a-half tall,
white-furred, animal-like creature stood on its hind legs in the Time-Jump room.
There was a musky smell in the air.
The creature's legs and arms were thin and spindly and ended in narrow
clawed fingers and toes. It wore a sort of smock with a lot of pockets, some filled
with bits and pieces of electronic hardware.
A clearly recognizable spray-bottle of cleaning fluid was clutched in one hand
(paw?), a rag in the other.
There was a long naked tail.
What really zapped Martin, though, were the perfectly ordinary pair of
glasses that perched above the long narrow nose (muzzle?) and whiskers. The
nose projected out from a skull that featured a high forehead and two somewhat
triangular ears set upright.
"I say, you're early. You must be..." the creature began to say.
An ear-splitting female <SCREAM!!!> filled the room, followed by an equally
loud shriek:
"ALIENS!!!"
Startled, the creature jumped back a pace.
Equally startled, Martin cleared the door of his tube just in time to watch
Johnson topple over in a dead faint on the floor.
Richardson wasn't doing much better. He stood in front of his tube, arms
slack, eyes glazed and bugged and locked on the creature.
"Buh, buh, buh..." was all that came out of slightly drool-covered lips.
The creature reacted. "Oh dear, oh dear, this is not good, not at all!" it said
in distress. "Listen, wait right here, please don't be alarmed. Let me go get the
Captain. I'm only a cleaner!"
The creature turned and fled the room. The door opened, then zipped closed.
Martin shook his head hard. Hallucination? Time-Jump side effect? No,
clearly the others had seen it too.
And with that fractured thought, fragments of his Captain's training started
coming back to buttress his sanity.
Somebody had to lead. That somebody was him.
So get on with it.
"Buh, buh, buh..." babbled Richardson.
=============================================================================
PAGE 2 OF 2 >>>
Category All / All
Species Mouse
Size 240 x 240px
File Size 8.7 kB
Well that was quite enjoyable. Reminded me heavily of the 'Outer Limits' and 'Twilight Zone'-space themed episodes of the 1960's and hell, even 1980's. The science fiction aspect was great and you opened up such a setting to us in the span of two pages. Very interesting work my friend.
It had been so long (too long) since I've had time to read your stories on here and this one did not disappoint. But I will admit that your next story really tickles my brain in a good way in title alone and I am on my way to start that.
I can only imagine what I will find there.
Great work as always!
~Adrik
It had been so long (too long) since I've had time to read your stories on here and this one did not disappoint. But I will admit that your next story really tickles my brain in a good way in title alone and I am on my way to start that.
I can only imagine what I will find there.
Great work as always!
~Adrik
Wrote this long before I knew what furs were, then turned around and said, hey.
this is a fur story. Howzabout that? Anthro mice: A big clue dere.
And oh hell yes, this one mines a vein of classic Golden Age SF right to the bottom
of the shaft; be a lovely Twilight Zone episode. It's the hoary old time travel trope, in
which Spiffy Super-Science goes ghastly wrong, much to the consternation of our
Heroes (and to the reader's entertainment).
<Squeak!> indeed. :- )
That said, I break the model a bit here, by way of the fact that these are modern
characters, not the cardboard cut-outs of typical classic SF. Think I'm schooled more by
Varley than by Heinlein or Campbell, at least in the sense of how I thought
about these people (and mice).
They're standing on their own feet (or footpaws), so to speak. Meaning this may
be a short story, but there's a *powerful* urge in me to take this into novel country
to see what they do next.
And if Martin, Johnson, and Richardson have met one crew of furry aliens--so to
speak--who's to say they won't bump into more?
<Meowrr!!> (Spoiler alert.)
Aside: Insofar as furlit tends naturally towards adult subject matter, I also can't
help but wonder about *that* potential plot thread. How soft is that amber fur again...?
Exits humming: 'When a maaan... loves a woman... I mean a mouse...' We
shall see. :- )
fwbrown61
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