Winner of the Writers of the Future Gold Award for 1994
Master Navigator Winin settled into the contoured couch of the starship Sally Ride's nagivation tank. He closed his eyes and said, "VR, Puluwat." The splash of waves, mew of seabirds, and creak of his canoe's rigging replied. He raised his face, breathing deeply. Stale ship's air. "Damn cheap VR."
He opened his eyes and saw Puluwat, his home island, its white sand beaches lapped by the waves of Earth's Pacific Ocean. But though the sun shone in the tropical sky, no welcome rays warmed his face. He shifted his weight on the navigator's bench, evaluating how ripples rocked the canoe's hull beneath him. He looked behind, to the canoe house sheltered by palm trees, and ahead, to where the other islands of the atoll rose from the ocean. Palms on Allei's beaches swayed in a slight breeze, and he could hear children calling to each other from the breadfruit trees on tiny Elangelap, to his right. The tank's virtual reality had what he needed to navigate a starship--but just barely.
"VR off." The nav tank was small, only the main and an auxiliary couch, with a tiny lavatory built into the wall left of the main couch. But the equipment was clean and well cared for; someone knew the importance of a starship's nav tank. Winin pressed the door release and slid out of the couch, his bare feet slapping the deck. He tugged his red and yellow loincloth straight as he stepped through the irising door. "Awfully primitive equipment, Captain," he said to the short, round-faced woman fidgeting in the corridor outside the door.
"But will it do?" asked Akiko Teramoto, captain and owner of the Sally Ride.
"I haven't used equipment like this for twenty years, but I explored the Maelstrom in a ship very like this one, when I was young. It will do."
The three men in Winin's virtual crew raised the mast and rigged the sail of his outrigger canoe. A breeze filled the sail, and the canoe slid out between the small islands and over the barrier reefs to open water. "Mr. Davis, we're ready to enter overspace," came the Sally Ride's realspace pilot's voice. "I have the con," he answered. Winin turned on his seat near the center of the canoe to get a backsight. The Puluwat atoll lay behind him; he could no longer see his canoe house, where his family and friends stood watching him leave. "Master Navigator Winin ready for overspace insertion," he said for the log book. "Let's go." Over the sounds of ocean and seabirds he heard the roar of the starship's engines, readying for the great leap into overspace. A ripple shot through canoe, island, and ocean; nausea twisted the navigator's stomach. But his surroundings settled, and the nausea gave way to the internal itch of overspace, felt even through the ship's environmental protection. "Successful overspace insertion," the pilot's voice said. "Out."
Winin opened his locker and pulled a soft bag from beneath his extra loincloths. This was his joy, the model of his sailing canoe. He carefully unwrapped it, caressed the smooth wood, checked every tiny lashing that held hull and outrigger and sail in place. This was real. Made with his own hands, from wood and fibers he'd collected on Puluwat, this was something warm and human, not cold and electronic. This was a ship. The starship shuddered, as it often did while passing through the choppy overspace "waters" around the reef. A loud crash reverberated through the metal members of the ship. Winin grabbed a handhold, staring uselessly in the direction of the nav tank. Had they hit a floaty? Then his stomach tried to crawl out of his mouth. Damned souls screamed, and blood writhed up the walls. The starship disintegrated into a billion tiny sparkling fragments that formed unintelligible words in the luminous gray matter of a giant's brain. Overspace. At initiation every wayfinder navigator experienced it--raw, without the protective buffers the starship raised. So they would know it, and just maybe have enough presence of mind to hit the resets . . . but he wasn't in the nav tank. Sanchez had the reset controls. Winin couldn't find his hands; no, they loomed before him, big enough to pluck a canoe from the ocean. No! The model, hands are not melting, set it on the bed, feel the spikes, sharp coral, cut me, no! Feel my way through the giant's gut, warm, pulsating, black blood coursing around my knees, screaming at my steps. Door--open? This VR's good, has smell, but gone wrong, thousands of crabs rotting on luminous green sand, white-hot sun blisters the skin from my bones, no! Look, look, my bones are out and my skin is in! A crab, to skitter sideways down the slippery pink seaweed, dead men's fingers, opening and closing, deep-throated terror roar ebbing with the tide to leave me naked, stranded--door button? Whirlpool to suck me down and in, coral shatters my feet, perfume of anemones moves slowly through the viscous water. No, don't fight the whirlpool, door irises open! Too deep, too deep, golden syrup sighs around my thighs. No movement, space solid and brittle, cracks and lets the red, oozing hearts of suns leak over all the silver starships, deep bell tones crush the futile jellyfish. Any God--that floating one will do--help me! His arms don't work, my tentacles reach out, feel rough cratered skin, right there! The blades flash past, slice my scalp, forehead, eyes, ears. Oh, ears, I must climb out, escape my head. Lava flows back up into the volcanic crater, so sparkling green it cuts my eyes. But there, there I must push the skeletal tree away and feel the deep oozing fur-covered slime of the leaves. Push the reset. Did the god say that? I will, I will, but I cannot hear it, in all the sighing thunder. Hand is on the reset, fool, just push. Winin collapsed against the god's soft side. Ragged panting, whimpering, filled his ears, the cool smoothness of metal supporting his legs, his buttocks. He raised his head. Dim emergency lights illuminated the interior of the nav tank. Drawing a deep breath, Winin pushed himself to his feet. When his stomach protested, he barely made it to the head in its alcove behind the couch. Relieved of its contents, his stomach settled. He drank two large glasses of water and, less shaky, took stock of the situation. The whimpering came from Sanchez, who lay unconscious in the nav couch. Winin would have to reset the VR, which hadn't come up with the environmentals. The aux couch would do--all the controls were duplicated there. "Kurua?" His voice sounded loud over Sanchez's raspy breathing. No answer. "Computer? Sally Ride?" Nothing. The computer must be down; thank God the enviro was on another circuit. He had never considered how a self-aware computer would react to the chaos of overspace without the interfaces that shielded it and the ship's crew. Could a computer go mad?
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