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The Distant Speck

People still sail

By Ben WaggonerPublished 3 years ago 5 min read
4
"Look out that way and tell me if you see what I think I see."

Anderson took a deep breath of briny air and turned to see who had boarded the schooner. His curly-haired crewmate Mina grunted and shucked another huge coil of hemp rope off his shoulder. It thudded on the deck beside the mainmast.

"I quit. I want to go back to Earth," Mina said, smearing sweat from his brow.

Anderson snorted. "What do you mean you want to go back? You've never been to Earth. Why would you want to go there?"

"I want to know what a fig tastes like."

Jorge looked up from the wooden tackle blocks he had just arranged. "You've had figs—the Agriculture team grows them in the bio enclosure."

"They aren't real figs, not like the ones that grew in Earth-dirt." Mina rolled his eyes. "They're propagated off of fig trees that were raised on carefully engineered nutrient baths by our parents and grandparents on the 'Giant Leap' and only recently introduced into the dirt here. They probably don't taste anything like figs my ancestors ate."

"Why does it matter? I like how they taste, and they're nutritious," said Anderson.

Jorge took a swig from his water bottle. "Who else thinks 'Giant Leap' seems like a weird name for a spaceship? I was born on it, but were they out of names? I wonder who thought that one up."

"I heard it's from a quote," said Mina. "The point is, I don't want to live on an empty, uninhabited planet. I didn't choose this."

Anderson shrugged. "None of us did, Mina. Who gets that luxury? Our parents didn't, either. They were born on a spaceship because, for whatever reason, their great-great-grandparents thought it would be a good idea to leave Earth and colonize—" he gestured expansively "—this."

At his prompting, the three looked along a shoreline that bustled with activity. In the place where this hull had been built, carpenters had already laid the keel of the next. Beyond that, members of the Agriculture team moved around one of the plots they had cleared of native vegetation, tending to fruit trees deemed hardy enough to transfer out of the bio enclosure. Up the hill, near the Commissary, one of the Construction teams fabricated a new housing complex for married couples to replace the tent city they had been living in.

"Yeah," added Jorge, "and none of the people before them chose the time or place they were born, either."

Olivia appeared at the head of the short gangplank, her wispy golden hair fluttering in the onshore breeze. "Are you guys standing around talking again? No wonder this boat's taking so long to finish."

"It's not a boat—it's a ship," Jorge said.

"I thought a ship traveled through space," Olivia laughed.

"Different kind of ship. But this is a ship, too," said Anderson. "And we're almost done—if we can watch a couple more holograms to be sure we get this rigging right."

"That's another thing that bothers me," said Mina. "Why do we have to learn a technology our grandparents' grandparents didn't even know? Sailing became obsolete a hundred years before the first human ever left the Earth's atmosphere."

"Because we want to explore this planet. It's what humans do, buddy. We explore. We learn things. We expand. And until we can build manufacturing facilities to produce engine-powered vehicles and refineries to fuel them, we need to take advantage of wind power."

"I brought bottles of water and sandwiches. Are you guys hungry?" Olivia hefted her wicker basket to draw the men's attention.

Anderson craned his neck. "Do you have any figs?"

Mina glared, Jorge guffawed, and Olivia raised an eyebrow.

"No, why?"

"No reason," Anderson replied with a grin. "By the way, Mina, even when the Giant Leap left Earth orbit, people were still sailing. It never went out of practice. And—how can you not be excited by this opportunity? We're going to be the first to sail an uncharted ocean on an entirely new planet!"

Mina sighed. "Fine. Yeah, you're right. I should look forward to learning to sail. Even if anybody else wanted to go back to Earth with me, the Giant Leap isn't a functional spaceship anymore, and it's unlikely I'll ever see another." He looked at the dubious expression on Anderson's face and continued, "Don't say it—I know. I wouldn't make it back to Earth, anyway. I would just die in space. How long did it take for us to get here? Twenty generations? More?"

"Sorry, my friend," said Jorge. "At least the craft we arrived on was designed for us to dismantle and utilize almost every part in setting up this colony. I read that the Spaniards who accompanied Cortés to Mexico woke up one morning and discovered all their ships were on fire. So much for salvaging anything useful. That guy really made it clear to his crew that he intended for them to stay where they had gotten to, so they might as well have been on the other side of the galaxy, too. On the plus side, we aren't surrounded by a bunch of warriors wanting to sacrifice us to their gods."

"I like it here," said Olivia. "Will you guys teach me to sail?"

"You're in Agriculture and Nutrition," Mina reminded her.

"I can ask for a transfer, can't I?" She glanced around at the three eating sandwiches. "After all, you're going to need more team members in Exploration when you actually start exploring. Like when a bunch of us came to help you get this thing into the water." She cocked her head. "By the way, where's Eckhardt?"

Anderson jabbed a finger toward the top of the foremast. "Eckhardt, lunch!" he called.

"Come up here a minute," Eckhardt replied.

"I'm not bringing your sandwich up to you," Anderson said.

"Forget lunch a minute. Just come up here."

"What's his problem?" asked Mina. "Whatever it is, we can fix it after we're done eating."

"I'll see," said Anderson, setting his food on a crate. He strode to the rail and swung himself upward into the partial web the rigging team had already strung. He climbed hand over hand until he reached the spar Eckhardt stood on. "What?"

Eckhardt made a small gesture close to his chest. "Look out that way and tell me if you see what I think I see."

Anderson looked beyond the waves breaking at the mouth of the natural bay to where sunlit swells rolled in from the west. "I don't see what you're—oh!"

"Is that what I think it is?"

"Is it moving?"

"It appears to be," Eckhardt said. "So? What do we do?"

"We go down. Come on."

Everyone cast curious expressions at Anderson when he thumped onto the deck, followed by Eckhardt.

"What's going on?" asked Jorge.

Anderson ignored him. "Olivia, I need you to leave your basket here. Go straight to your father without talking to anyone else, and give him this message in exactly these words: 'Governor, there's a ship on the horizon.'"

science fiction
4

About the Creator

Ben Waggoner

When I was a kid, our television broke. My dad replaced it by reading good books aloud. He cultivated my appetite for stories of adventure and intrigue, of life and love. I now write stories I think he would enjoy, if he were here.

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