The Stage is Set

 

The stage was set. It just wasn't going to get any better than this. Ravenna would come out with the girls all dressed in their grass skirts and leis. This would be distraction enough. The Miranda would be powered on and the music would start, loud and rhythmic. Booming drums and loud singing with some background guitar, bass, and bells. Two bars in and Miranda starts the "DSA Boarding" announcement. The holographed  officers appear at the rear and front of the galley. Heshy opens the arms cabinet and starts to distribute the weapons as planned. Only it doesn't go like that! Miranda is, after all, an electronic program. She's not real. She plays the music and then;  "you are always getting into fixes Jimmy, my little friend."...It stuns everybody. Heshy must have pushed a wrong button somehow. In the history of man and space, of theatre and art, no one has ever recovered  quicker than Captain Wallace. In a split second he screams at Heshy. "Lieutenant Hereschoff what is going on? You moron! Open the weapons cases. Do as they say!" Captain Wallace is screaming louder than he ever has before in his life. "Distribute the weapons now." Meanwhile the girls are moving in a frenzy of loud music, dancing, fear, loud screaming and confusion. "Take these men below", to lieutenant Hereschoff, and "we've been boarded", in the manner of a director getting a play back on course. The oddity was that everyone, including the pirates, seemed to know exactly where to go. 

"C'mon" , Nathan Stokes, prodded one of the pirate crew hard in the middle of his back with the weapon muzzle. Hard alloy that could become white hot in an instant pushed him through the brig opening. "Ya'll stay there now you scum", he sounded like an old sea story. It must have been the Miranda program catching up with the action. Heshy watched in amazement as the saga unfolded, and he was a key player. It was odd all right, but what was imporant was that all the pirates were now effectively locked up.

Meanwhile, Miranda was piping in old sea shanties, that had all the crew smiling broadly despite any fear or confusion. "God Bless Ya Miranda! - drink up me hearties", Captain Wallace joined right in.

   

Would You Like to Dance

Would You Like to Dance?

 

The passenger's were just about back to the galley and Jim was considering how much money they would lose on the salvage. He had decided to put as much distance between them and the Vulture as possible and never look back. "Kidnapping", was this guy totally crazy?  - probably!"

"Any questions?", Jim asked. "You don't seem to have any activities for the ladies", Ravenna asked. With all those gorgeous black curls, it didn't take much thought for Captain Wallace to respond. "Yes, we're an all male crew, but there's plenty of arts and crafts down in the library as well as excellent music. You could practice a dance or two and entertain the crew, perhaps a show." "That sounds like a very good idea Captain Wallace."  Her smile kept him awake nights.

Addressing the New Passengers

"All right now. Please settle down. We have about a year of travel and layovers ahead of us and I want you to have some idea of how this journey will differ from that of your voyage on Explorer VI". Captain Wallace was momentarily distracted by some comments in the back of the galley where they were assembled. "Yes, I know your voyage was badly interrupted, but that's no reason to interrupt me." There was some laughter. The crew and scientists that had been aboard the Explorer VI were still blaming the deep space agency, the manufacturers of their ship and each other. This was going to be difficult. "We've already gone over this with Captain Kayce and his crew. Captain Kayce, of course, will be responsible for all of your activities till you're home. This meeting is just to familiarize you with myself and our crew and our needs and rules while you are on board." Ravenna began to squirm a bit in her seat. She could feel the force of Captain Wallace as he assumed control. "Lieutenant Hereschoff will take you on an orientation tour of our ship. Any questions should be directed to him. He's our first mate and that's his job. When you're comfortable here, Captain Kayce will take over and you can resume your Explorer VI program from there." Short and to the point, Captain Wallace took less than a minute to organize a year's activities for the newcomers. There was a general satisfaction with this, a renewed faith of sorts with the Deep Space Agency.

Boarding Party

Boarding of the New Horizons II

 

There was something wrong with this inspection. Jim's attitude shifted from a feeling that something odd was afoot to one of genuine worry and concern about where he stowed his firearm  as he watched the boarding crew climb up toward the bridge. "They're not using safety grips on the handholds", he thought. "Their clothing could catch any number of places" he wondered. "They're moving far too quickly. They're not inspecting anything. They want the ship." Captain Wallace barked an order to Lieutenant Hereschoff.  "Slam the hatch - close it.", just as the form of "The Vulture" began to emerge through the hatch opening. "Not so fast Captain, we'll be giving the orders from now on." The foul smell of "The Vulture", Captain Penance as he preferred on shipboard, along with the reptilian hiss in many of his slurred words entered the cabin with him and his band of pirates dressed as Port Guard.

Jim's heart sank as Captain Penance began to re-plot a course and speak over the intercom. "Dear passengers and crew this is Captain Penance. We will be following a somewhat different course than we had previously planned. Your safety and arrival at Port Grissom depends totally on the willingness of your family and friends to transfer the funds we've requested within the time limit we've determined. I'm sure there'll be no problem. Enjoy your dinner. Out."

Miranda

Miranda

The Miranda apparatus was a simple standard holographic projector, a square box about eighteen inches along a side and a few inches high. These were a few hundred years old in design,  perhaps longer in concept. Humid and redusted mist reflected tiny beams of light from three different points on the base. A three point coincidence became luminous. The design for the Miranda was in no way significant. The program was. Miranda, herself, in fact, was quickly becoming the most popular and sought after personality in the system!

She had evolved, many claimed, from the 2000 days out programs that first appeared about 100 years ago. The comic line was very similar. "If you're mad enough to be out here this long and watching this program, only then are you fit to tolerate, understand,  and gain from the material."  It was an hilarious series of programs. Extremely well done technically and it sold a good many products as well. The 2000 day out programs would not open unless you were actually 2000 days past your launch time and significantly distant from the earth as well! It threatened to explode your brains if you tampered with its workings as well as inform your mother. That kind of silly humor. But it kept you entertained and cracked right through the boredom at times.

Miranda was something else again though. Miranda was a person, an extremely wise, intelligent, and very funny person, or, at least, that's how she was presented. Long flowing silver white hair, an extravagant costume, usually an absurd hat, and equally absurd earrings and jewelry. She was always concerned about her appearance and fussed about constantly, preening herself, perhaps changing her hat or scarf or something. She was funny! Her voice was funny. "Weeeell, she would start, in answer to a question for example, covering at least two octaves of pitch, "thees deepends, of course, on how you look at eet" in some obscure accent. The true humor, though, was in the content of her replies and the little movements and self-satisfaction she would get from its completion.

A perfect example was now when Captain Wallace and his crew found themselves reaching for relief in Miranda's viewpoint of their impossible situation.

"We're in a fix Miranda!"  "I can see that!", as she looked around the cabin. "You are always getting into fixes Jimmy, my little friend. Did you ever think about that?" She turned directly to him, raised her head and jiggled her earrings with a quick movement of her head as if to add punctuation to her question.

The Dance of the Deep

The Dance

The galley was the largest open chamber on the ship with a flat open deck. The Vulture sat directly behind Captain Wallace reeking foul odors. He seemed poised to strike and kill like a giant cobra. "Where is she?", he groaned . "They're bringing her up now", answered Captain Wallace, forcing away any show of fear. He had actually practiced looking and sounding ugly in front of a mirror in the head before coming down. He never felt or looked more stupid in his life he thought. "Let's have some damned music Hereshoff!", he shouted in the nastiest voice he could muster. "She'll be out in a minute Captain", Hereshoff replied. "The music's ready for her now." Hereshoff had dug up a recording of some old exotic oriental music from heaven knows where. He was resourceful. You could hear Ravenna's loud protests as she was brought down the  passageway and into the galley. "Shut up" you damned ****", again as mean as he could make it sound. "Dance to the music. You can dance can't you!", Captain Wallace shouted and nodded to Hereshoff to start the recording. A very loud beating drum began to vibrate the very bulkhead it seemed and the Vulture let out a sound that could have meant he was pleased.

"There. There you are dear. Show us your dance that we might spare you for our entertainment". Captain Wallace hoped he sounded believable. Ravenna looked his way. She had reddened considerably. She caught his message entirely. Could she dance? She was a woman. Of course she could dance. Something else was going on here though. She'd play it by ear.

The Milkweed Tornado

The Milkweed Tornado

Henry's father looked down at his young son and asked him what he wanted to be when he grew up.

Henry answered in his little boy milkweed voice full of hope, pride and enthusiasm. "I want to be a really big milkweed just like you Dad, as big as a tree! And I want to grow really big seed pods and pop them open in the fall and have them all fly up to the heavens and swirl around and land in every corner of the earth!!"  Henry's voice grew louder and prouder and more enthusiastic as he spoke.

Henry's father looked down at his son and smiled. There was a time when he too had hopes and dreams like that. Sometimes in the fall he could even recall the exhilaration of his own youth as he let fly with his own explosive bursts of seeds.

"Anything else Henry?",  his father asked.  Henry was all bright eyed now as he stared up into the blue Vermont summer sky. "Yes, Dad", Henry replied. "I want my seeds to sweep up and soar so high and be so many that they glimmer and glow and smell so sweet that people know just how fine and sweet and good we milkweed are and name their children after us." You could just about see Henry shining as he spoke and stared up at the blue sky through some low hanging sugar maple branches. Certainly the trees heard Henry's answer to his father. They swayed in approval.

It was October third of that same year and a low pressure system had moved across the country and made its way over northern Vermont. The temperatures and winds were perfect for seed flight. Thousands and thousands of milkweed plants, perhaps tens or hundreds of thousands, let fly simultaneously with their precious flying seeds. Up and out and up and swirling with the new winds. Perhaps because of the way they absorbed heat or added their momentum to the swirling winds, for whatever reason,  a powerful maelstrom built and swirled and rose and rose higher and highter, Later, the meteorologists would call it an anomaly caused by weather coincidences. The fact remains that Henry and his family and all the rest of the plants and trees and even the birds and chipmunks all knew the real reason that the Milkweed Tornado occurred. Up it flew and swirled, all silvery shining and sweet and beautiful. Silvery white it was and many people who saw it were sure it was a sign and renewed their faith. It seemed to echo the goodness and power of nature and the seasons of growing. Certainly there was some fine spiritual power behind it all as it flew round the whole earth dropping these little milkweed seeds.