Denouement

Denouement

It was hard to believe that there would be so much relief to be back in Vermont. Jim had learned more than one thing about life and happiness on this trip. He wondered too about the way of things for people; how much was pre-ordained, if anything, and how much depended on their own decisions and considerations. He never would have been with Nomi, and certainly wouldn't have appreciated her either without their little adventure. He would have considered her just some spoiled little co-ed, which she wasn't at all. For that matter, he would never have met Heshy, let alone form the friendship that they did, except for his Dad's insistence on the career he didn't want. "That must be it", he thought.  "That's where all this came from, my father gave it to me."  He paused and looked at the thousands of generations of men before him with their hard learned lessons, all looking back and smiling at him. "They knew", he thought. "That's where all that force came from" . "Gosh". He looked at it all and at the sun setting over the mountains in the west and understood a piece of life. 

Needle in a Haystack

So that was it. Two months minimum to wait for assistance from the DSA. The only other choice they had was the tiny light duty dingy. This ship was kept at remote stations like this one in order to ferry passengers and equipment and to handle emergencies that were close by. It was not designed for long distance runs, certainly not anything like the run back to close space which they would have to make if they were to survive. "What about the Armstrong Heshy?", Jim broke the silence. "Forget it, with all the luck in this part of the galaxy and twice the supplies we'd be able to stuff in, I'd give it half a chance to ever show up on the radar. That's how close we'd get. No Jim, I don't want to freeze to death out there and that's what would happen." Heshy sounded really hopeless. "We could rendezvous with the cutter that's much more realistic. I've been going over the figures for the last hour. It would take the best math we had to get a line good enough to make it on the available fuel. We'd have to make little tiny corrections as we went." "Doesn't the computer do that automatically?", Jim asked. "Only if it has reliable position data. Here one thousandth of a percent would translate to hundreds of miles. You can't rendezvous like that. We have to monitor our position more frequently and more accurately than is normally done." Jim was well aware of the importance of relative velocity in docking maneuvers. It took huge amounts of energy to make even relatively small course changes at the extremely high velocities that they would be travelling. This far out, rendezvous were very expensive. "I think it's worth a try Heshy!" 

Getting on with the Story

No story, no happy! The whole trick is to make a happy here! It's hard not to be happy - on this world at this time or on any world at any time - almost! You have to work at it! There are exceptions and, of course, the news seems to carry only the exceptions lately. "Man hits thumb with hammer in Delhi India" - and then you get the whole story with all the details - "ouch", he said. Then his mother is interviewed. "Yes, I was in the other room and heard, "ouch", etc. No, we're not here to suppress emergency communications. There's a place for that, and there's a place for exceptions as well.
"Dance of the Deep" is supposed to be a funny happy story that happens about 300 years in the future, It is intended to be as realistic as possible and create a pleasant imaginative background, characters and situations that invite the reader to help in the creation of a better future for mankind. In other words, a happy story.
There are times, though, that it is difficult, or seems difficult, to be happy. Exceptional times. These times are lacking good creative input which means low level help at best. "Who cares", or "same old baloney", are the attitudes about sharing the best we have to offer for each other. We are working against a bad creative particle - "cold grayness forever" for example, or even worse - chaos - no ordered time or space - in other words - no  understandable future, or a future where "cold grayness forever" seems pleasant by comparison!

Well this is one analysis of "writers block", at least for science fiction that aims for happy endings.
Recognizing this, and responsible as creative writers, we get on with our story:


Nomi's fear was palpable. Even if they could outrun the Vulture, they risked a long dangerous journey in a craft not designed for the stresses they were sure to experience. The radiation exposure alone was almost enough to force a longer course line further from the sun. Fuel reserves prohibited this. Food, water and power were also major considerations that they hadn't yet quite worked out. Jim knew that Heshy could and would solve this. He knew something else too. He knew that the success of their return depended on how much they cared about each other. Heshy was very sensitive to the operational limits of their little ship and knew they would need to be pushed. Jim was equally sensitive to the operational limits of Heshy, Nomi, and himself and was likewise aware that these would be pushed too. He felt Nomi's fears and listened closely to Heshy as he whispered to himself about course possiblitites. "Remember that seafood restaurant in Massachusetts Heshy?", Jim asked. "The Lobster Tails?", Heshy returned. "Yes. The first thing we're going to do when we get back is treat Nomi to dinner on that dock. It'll be July, perfect weather for us." They all chuckled as the fears melted away.