Events on the 22nd Day of Travel

The PA system’s speakers crackled to life. The first officer’s voice, distorted but clear enough to understand now that I had the whole journey to get used to it, echoed down the corridor.

«In two hours we will make landfall. Once the permanent crew has completed the mooring and docking procedures, everybody can deplane. Due to safety precautions, only the forward and rear observation halls will be open to passengers.»

That was mixed news. I had looked forward to getting some hands on experience in how airships docked with the ports from this end of the activity. At least the observation halls had a great view.

A few of us passengers gathered in the forward observation hall, the smell of fresh baked bread still hanging in the air, as was common in the hours before arrival. Our destination was right ahead, and I could see the cracks and satellite travelers of the shard. Water mist had built up all along the harbor’s protective force field. Small airboats were collecting the water droplets.

I took a moment to study my fellow passengers, and I found myself in a minority for once: only me and another passenger had an obviously male physique with no modifications. Everybody else wore an androgynous body, and the children all had various kinds of tails, prehensile and not.

The engines began to roar, their high pitched noise turning into a steady hum while the permanent crew scrambled along the outboard masts. They hauled in the travel sails with practiced ease.

As soon as the crew secured the sails and climbed back aboard, the steady hum of the engines became deeper, we picked up enough speed to counter wind drift. The engine noise soon settled into the cadence of steady correction and adjustment as we closed with the shard.

The PA system crackled to life once more.

«All passengers please hold on to something, we are about to transition into harbor conditions.»

Docking, as well as undocking, still is more of an art than a science: Not only does the airship pick up speed to minimize the effect of wind, but the area covered by a harbor’s force fields is completely windless and there is no gradual transition that would allow the crew the time needed to adjust the approach. Instead, teamwork between helm, engineers, and the mooring detail. That’s why passengers like me never were allowed to assist in the final approach.

It is also terrifying, especially when things go wrong.

I never learned why the satellite hit one of the airboats, except for the usual rumors. The skipper was asleep at the helm. Or drunk. Or hopped up on Kraut. And without the body, which is now somewhere in the undervoid, we never will know.

My memory of the events is, I must admit, hazy. But I do remember the cacophony of sound and light when the foundering airboat smashed into the force field. The noise the field’s discharge made was like a thousand thousand bolts of lighting striking at once. The whole observation hall was bathed in cold purple light. There were no shadows at all for a brief moment. The sense of dread that follows a discharge flooded over me filling my soul with pure nothing.

Only seconds must have passed when I had come back to my senses, as our ship hadn’t drifted off course. I was standing right in front of the glass pane separating us from the outside, my breath fogging up the glass.

I heard children and adults weeping from the terror. Mothers and fathers consoling themselves by soothing their children. Strangers were leaning on each other crying into each other’s shoulders.

The doors to the central corridor flew open. The airship’s mind medic hurried inside, their head scanning the room, sorting cases by potential severity. Their two tails opened up a mind emergency kit. Their hands pulled out a bottle of sedative and a package of subdermal injectors.

Two burly ship’s hands followed the medic, carrying a stretcher between them on which sat the emergency supply of food and sweet juices.

The medic waved the loaded injector at me. Their voice was gentle yet urgent, underlining their words as they spoke.

«You there. Help with the food for the children. And be quick.»

I nodded and grabbed the plates and jars the ship’s hands had prepared. Grab. Carry. Soothe. Ensure a bite was taken and a sip supped. Repeat.

While I was making sure children were fed and their parents consoled, the medic injected the other adults with the sedative. All of them could sit down and returned to slower, more relaxed breathing.

Except for one. The only other obvious male on this trip.

He was breathing hard and fast, his hands grabbing the floor strong enough that his knuckles were white and his arm muscles bulging under the strain. All we could do was watch. Make sure that he didn’t get worse. Wait for the shudder of a medical airboat docking.

But we had no such luck. The man began convulsing almost right away. I jumped up, ready to pin the victim in well intentioned ignorance. I felt the medic’s tails wrapping around my chest and holding me back.

«Don’t. It’ll just hurt him worse, his muscles and sinews could snap,» they said, digging through their bag until they pulled out a one-time use ampule filled with a purple, glowing liquid. I’m sure that I saw bubbles, as if it were boiling.

One tail unwrapped from my chest, and pointed at the chest of the man caught in spasms.

«Hold his chest down when I say so. I’ll inject him with this,» the medic said, tapping the ampule and breaking off the tip. The smell of coldness filled my nose right away. I took a deep breath anyway.

«I’m ready,» I said. I rotated my shoulders, and took a deep breath. «I’m ready.»

At least, I thought I was.

The medic nodded, took a breath themselves, and said «Go.»

I pushed down on the male’s shoulders, pinning his chest into the floor. The medic punched the needle into the center of the male’s chest, and the liquid emptied into the male’s heart. Once the ampule was empty, my hands felt ice cold and I jerked them away. The male’s skin became streaked with purple, bubbly lines where his blood vessels were. As the streaks appeared on his skin, his muscles began to relax, his chest already rising and looking and feeling like he was in a deep sleep.

The medic stood up. Their tails were twitching through the air, their stance much more relaxed than just a minute ago.

«He’ll sleep now,» they said.

Fortunately, the docking itself was uneventful, other than a medical team waiting for us at the pier.

And since I planned on staying a while I placed a search agent on active duty in the local net, and hoped for news.