Chapter 9: Starlight, Star-bright, First Star I See Tonight
The crew of the Minnow tosses a paperclip into the Mysterion drive and is set free from the run-amok technology. While the ship is being pulled into a dense galaxy, Commander "Roy" and Barar can't stop bickering.
"The Mysterion drive was a bad design!"
"Your face is a bad design!"
The Minnow lands on a planet and takes stock. It is going to take several years to repair the ship to a condition where it can safely leave the planet. Luckly, because of science fiction, time only passes half as fast on the planet. So what seems like two years to them will only take one year back on Plenarius.
After a year and a half, a terraforming ship arrives on the planet in response to a distress call. I guess they needed more cats brought in? Unfortunately, it exploded in orbit, along with all its cats.
(Interestingly, it is at this very time in history when Zaragiah is in Turicum on Earth, blacksmithing horseshoes for ants.)
Another six months, and the crew has the Minnow repaired and ready to lift off. Once off the ground, Barar gives the order to fire up the Mysterion drive. Surprise! He built another one out of coconuts while marooned. The ship is back into space and headed back to Plenarius when...
* * *
What are the asterisks of clarity doing here?! Are those really...? Yup! That's them!
Apparently, Barar has been telling all or part of this story to "the King." And now for the first time the King wants to interrupt to talk about some hyperspacing jumbo.
Has the whole book just been telling a story to the King? You can go back through this chapter, the previous chapter, and all the way to the beginning of the book and never find any indication that this was being told in anything other than book form. COW's ways are not our ways.
It was apparently necessary to include the "your face" insult in the retelling before the royal audience.
* * *
After returning to Plenarius, Barar and his cohorts notice that Plenarius was too close to its suns. This was the original problem that got the Minnow off course to begin with. Why had the entire planet moved? The blame lies solely with that pesky time travel machine.
Does this make sense? Does it need to? Don't be a
SKEPTIC
"So is your face!" Wow Barar is a sassy one. Sick burn!
ReplyDeleteI got a kick out of the part where Barar tells the pastor to decide on their plan, and the pastor says, and I quote, "These bodies that can live for such a long time and do nothing but worship the One that gave us life." And Barar says, "I believe that pastor is saying that we should stay here and manufacture what we need!"
It was a bummer when that terraforming ship exploded. Such a terrible loss of kitten life. Poor kittens! But at least Barar got to scavenge the kitten's fully functioning hyper-drive.
I too was confused when it was suddenly revealed that this entire book was a story being told to the King. Barar even says "the King interrupted my story again." When? I don't remember that!