Canticle Blue

55. Sailing

Music - Turning: Turning Back by Alex de Grassi

The Picarin's course to Nantis was more straight than circuitous. Even so, there were many minor course changes en route as the helm crew attempted to keep the sun directly behind the ship. During ship-wide daylight hours, on the first half of the voyage, some of the sunlight falling on the stern of the Picarin was channeled into the docking ring complex and the atrium through light pipes. At night, looking forward, Nantis gradually became more than a bright, odd shaped dot in the forward canopy. Its rings became more clearly defined, and its largest moons more distinct.

As the ship neared the halfway mark, the Picarin crew briefly put the ship in free-spin, shut down the main drives, and turned the bow to face the sun. When the drives were re-engaged, the ship began to decelerate. Now flying backwards, the passengers and crew were treated, not just to indirect sunlight, but to the sun itself, for much of the remainder of the trip. It was noticeably dimmer by then, but still very well received.

The pace of construction also relaxed. It had continued in shifts around the clock since the ship left Havel. But once the Atrium railings and seals were completed, work crews were able to spend more time simply enjoying the voyage with the rest of the community. One night, in the quiet of the third watch, as Center Island descended through the atrium, a weary, but grateful, Cian Dhalen paused and wrote:

Grading papers—
Please pass me slowly
Canticle Moon

The first lower section of V-sky to be completed was the perimeter wall of a habitat level, two decks below the Bryn Institute. The wall there tilted slightly away from viewers' feet and displayed a seamless, slowly moving panorama of the ship's approach to Nantis. The images were so compelling that the walkway adjacent to it was nearly always in use. The walkway itself was accented with benches, footlights, and small ponds.

Nantis' bands of powdery blue colors and atmospheric gradients gradually came to dominate the V-sky, and its contrasting rings cut through the vista like diamond coated blades. The vortices of huge storms continually drifted by and remained visible for days or even weeks. Several of Nantis' moons were always visible now, often moving at incredible speeds above the planet, as if escorting it on some important mission. Eventually Nantis was all that could be seen beneath the ship. They had arrived.

As the Picarin continued to back toward Nantis from a safe distance, Shei Pendel joined the rest of the piloting team to prepare for positioning above the planet. They continually increased the main R-drive thrust by small amounts to counteract and measure the gravitational pull of the planet, taking great care to make sure they could raise their altitude again if necessary. During that time, all of the habitat levels were sealed, since the effects of their maneuvering and the weight changes inside the ship would be unpredictable. When the ship-wide gravity reached one half Havel-normal, Shei made the final adjustments to suspend the ship. She then set the sphere-drives to maintain the ship's orientation and altitude automatically.

The altitude the crew had chosen was well above the rings and outside the orbits of Nantis' known moons. It would remain there until the whole planetary system could be explored and mapped. Because the Picarin would not be moving with the planet's celestial entourage in the normal sense, collisions would be avoided; and once a lower altitude was determined to be safe, the ship could descend.

For passengers absorbed in the images of Nantis, the planet now became as a sea to sail, ever present, moving and changing in color and pattern beneath them. It was so spellbinding that several people initially went through extended periods of sleep deprivation because they couldn't bear to miss anything. But the most surprising thing to the Picarin community was how much Nantis felt like home. Like many colonists in their history, they had been reluctant itinerants. But this place now belonged to them, certainly not as a possession to hold, but as a blessing to cherish. It was a settlement in the heavens, something beyond all they could have asked or thought. Indeed, in the months ahead, a newlywed couple piloting a liana in the Nantis system would write one of the most beloved poems in Colony history:

Lovers
lost in the ring-rise...
Shepherd moon.