Her Royal Madness

Her Royal Madness Part 22

We were a little more than a day from our destination. I woke up suddenly in the middle of the night. I'm using the term "night" here rather arbitrarily. There isn't a night and day on a space ship. It's all the same. But our bodies still work on a 24 hour schedule, and I'll always think of sleeping time as night. 

Oops, I'm doing it again. I'm wandering off the topic. Sorry. Back to my subject. 

As I was saying, I woke up in the middle of the night. Something didn't feel right, even though everything looked in order. I was okay. The room was the same as when I went to sleep. I didn't hear anything out of the ordinary. Come to think of it, I didn't hear anything at all. Everything was silent. For days the hum of the ship's powerful engine was constant. But now it was stopped. After so long the sudden silence had woken me up. 

I didn't know why the engines were off but it couldn't be good. Alvonis would be able to tell me what was going on. As a computer, she didn't sleep and was always monitoring my room.  

I called out her name.  

No response.  

I called again, a little louder.  

Still no response.  

I screamed and started pounding on the wall. As you can see I was making great progress in keeping my head in a crisis. But there was still no response. 

I hadd to tell Juna what was going on, but first I needed to get out of the room. But how? I had never seen a doorknob or any kind of control. Alvonis had always opened the door and provided whatever I needed when I asked for it. That's the problem with modern technology, on Earth or any other planet. It usually works so well, you don't even notice it until it's gone. Then you're crippled without it. 

No, it's not that bad, I told myself. There had to be some sort of manual override. There always was, at least in all the movies I had ever seen. I just had to find it. I checked the floor. I looked for hidden panels on the walls. I started tapping around where I thought the door had been to see if I could activate something. It was hopeless. The entire surface of the room was seamless as far as I could tell. And if there were any hidden controls, they needed something a little more involved than simple tapping. 

This was not good. What was wrong? What if we crashed? What if we ran out of power and air? I didn't want to suffocate or burn up in the middle of a star. After all I'd been through, was this the end? Was I just going to fade away? 

I had a thought. The first one in a long time apparently. Sometimes I'm the world's dumbest genius. It was so obvious! What had Juna been training me for the last week? I sat down with my eyes closed. That's not really necessary of course, but I was new at it and needed to concentrate. I reached out with my mind to find her. 

"I'm here, Maddie. What's wrong?" 

"I don't know for sure. I think it's the ship, Alvonis isn't answering me. Didn't you notice that you can't hear the engines?" 

"Yes, I just noticed it, but I'm still asleep. Let me wake up the rest of my brain and my body." That was a little trick Juna had that I hadn't learned yet. She could divide her brain into several compartments and concentrate on different tasks at the same time. When she slept, she kept one compartment awake as a watchdog. 

There was a short pause. "Maddie! I'm back. You're right, something is wrong. Our power's been knocked out and Alvonis is off line. Unless I'm badly mistaken, this means we've got company. Unfriendly company. Meet me on the bridge as fast as you can. And bring your brother and the other two males." 

"Uh, Juna, I can't get out of this room. I can't even find the door, let alone open!" 

"Didn't I show you how to do that? Oh never mind, it's simple. Everything on this ship can be controlled mentally. If you can't tell where the door mechanism is, try putting your hands on the wall to help you focus. And hurry!" 

If only everything was that easy. All I had to do was think the door open and it opened. I ran out and opened the boys' rooms. 

"Henry! Get up! Martin, Nicholas, you too, get up!" 

"Wha - what's going on?" Henry yawned. 

"There's an emergency. Hurry, we need to get to the bridge. We might get attacked any minute!" 

"Yeah, right, Mad-Girl. You're just trying to get me back for some prank I pulled on you. Come on, you can't fool me that easy." 

I grabbed Henry by the wrist and said, "No, I mean it Henry. This is serious. Let's go!" 

"Okay, okay, we're coming. What's the matter?" 

Martin and Nicholas followed Henry and me up the ladder towards the bridge. About halfway there, my stomach started doing flip flops The artificial gravity had failed. I know the books all make out like weightlessness is really cool and fun. Trust me, it isn't. I felt miserable. With no up or down, it felt like I was falling all the time. My stomach didn't seem to know which way to push the food that was in it. Half the time, it wanted to come out the wrong end. I didn't quite vomit. 

Of course, not everybody was miserable. Nicholas was almost as queasy as me, but Martin didn't seem to be bothered at all and Henry was actually enjoying himself. He was doing back flips. 

"Woo-hoo!" he cried, "C'mon guys. This is the only way to fly!" He reached out and grabbed the nearest handhold and pulled himself towards the bridge. That would have been alright if he could have left it at that. But, no, my brother had to see how fast he could go. He grabbed each hand hold as he passed it to propel himself faster and faster. 

I knew Henry never reads science fiction but I thought the moron at least paid attention in science class. If he did, he might have realized that being weightless didn't mean he had no mass. He was building up a lot of momentum and was going to hit the wall (floor?) at the end really hard. I think he realized his mistake at the last second because he flipped himself around so he could hit feet first. Seeing how fast the metal plate was coming at him, he had a brief look of panic on his face. 

I tried calling out, "Henry -- " but then thought better about opening my mouth. I snapped it shut and covered it with my hand just in case. Instead I thought at him, "Henry, you idiot! Did you even THINK that you might have to stop? Did the possibility not cross your mind at all?" 

I should have let him break his legs, but I can't be that mean. Not quite. Reaching out with my mind, I spun him around so that he could see the metal up close. I let him continue full speed until his face was about six inches from the end, stopping abruptly. I didn't want him where he could get into any more trouble so I pulled him back a little bit and left him there, dead in space and just out of reach of everything. This was really hard to do while trying desperately not to puke. 

"Hey!" he yelled at me, "Put me down! This isn't funny!" 

Actually it was funny. Henry was flailing around trying to grab onto something, anything, and trying to swim through the air to get closer to something solid. If last night's apple pie hadn't been trying to climb up my throat, I would have laughed out loud. 

Martin seemed to be taking everything in stride. He wasn't afflicted by the weightlessness, but he had the decency not to rub our noses in it. He looked at Nicholas and me and said, "You guys okay? We better get up front quick so we can find out what's going on. Hey, Hank! Stop goofing around and catch Nick." 

Before Nicholas knew what was happening, he was drifting towards Henry. He obviously didn't like Martin tossing him like that when he wasn't looking. 

"Mash, you meat head. You can't do that to me. Just wait til I - gulp" Nicholas managed to say before he had to clap his hands over his mouth. I couldn't blame him. That slow spin that Martin gave him couldn't have made things any better. 

Martin said to me, "Okay, Maddie, your turn. Don't worry, I'm not going to throw you around. I was just messing around with Nick. I owed him one. Or maybe a bunch of ones. Anyway, I figure you need to be in better shape when we get up front. Hank, Nick, and me are going to have to stay out of the way and watch. But you've got some work to do, mainly saving all of our butts. Well, you and Juna. You two have stuff, I can't even start to understand. I sure am glad you're on our side. Well here we are. Let's open up this hatch here and find out what we're up against. Go get 'em kid."