Starship Walker

Gillian

Gillian sat cross-legged among the stars, alone. They were brilliant, unblinking points of light: blue, white, red, yellow, orange. The system augmented her senses so that she was aware of their distance and their movement. She saw the family groups in which the stars clustered and drifted together. Beyond them, vast curtains of dust and gas formed the Milky Way. She was able to sense the immense structure rotating, as a part of the galaxy.

The Xing Long Hao had travelled a considerable distance to return to the local bubble, under Gillian's guidance. But now, its boundaries were invisible against the vast background of the galaxy.

They still faced the journey back to the home system, and Earth.

Today, Liam was back in the main wheel, being tutored by Mr Dryen and Mr Morris. It had been arranged he should spend alternate days with them, and with Gillian in the second wheel.

She heard someone's step nearby, and knew it was Abel. She pulled her mask off, and was back in the ship. She stood slowly, stretching her legs.

"What's new?" she said, to greet him.

Abel replied, "I think we should chat about our plans for Liam over the next couple of weeks."

"Ok. It's certainly time to introduce him to the orientation gestures."

"Yes, the tricky ones."

They were both concerned about these exercises. Eventually, Liam was going to fall, and not just one of his clumsy falls to the stage, but an experience of falling the full distance through the galaxy and out into extra-galactic space, as Gillian had done.

 "When are we going to warn Liam what might happen to him, Abel? If he's aware of the possibility, that must make the experience a lot less traumatic."

"Yes, I agree. It's part of the normal training procedure."

"Good. I wish it had been done for me."

"That was just bad luck, Gillian."

"Ok." Gillian changed the subject. She had decided that it was time to bring up the matter that was most concerning her about Liam. "Abel, I presume we both agree that Liam will be able to Walk the ship to the home system vicinity, once we've finished with him. But I'm not so confident of his abilities to do a let down into the solar system."

Abel said, "I feel the same way."

"I'm not even certain he can get us across the Oort cloud. If he manages that, he'll have to let the ship down somewhere beyond Saturn's orbit, for safety. Do you think he can be precise enough even for that? It's only a few footsteps from Saturn's orbit to the sun. The highest resolution scale change he can have is equivalent to the size of the Earth's orbit."

Abel said, "I'm certainly worried.  One misstep and he could put the ship into the sun."

"If he stays as clumsy as he is, surely we shouldn't allow him to step into the solar system at all."

 "We'll find out in another week or two. If he doesn't improve significantly, then..."

"...The ship's stuck. At the best, it could mean upwards of a two-year journey back to Earth orbit from wherever he manages to let the ship down."

"I agree." Abel looked at Gillian. "You're thinking you should be the one to perform that final phase."

"Of course that's what I think! But we need to work out how we can satisfy McWhirter and the Captain that I'm not a danger to the ship."

"And me, too."

"Tell me your thoughts, Abel."

"You're probably ok, but 'probably' won't be good enough for the Captain. We must be able to guarantee it."