literature

A Brigantine to Venus (part 1)

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„You know, there is a secret trick to dealing with them martian pirates”, explained the old sailor to his drinking fellows. He took a gulp from his earthen mug and then leaned in, continuing his explanation in a hushed, conspiratorial tone. “So their ships don't have masts, right? They have this huge ray sail on their prow, somethin' like a parachute, right?”, the hoary drunkard gestured wildly, spilling some of his ale. “So when you see one o' them pirates chasing you, you have ta turn hard starboard, or port for that matter. Then yer gonna head straight for their beam. But yer not gonna ram 'em there. Yer gotta hit them parachute!” He leaned back and took a triumphant swig of ale, as if his explanation was complete. “Them martians don't have masts, right? So yer just gonna rip of them parachute and leave 'em hurling through space! Easy, right?”
His companions laughed and drank.
“Murray, old star wrecker! Stop talking your horseshit again. You know it doesn't work on us!”, shouted Ollie, one of the younger sailors and emptied his mug.
“'Tis true! I saw that maneuver with me own eyes! Four years ago on board the Callistean dancer!”, drunk Murray assured with agitated gestures and commenced his story. “We was carryin' coffee and oils on a trip to Ganymede-”
“You can stop spinning your yarn with us, Murray”, the other mariner interrupted him and patted him on the shoulder. “We've heard these stories often enough. Barmaid! More ale!”
Emeline jumped up. She had been sitting in the corner of the tavern for far too long, listening to the adventure stories of the spacefarers. The bulgy jug in her hands, she scurried over to their table.
Ollie greeted her with a jolly cheer. “Emmy, my little adventuring explorer! Where have you been lurking again?” the laughing man asked.
“Over there in the corner. Missus Betsy doesn't like me sitting with you sailors”, she explained while refilling the mugs of the party. As if to underline her words, the gaggling innkeeper immediately called out to them from the counter. “Ollie, you rotten bastard! Keep your hands off my barmaid!”
The dark-haired spacefarer mushed up Emmy's blonde curls and let his laughter echo through the tavern once more. “Why Betsy, you know I prefer my women matured and with experience!” he answered pertly and winked at the buxom Lady. “But why do you care? She's fifteen! She could make you quite a fortune if you let her”, he added.
“That's not what I'm worried about. I just don't want you lads to fill up her pretty little head with your wild stories 'bout adventures in the heavens and those strange otherworlders.” She came waggling over to the table. “You'll just make her fly off on some shady ship and I can't have that. I need her working here.” Then, she patted Emeline on the back, smiled at her and asked with a sugar sweet voice which forbade any objection: “Emmy love, why don't you go upstairs and sweep the attic?”
“Yes, Missus Betsy”, the girl mumbled dutifully and retreated.

***

Emmy carefully unlatched the small dormer window. She had done it often enough to know where to push and were to be gentle in order to get the jammed hatch to open. She then reached up, grasped the frame and with a few quick moves she was outside. She took a few breaths of the cold autumn air and then scrambled onto the steep gable of the harbour pub's roof. She tiptoed to the edge where she sat down and let her lissom legs dangle. This was the place where she spent her free time, watching the sky ships float by, her favourite place in the whole of London.
The girl leaned back and gazed at the sky. The night was aglow. Above the dark silhouette of Westminster Abbey, she could see a large schooner being towed into the air by four tugboat barges. Her aftercastle was lit by a chandelier of glowing lanterns and a sheer swarm of navigation lights. Her massive Keplerian ray sails were reefed but still their metallic fabric was glinting dimly in the light of the bustling city.
Squadrons of skiffs and trading galleys were gliding towards the landing docks and the markets. Further in the distance she could even make out a mighty Prussian galleass which had come over from the mainland, probably to get repairs done. She chuckled. Sir Isaac Newton had invented his gravitic oar blades in 1701 and even now, sixty years later, no other nation was able to make them as strong or as light as the British product. The Prussians still preferred to get their best ships repaired here in England and Emmy sensed a strange feeling of national pride rise up in her. Not that this country had ever done anything for her. She hoped that one day, she could leave this stinking rock behind, find a new and better life somewhere else. Maybe on one of the moons of Saturn? Many settlers were going there. Or maybe even further? Some skyfarers had told her that there might even be planets beyond Saturn. Outlandish places of frozen oceans and darkness. But were they true? Or just tales told by weary men to scare children? She yearned to find out.
Emeline knew everything there was to know about cosmonautics. She knew how to mend a ray sail and the tricks of gliding through the atmosphere with Newtonian oars. She knew the distance from Mars to Saturn and the length of a Venusian day. She had gained all her knowledge from drinking sky sailors. Missus Betsy had tried to shoo her away whenever she got close to them, but the old shrew was too dopey to notice most of the time.
Some things, Emmy even had taught herself. She watched the towed schooner rise higher and higher with every beat of the tugboats' oars. She tilted her head and squinted, estimating. The trader was about 150 feet from prow to stern, two masts on each side, eight in total, resulting in at least one hundred thousand square feet of sail area. She had probably sixty sailors on board, but Emmy couldn't be sure on that one. It would depend on where she was heading. And where was that? Probably not Jupiter. The Jupiterians were a seclusive bunch, they hardly had any contact to anyone from off world. Mercury and Neptune were but hostile wasteland, Uranus a primeval Tundra. Maybe Saturn then? No, not during this time of the year. So it was either Mars or Venus.
She groaned and let her head fall into her hands. Why did she even bother learning all this? She was stuck in this stupid pub for ever anyway. There was no way Missus Betsy would ever let her leave and no captain would let her on his ship. She probably would never see a town other than London.

A chirr pulled Emmy back out of her gloomy thoughts. A ploquit was standing right in front of her, looking at her with large glowing eyes. A crooked smile crept on the girl's lips.
“Well hello, you little lime”, she greeted the stray critter and patted its light green head. It nosed her fingers and emitted a happy tweeting sound. “You're on the wrong planet, do you know that? You should be...”, she searched the evening sky until she found the glowing spot that was Venus, “up there.” She pointed at it.
The creature didn't seem to care. It was plucking at the girl's linen dress, probably looking for food. Emmy giggled as the four antennae on the ploquit's snout tickled her. Finally, it seemed to have found something edible. The stray propped itself on its hind legs, picked up a corner of Emmy's dress and started gnawing on it with sharp teeth.
The barmaid tittered and tried to shoo the displaced Venusian away, failing miserably and laughing heartily.
Suddenly, the creature stopped and raised its alien head into the night air. The four long antennae which framed its nostrils twitched. Then it disappeared, scurrying off into the dark maze of London's harbour.
“Where are you going?”, Emmy tried to call out, but her voice died away before she'd finished the sentence. Something must have scared the little critter off, she figured. Ploquits were strange creatures. They always knew when there was trouble brewing or food to be found. Still musing over the queer habits of the Venusian stray, she suddenly heard footsteps echoing up from the small alley below her.

She gazed down over the edge of the tavern roof. The lane was narrow and the ancient roofs of the adjoining houses were blotting out the scarce moonlight, obscuring the events below. Then, she saw movement. Emmy squinted down into the dark alley, making out the silhouette of a man. He was running, stumbling through the dark over the unpaved, muddy ground of the alley.
“Uh-oh, this won't end well”, the girl whispered with a worried voice. The man didn't seem to know that he was running straight into a dead end. Suddenly, he found himself standing before the windowless wall of another house which ended the road.
“Oh bloody Gehenna!”, she could hear him curse in a curiously high voice. He desperately turned around, trying to find a way to escape but then he suddenly froze.
Another person had appeared the alley and now approached with calm steps.
“Please, please don't! I am not the one you're looking for!”, the trapped one stammered, “I didn't do anything, you have to believe me!”
Suddenly, something metallic flashed in the hand of the pursuer. It looked like a small silver crossbow, but with only one vertical throwing arm instead of two horizontal ones.
“A Venusian dart sling!” Emmy breathed in amazement.
The fear of the poor man below turned into sheer horror. “I beg you, I'll do anything! Please don't-” A trigger clicked, a silver dart flashed through the darkness. With a gasp of agony, the victim fell to his knees. A second arrow followed instantly.
Emmy's face froze in shock. Suddenly, she didn't even know from whence it came, she felt a surge of mad courage rise inside of her. She jumped to her feet.
“Hey! You there!”
The assassin looked up. With skilled fingers he reloaded his dart sling again and sent one of his barbed arrows towards the girl on the tavern roof. Emmy heard it whiz past her ear. She jumped and skidded down the loose tiles of the roof. The man cursed, turned and hurried towards the exit of the alley. With sure feet the girl landed on the roof of a small shed but when she tried to jump into the alley she slipped on the clapboard roof, lost her equilibrium and plummeted straight into a large pile of rotting garbage.
When she climbed back to her feet she just managed to catch the assassin scamper around the street corner, disappearing in the hustle that was London's night life.
“You better run far away!”, Emmy shouted after him and waved her fists, “The constables are on their way already!”
Hopefully that was enough to keep the scoundrel from coming back. She'd be in trouble if he did, but he seemed to have done his job already. His victim was hurt badly. Emmy picked a mold-covered apple core from her hair and flicked it away in disgust. Quickly she hurried over to the wounded man at the end of the alley.

To her surprise, it was not quite a man but merely a boy, maybe eleven or twelve years old. He was wearing a slightly too large and worn out blue sailor's coat. The coat lay splayed open and revealed a formerly white shirt. It was soaked with blood. His blonde hair was bound back into a short ponytail and covered by a brown floppy hat.
The boy was desperately gasping for air, grimacing in pain with every stertorous breath. The barbed shafts of the Venusian darts were protruding from the boy's chest, each one framed by a red circle of fresh blood witch crimson tendrils creeping outwards from the wound. When Emmy kneeled down next to him, he coughed violently. Blood trickled down his lips.
Emmy ran her shaking hands over his forehead, not sure what to do. If she pulled out the darts it would only make the bleeding worse. The vicious hooks and barbs had dug deeply into the boy's lungs.
“I'll- I'll quickly go and get help from the tavern. Just hold on, alright?” she told him anxiously.
The boy's reddened eyes looked at her, his eyelids fluttering.
“Stay with me, please! Please just stay awake!”, she urged him and held his head, but he just blinked wearily, too weak to answer. He opened his mouth, maybe trying to say something, but only a feeble rattle and blood came out.
Emmy felt his body slack under her hands.
“On no, no no no!” Emmy shook the boy's body with growing fear. “You can't die, you can't!”, she shouted at him, but it was no use. He was dead.

Emmy slumped and let herself fall on her bottom. A tear trickled down her reddened cheek. Could she have saved him? If she had shouted earlier, maybe the assassin would have run away, but it all happened so quickly! How could she have known that the man would kill the boy? She'd thought he would just mug him. That happened all the time, especially here near the docks. Emmy had witnessed a fair share of muggings already, but she never could step in. What could a fifteen year old girl do to some robber? Nothing! She would only get beaten up as well, if not worse.
She snuffled and wiped the tears from her face. Slowly she crept towards the dead boy. She might as well make the best of this situation. Maybe she could find out why that man had been after him.
The dark blue coat had been curiously spared by the blood and the arrows. With trembling fingers Emmy lifted one of its flaps and searched for pockets. She felt a large bulge at the bottom of the coat and when she delved into the pouch, she found a slightly battered apple and small but very capable pocket knife. She let her discoveries fall into the pouch of her apron.
In his trousers she found a few pennies, but definitely no immense riches which would explain a violent robbery. She kept them. Just to be sure.

Emmy checked the inner side of the flap next. When her moving fingers brushed over one of the seams, something felt off. She took a closer look at the stitching. In one section seemed to have been redone, just as if someone had opened it up and then closed it again, but with a lot less skill. It didn't look like common mending either. The fabric wasn't damaged and she couldn't find any other clue what might have been wrong with the coat.
“Why fix a seam when there's nothing to be fixed?”, Emmy mumbled to herself. “Just one way to find out, I guess!”
Without further hesitation she flicked open the new pocket knife and slit open the rough stitches. Emmy slipped her hand into the now open space between the inner and outer layer of the coat. Her searching fingers found something. She grasped it and pulled a crumpled piece of paper from the gap.
Emmy gave off a triumphant “Ha!”, albeit a fairly quiet one. She didn't want anybody to hear her and stumble into this alley. If some sailor saw her now, he'd come to terrible conclusions.
She examined the piece of paper. It had been folded and sealed with a large red glob of wax. It seemed to have gone through quite a lot of trouble already and showed the wear and tear of a long journey. Still, the seal remained unbroken. On the back of the letter someone had scribbled a few words, but Emmy couldn't read them. Once again, she wished that she'd had somebody to teach her how to read or write.
“So is this why that guy killed you?”, she asked the boy “For trying to deliver a letter?” The boy didn't reply. It had to be why, he didn't have anything else of note on him. Emmy examined the writing on the back of the paper. A name? A place? She couldn't know. Maybe she could get one of the drunk sailors back in the tavern to read it to her. If she was careful.
She looked up to the boy, as if to apologise her looting.
“I'll find out who killed you and why. And I'll deliver this letter. I promise!”

She was about to get up when she noticed something pale peeking out from the inner pocket of the boy's coat.
“What's this then?”, Emeline mumbled to herself and took a closer look, “Another letter?”
She plucked it out. It was a single sheet of paper, with writing on one side. The darkness in the narrow back alley was getting thicker and made it hard to identify what exactly she was holding in her hands. The document was adorned with a big, squiggled heading, which seemed to have been printed on. Below, Emmy found a few printed lines, interjected by words in sharp handwriting.
Although she couldn't read what was written there, she had seen this kind of document many times before. The sailors in the tavern had often shown her similar ones and her heart started to pound even harder. It was a service contract. A contract which showed that this boy had signed on a ship, probably as a cabin boy. Maybe this could help her find the recipient of the mysterious letter.
Emmy pocketed the contract and made the sign of the cross.
“Dear holy Father, pray take this boy up into your heavenly realm and look after him. He  died at the hands of a vile man for trying to deliver a simple letter. Please forgive his sins and comfort his friends as family. I could have saved his life. If I had acted quicker, he would still be alive. I will deliver this letter for him, as atonement for my sluggishness.
Dear Father, pray watch over me and guide me on my endeavour.” She didn't quite know what else to add. She crossed herself once more and finished the prayer. With a gentle touch of her hand, she closed his eyes. “May you rest in peace”, she whispered dolefully.
"As soon as somebody demonstrates the art of flying, settlers from our species of man will not be lacking. Who would have believed that a huge ocean could be crossed more peacefully and safely than the the narrow expanse of the Adriatic, the Baltic Sea or the English Channel? Provide ships and sails adapted to the heavenly breezes, and there will be people who will not fear even the dreary vastness of space" - Johannes Kepler in a letter to Galileo Galilei, 1609

Part 2: pathosglasbeard.deviantart.com…

Originally, this was supposed to be only a short story, written as "proof of concept" and to create the setting. The story kept getting bigger and bigger though so I am splitting it into several pieces.
Also, I am not sure whether to classify this as Science Fiction or as Historical Fiction...

This is a work in progress. Details may be subject to change.

Edit: I shortened the History part at the beginning of the second section. I wasn't quite happy with it and it disrupted the flow of the story.
Edit 2: I removed the mention of the Seven Years' War. It doesn't fit right, and in the timeline I'm going for it wouldn't happen.

© 2014 - 2024 Panthaleon
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MortalKomic's avatar
I must say, this was a very fun read. Space faring is never not cool. I really like the character Emmy, she has many flaws, which make her feel more real to me.   However, I should mention, the mid-story history felt just a tad out of place. Also, I would easily qualify it as Science-Historical Fiction, more-so science fiction. Hope to see more!