The Scott Manoeuvre Part 1

The Scott Manoeuvre

The thing no-one ever mentions about space exploration is how dull it is. The unrelenting, unending boredom is almost aphysical thing, sitting on your chest, yanking on your ears, really slowly and softly. You may think you’ve been bored, that you have known and understand tedium but you're wrong. Not until you have spent five years seeking out tedious planets, dull life forms and monotonous civilisations, not to mention the interminable periods of tediousness in between, can you claim to understand the multifaceted splendour of true boredom.

  The only way it is possible to cope with the atrophying effect of space travel is to find a hobby, preferably an immensely time-consuming one.

Captain Scott, commander of the prospect ship the Great Scott, had taken up whittling sculptures out of soap. The shelves around his office were crowded with hundreds of early attempts. Misshapen ducks, freakish dogs, lumpy horses. They say it takes thirty-thousand hours of practice to become a master in any discipline. The captain had a lot of time on his hands.

Scott was currently working on an exact replica of the Venus de Milo, arms intact, to stand next to the David on his desk. In Scott’s version, the Venus was playing with an exquisitely carved yo-yo. It was the most yo-yoie yo-yo anyone had ever imagined. It was the Platonic ideal of the perfect yo-yo.

The intercom on the desk buzzed, Scott’s hand slipped and the infinitesimally thin string of soap, by which the yo-yo was attached to Venus' hand, snapped in his grip. Scott swore and jammed his thumb into the intercom button.

‘What is it? I thought I asked not to be disturbed?’ he growled.

‘Er…that was a week and a half ago, sir,’ said Tetsuo, his first officer.

‘And?’

Tetsuo had been Scott's second in command for six years. He should have known by now when an order stood and when it didn't. Scott could never understand why people just couldn't bloody get on with it themselves, whatever it was, why they always had to be bothering him with all the trivialities of their meagre little lives. 'Ooh captain, the engines aren't working, oh, captain, we haven't been paid in three years, ooo captain, the food's running out.'  Scott couldn't deal with every minor incident that occoured aboard. He had a ship to run, important jobs to complete. He picked up a new piece of soap.

'It is fairly important sir,’ Tetsuo's voice insisted. 

‘Really?’ Scott sighed, ‘important enough to warrant my attention?’

‘I think so sir. You may find it...interesting.’

That was a word you didn’t hear very often on a star-ship. When you did, it usually wasn't a good thing. It was often used in sentances Scott could have done without hearing. For instance: 'Interestingly, the main air pump has become irretrevably clogged with goo and we have about three hours to live,' was one he would remember for some time. With interesting events like that boredom sometimes seemed the better option.

Scott frowned and rose from his chair, soap shavings pouring off his lap onto the small hill that had formed at his feet. He made his way out of his quarters and up the bright, shining corridor, almost slipping on the glistening floor. Cleaning and polishing was Science Officer Dekkard’s hobby.

The whole crew was on the bridge. Well, the whole official crew. The official Crew numbered 6.

When mankind first began its search of the stars, the ships had been huge impressive, shiny things with crews of hundreds. Unfortunately the previously mentioned boredom of the enterprise affected people in different ways. For instance, some people developed hobbies that became obsessions, collecting the hair from every plug-hole on the ship in order to build a seven foot tall big-foot in their cabins, for instance. Others hibernated, sleeping for weeks at a time before emerging bleary-eyed and bearded to stumble about telling everyone about this dream they’d had, with a huge snail that was chasing them through a purple forest while their mother glared down at them from the moon bemoaning their lack of progress in the production of grandchildren all whilst that jingle from the toilet cleaner advert blurted out of the mouths of the frogs that lined the forest path. These dreams were never as interesting to others as they had been to the dreamer.

A surprising proportion of people, however, just went mad. Totally, comprehensively, irreversibly mad. When the third star-ship came home with half the crew dead and the other half running around throwing poo at each other the authorities had a rethink.

It was decided that all potential space traveller should undergo strenuous mental aptitude tests and that crew size would be limited to a maximum of twelve.  The Great Scott, being a medium sized prospector, had an official crew of six plus the Captain. They were: 1st Officer Tetsuo, Science Officer Deckard, Security Officer Fortescue, Cook (formerly Engineer) Jones, Pilot Bates and Accountant Schmidt.

Due to events far to complicated to go into here, the ship had an unofficial crew of around three-hundred and six, though it was hard to be sure as no-one had ever carried out an actual survey of the civilisation that lived in the engine room. The little grey men were, as a race, homicidal maniacs whose capacity for extreme violence was matched only by their technical brilliance.  As they kept themselves to themselves and the engines clean and tidy, Captain Scott just pretended not to notice them.

The 6 official crew members were all waiting for him on the bridge. Tetsuo was standing to attention, his handsome east-asian features set in a stern frown that didn't really signify anything much. He stood suspiciously close to the captain's chair, which he had been warned on numerous occasions not to sit on.
Deckard was obviously excited and grinned broadly beneath his spectacles.The ship's scientist was crouched over his console, lights flickering on his bald head.
Jones, the fat, ugly former engineer was picking his nose.
Fortescue, head of security, built like the proverbial stone lavatory, technically female was standing watching everyone else with intense suspicion as if any one of them might at any moment reveal themselves to be saboteurs. This habit had been unnerving for the crew at first, a bit like popping into a late night supermarket after the pub and being followed around by an over-zealous security guard. Now they just ignored her.
Bates, the young pilot, was attempting to increase the volume of his hair with a back-combing technique he'd been attempting to perfect for the last six months. The immense quiff was already defying all known laws of physics but somehow he always got more out of it.
Schmidt the accountant was tapping numbers into his calculator and tutting. Scott didn't like Schmidt, but he liked the man's way with a tax return.

‘So what’s all the fuss?’ Scott asked as he approached his captain’s chair. It had a butt shaped depression in it. He glared at Tetsuo but the man simply stared innocently straight ahead. 

‘It’s extremely exciting sir, I’ve never seen anything quite like it,’ enthused Dekkard, not looking up from his console.

‘It doesn’t look that exciting to me,’ said Jones, extracating his finger and flicking the excavated item across the room. He’d been in a bad mood ever since his demotion from Engineer to ship’s Cook. Schmidt felt he should have considered himself lucky not to be paying for his transport costs. Or, indeed, to have been forced to continued in his old role in the engine room.

‘Yes, yes but what is it?’ Scott asked. Tetsuo pressed a button on his console and the view screen lit up. It showed a swirly blue thing sitting in space. Scott stared at it for a moment before standing up. ‘I’ll be in my quarters, if anyone needs me. Please don’t,’ he turned to leave.

‘Wait sir, do you know what this is?’ Dekkard asked.

‘It’s a swirly thing in space,’ Scott replied ‘I’ve seen lots of swirly things in space. Scientists always get extremely excited about them but they never make me any money.’

‘This one is different sir!’ Dekkards bald forehead rippled with excitement.

‘Oh yes? And why is that?’ 

‘It’s a wormhole!’ Dekkard pronounced. He was obviously expecting stunned silence. What he got was a bored pause interrupted by a yawn from security officer Fortescue, who'd momentarily forgotten that anyone could be a potential double agent.

‘A wormhole,’ repeated Scott.

‘Yes!’ enthused Dekkard.

‘And a wormhole is?’

‘It’s a hole in space that links two points in the universe together,’ the scientist replied.

‘So…like space then?’ Scott replied. Dekkard was momentarily baffled.

‘I’m sorry sir? I don’t quite grasp your meaning.’

‘The thing that connects two points in space is more space. Come on Dekkard, you’re meant to be a scientist, this is fairly basic stuff.’

‘I don’t think you quite understand sir. A wormhole links two points in space directly.’ Dekkard clarified. There was a pause.

‘So…like space then?’ Scott repeated, ‘that’s pretty direct. I want to go over there, I’m here, I go that way, directly.’

‘But the wormhole, sir, links the two points, directly, without the need to travel across the intervening space! Instantaneously!’ Dekkard tried to keep his cool as he replied.

'If that's correct,' Schmidt put in, tapping on his calculater, 'we could expect some savings on fuel costs.' Everyone ignored him, except Scott who got more interested. He mulled what he'd just heard over in his head and twirled his impressive moustache (his other hobby) a sure sign he was thinking deeply. The crew waited breathlessly for his conclusion.

‘So what you’re saying is that...' he paused and the crew leaned in closer,  'it’s a magic door in space?’ he said.

‘Yes sir.’ Dekkard answered quickly, having been on Scott's crew for some time now.

‘So how does it work then?’ Jones asked from his position on the comms desk.

Dekkard considered his options and his audience carefully before responding.

‘It’s a phenomena,’ he said. The crew let out a collective ‘oh…’ of comprehension.

‘Excellent, we’ve discovered a magic door phenomena. Where’s it go then old chap?’ Scott asked.

‘It’s impossible to say without going through it sir.’

‘Well, set a course then,’ Scott said.

‘What? Wait! I think that could be an extraordinarily bad idea, we have no idea whether it’s stable, or if we’ll be able to get back or if we’ll be crushed going through it or what!’ Dekkard yelped.

‘Really, could that happen? The crushing, I mean?’ Scott asked.

‘Possibly,’ Dekkard replied. Scott’s eye’s narrowed.

‘How possibly?’ he asked.

‘Based on current theoretical modellings, i would estimate that there is a ten point eight percent chance of horrible, horrible death,’ Dekkard replied. Scott grinned.

‘I’ve bet on horses with worse odds than that!’ he pronounced, ‘Pilot Bates, take us in!’ The young man at the desk nodded and his towering hair wobbled back and forth alarmingly. He began pressing buttons at speed. Dekkard sat down at the science station and gripped the desk. Why was it that mentioning his discoveries to Scott nearly always resulted in near death experiences?               

Shuddering, the Great Scott edged towards the wormhole and oblivion.

As the ship entered the wormhole time and space were one. Atoms ceased to spin, or reversed their motion. The crew were one with the universe and each other. Reality twisted, turned and began to eat its own tail. The Great Scott traversed the non-space that lays outside the physical realm which we inhabit and bulged and stretched to fit to the rules that govern that eldritch place. Then it was spat out like a piece of used gum, back into the real world, springing back into the shape it had previously inhabited.

To the crew this felt like going over a big bump in the road too quickly and leaving their bellies behind.

'Well that wasn't so bad,' Scott said. There was a general murmuring of surprised agreement. 'So where are we then?' there was silence. 'Pilot Bates? where are we?'

'Um...'

'Dekkard?'

'Er...'

'Well we must be somewhere. On screen, please!'

The section of space that appeared looked very like the section they'd just left behind. Of course, most bits of space look essentially identical. That's one of the reasons for the boredom.

'Anyone have any ideas? Perhaps using the expensive new navigational equipment that you all insisted I buy last time we were in dock, despite the fact that there was nothing wrong with the old one.'

'It gave readings backwards,' Tetsuo pointed out.

'Yes, but once we realised that, it wasn't a major problem, was it? It gave readings backwards consistently. It's just laziness, expensive laziness, that you didn't want to learn to read them backwards,' Scott glared at the crew. No-one argued. 'So come on then, what does the system say?'

Bates spent a few moments flicking switches and turning dials. After a few minutes he grinned triumphantly.

'Got it sir!'

'And? where are we?'

'Hang on, it's just printing it out...' there was a loud grinding noise as a piece of paper was ejected from the top of Bates' console. Tetsuo sighed. He'd spent some time trying to find this navigation system in the catalogues of all the major retailers but had been unable to discover its provenance. Indeed, he'd been unable to find any model that printed out results on paper at all. Or that had dials. Or switches, for that matter.

The piece of paper finished it's journey from the innards of the machine and Bates ripped it off.

'Based on star charts, galactic radiation readings, radio signals, local galactic phenomena and star rotation we are in galactic quadrant unknown.' Bates read the results word for word without really taking them in. 'What?' he asked as everyone glared at him. he looked back down at the piece of paper. 'Oh,' he said, 'right.'

'So we're lost,' Scott said.

'It would seem so...' Dekkard replied.

'Well, let's just turn around and go back.'

'That may be somewhat problematic. The wormhole appears to have closed behind us.'

Scott chewed on his tongue in a futile attempt to remain calm. The navigation machine made another grinding noise. Bates grabbed the piece of paper it excreted. This time he read it more carefully. The crew watched as he went white.

'What?' asked Jones, 'what is it? What's it say?'

Bates tapped something into the console and the view screen changed, very slightly.

'What are we looking at?' Scott asked. Bates tapped a few more buttons and the viewscreen zoomed in on a distant star, turning it from a barely visible flicker into a more solid speck.

'That star sir...' Bates began.

'Is that Sol? Well, that doesn't look so bad. if we can see it it can't be so far away.'

'No sir...'

'It's not Sol? Well then, why are we looking at it?'

'It's...'

'I mean, we are having a bit of a crisis here, Bates, now is not the time for stargazing.'

'You don't understand...'

'What? What's that boy? Come on lad, out with it!'

'It's the Milkyway!' Bates blurted out. Dekkard gave out a little yelp and Fortescue began muttering something that sounded suspiciously like a prayer. Scott frowned.

'I thought that was the swirly belt of stars I could see from my grandfather's house when I was a mere snip of a lad?'   

'It's a glaxy sir,' Bates said.

'Is it? Well, learn something every day don't you.'

'More specifically,' Dekkard said, shaking visibly,  'it's our galaxy.' There was a pause.

'Excellent!' Scott said, slapping his thighs and getting to his feet, 'set a course for there Bates, full steam ahead and all that. I'll be in my room. Don't disturb me please.'

With that he swept out of the bridge, leaving his crew staring in open mouthed horror at the tiny speck of light in the distant reaches of the universe.
For a long time no-one spoke. Trancelike, Bates set a course and the nearer stars started to crawl towards the viewscreen. The Milkyway didn't move. After some time, Dekkard spoke.

'Someone has to tell him.'

'He doesn't want to be disturbed,' Tetsuo said.

Jones sobbed quietly.