The next approach was to thirty meters, and the third to twenty meters.
After the twenty-meter approach, Aragor said, 'All right. Back the ship off to five hundred meters. Once she's stable, disengage the harness. Gently, please.'
When I had the Tailor away from the station and stable at five hundred and twenty meters, I disengaged the harness, and we changed places.
Aragor brought the Tailor into lock three as smoothly as he had taken her out, and without a hint of dampness on his forehead. Once the needle ship was docked and cradled and shut down, he sat up, disengaged himself from the system, and looked at me. 'I don't know as I'll see you again, but best of luck, Tyndel.'
'Thank you, ser.'
Back in the ready room, Erelya added more. 'You're doing fine. From here on in, your training schedule is going to depend partly on what needle ships are available for you to use. We'll try more complex approaches to the simulacrum with a real ship - all the types you've done with the starbug. Once you seem to have mastered those in clear space, you'll do them to a stand-off to the station. Then, when it's clear you can put a needle ship exactly where you want it... then we'll begin actually docking to the dampers. This can't be rushed, you know?'
I nodded. That was something I had already determined.
'Good.' Erelya left me with a faint smile.
66
A river is water undertaking a journey, yet life is not a river, nor man a pilot upon it.
My sessions in Runswi with Tomas slacked off, but Erelya plied me with more research projects on needle ship systems and overspace and real-space navigation, and those filled every free minute - or so it seemed. Except I knew, for whatever reason, that I was filling every one of those minutes because, once I had agreed to be a candidate pilot, I could no longer pretend whether I succeeded or not didn't matter. I had failed once. I had never really been a Dzin master, no matter what I had said, no matter that Manwarr had granted me the title. I knew better, and I refused to fail again.
When I returned to Orbit Two once more, as on so many other occasions over the past four months, Erelya awaited me in the ready room with another Web pilot. 'Tyndel, this is captain Sesehna.'
At first glance, the woman with Erelya looked the most uncaptainlike of any of those I had seen or worked with. Small, almost petite, with an elfin face but a slightly squared jaw, the bare hint of curves beneath the dark green singlesuit, and a hidden wiriness without overt muscles. Then ... she looked at me, and I almost froze. The eyes held the kind of determination and power I would have equated with ... I couldn't have even put a name or a title to someone who radiated that much sheer force of will. I felt dwarfed, and seldom had I so felt. Yet her smile was polite and not at all condescending.
'Sesehna is a senior captain,' Erelya continued. 'She'll work with you for the next few days, as necessary.'
'I am pleased to meet you, ser.' I bowed to cover the shock I had taken.
'We're fortunate to have the Hook for the next several days,' Erelya added. 'And Sesehna.'
Sesehna inclined her head toward me. 'The Hook is cradled at the number two locks, passenger and cargo.'
I deferred and let my seniors lead the way up to the number two passenger lock, where we entered the needle ship, past the two maintenance crew members standing by to monitor the locks when we departed.
'... don't see three jockeys together much ...'
'Last one's a candidate ... pretty far along if he's being allowed to handle a needle ...'
Pretty far along? Far enough along to get myself into real trouble? I smothered a silent laugh. Whenever you learned enough about something, you could get yourself in real trouble. Experts always caused more damage when they failed.
Sesehna came to a halt by the command couch and turned to me. 'You may make all departure arrangements.' She clipped her own harness into the double bracket. 'Once you're ready for actual departure, check with me.' With the fluidity of a diving bird - or something more graceful - she slipped into the second's couch, leaving me floating akimbo above the command couch.
Erelya silently, once more, took the third's couch.
The Hook's acceleration couches were fractionally closer to the forward bulkhead screens, as were the manual controls before the command couch - really the first deviation I'd noticed from the standard pattern I'd seen in all the needle ships. I used my boot toe to ease myself back into position, and strapped in as quickly as I safely could. Once I was hooked into the system, I flicked through the ship's database, confirming that the Hook was one of the most recently completed needle ships - less than ten universe objective years old. I did not hurry as I checked out all the systems of the Hook, even skipping from sensor to sensor to gain those full-spectrum images that were so much deeper than mere vision, images that sometimes occurred even when I was not connected to a needle ship.
As I went through the checklist, I monitored the changes in the status of the ship, noting the fusactors as they powered up, the locks closing, and the glittering fullness of the Rinstaal cells. Finally, I turned to Sesehna. 'Ser, ready for departure.'
'Take us out three kilometers at plus five, zero degrees relative to lock three.'
'Yes, ser.' I informed Orbit Control and tried to emulate the smoothness of departure I'd first felt with Aragor and later with some of the other pilots, and the Hook slipped away from Orbit Two smoothly, if not as silkily as I might have wished.
I used single power jets to bring the needle ship to a halt, leaving her at three point zero five kilometers, rather than fuss with the ionjets for fifty meters.
After scanning the screens and the manual readouts, Sesehna spoke, not looking in my direction. 'Make a standard approach to the station, lock number two. A complete halt five meters from the dampers.'
Just like that. A standard approach so close it might as well have been a full approach to dampers and cradling -and the unspoken promise that if I even looked as if I'd botch the approach, I'd have a splitting headache and an angry senior pilot.
I calculated, twice, and then again. I ran a signal check to the ionjets, trying to get a sense of any divergence from norm in power/mechanical lags. Then I modified the calculations, notified Orbit Control, and sent power to the ionjets.
The Hook slid through the photon-splashed niellen dark toward Orbit Two, first briefly accelerating, then coasting, before I cut in the forward jets for braking.
Point zero-six-zero ... point zero-five-five ... point zero-four-eight ... The ionjets eased off, as did the load on the fusactors, and the Hook rested motionless at six meters from the station. Sweat had pooled at the back of my neck and seeped out from there.
'Not bad.' Sesehna's head did not move. 'Adequate for a start. Take her back out to one point six kilometers at thirty-one plus.'
That I could manage and did.
Once the ship was stable, the senior captain made another clipped statement. 'A low-power approach. Seven percent power from the Rinstaal cells. Another five-meter clearance.'
Seven percent power with a heavy needle ... that was asking a lot, but I ran through the calculations and then began the setup.
As the Hook began to accelerate, the ionjets cut off. They'd been cut manually by Sesehna.
'You've just lost half your Rinstaal cells and the fusactor is dead,' she announced. 'Finish the approach to five meters with two and a half percent power.'