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Stories from the Verse
A Dozen Verses
Chapter 36: Cooper 84
Table of Contents
Previous chapter: Kondor 267
“Men, get to your tie down spots. We’re landing in ten minutes,” the second mate barked, and others began to pull straps from boxes and attach them to the walls. Ren, the Engineer, floated up to Cooper.
“Here, follow me, Sailor.” Cooper turned, and watched Ren tie himself to the wall. After that, Cooper got some of the straps and did the same.
“How does this work?” he asked quietly because he knew if he asked loudly someone would come up with some hair-raising story to razz the new guy.
“We fly in with our inertia shield up, and half a mile up we flip on our tail and descend straight down. Land on our tail. After that, we start unloading, and that is a whole big mess. Once that’s done, and anyone who broke an arm in unloading is under the healing ray, the first mate gives out the liberty schedule along with the Ground Side Rules for Venusport.”
“I’d like to see Venus,” Cooper said.
“It is going to be tomorrow for you, new guy. It rotates by seniority in rank, seniority in time, last time liberty, and a die roll.”
“Dice?”
“Oh, yes, our First Mate worships Fortuna so he carries the Blessed Dice with him when he can.”
“And you?” Cooper was especially interested in this. He was a Calvinist Christian, and he knew the Neptunian navigator was also a Christian, but he had yet to find out about the religious beliefs of the rest.
“I think there is--'' The room swam, and swung, and everyone held their breath except for Cooper, and then it stabilized again to cheers. Ren smiled. “--a God, and times like the first turn, which we just passed, or tipover I’m especially hopeful I’m right. If a landing is going to go wrong it's usually at tipover, but now we descend in a deeper slower slope.” The engines roared loudly now.
A green man, the same race as the second mate, spoke from a few yards away. He too was tied to the wall, and Cooper knew his name as Afo, but not his job, or much else about him.
“Hey, Terri, I believe in God. You can tell me about yours. It is the Cross One, right?”
Cooper was about to do something he dearly loved when he looked over at the man again. He held a short gold chain in his hands, and affixed to it were numerous danglies made of silver, or copper, or bejeweled gold. An ankh, a star, a pair of dice--
“Are those symbols for gods?”
“Yes, yes, I worship Ra of the Egyptians, Solar Primus of the Mercurians, the Celestial Emperor and his Imperial Court of the Han, Blessed Fortuna, the Desert Walker of the Neptunians, the Shining Light of the Venusians, and the Undefined Infinite X, and although I don’t worship the Shadow Snake, I do pay my respects to him. No reason to make a god mad, even an evil one. So tell me about your god. I also have these four others that I don’t really know their names, but I think they are gods too, so better safe than sorry right?” Afo babbled out with an amiable smile.
While he did that, he showed the ankh, then an asterisk-like star in gold and jewels, a crown, a pair of copper dice, a silver shoe, a silver asterisk shape of a star, and a gold bejeweled X, followed by a copper snake, and some others.
As to the old stories that have long been here:
