Helium 3.0

Helium 3.0 - Chapter 8

The lesson everyone looked forward to was Sledding.  The boys because they would get to fly sleds, and most of the girls because their tutor was the dashing Jeremy Cage.  The rumours said Cage had retired as a fighter pilot after a brush with the Naga of Pershwin’s human marauders.  Now he walked with a limp, which made him all the more dashing in the girl’s eyes.

For the first lesson, they descended to Academy One’s shuttle bay - a promising start.  The cavernous bay was deserted, except for a solitary yellow sled in the centre.  Mervyn, looked around for any sign of Cage but there was none.  Slowly, the class congregated around the sled.

It was a fine piece of machinery: a small darkened cockpit perched on swept back wings and a large engine snuggled into either side of the rear fuselage.  This one looked newly painted.  The class chatted among themselves.  Mervyn ran his fingers lovingly over the uneven hull feeling the raised bumps of the integrity field and magnetosphere distributors – at many times the speed of light, even a grain of sand has enough energy to destroy your craft unless it is magnetically deflected, at those speeds nothing can be allowed to touch the hull.

Suddenly, the sled’s cockpit sprung open.

‘Greetings, to my humble abode!’ Cage shouted from the cockpit, like a demented jack-in-a-box.  He grinning a wide boyish grin, as if it were the best joke ever.  Climbing out of the sled, he looked every bit as dashing as the girls had hopped.  His clingy jumpsuit showed off his slim, wiry, physique to good effect.  He jumped nimbly out of the sled and strutted around, like a peacock on heat.  He walked with a pronounced limp, though he managed to swagger at the same time.

He’s exaggerating, Mervyn thought, suspecting Cage made the most of his wound to impress the girls.  Mervyn  decided right there that he didn’t trust Cage at all.

‘This, is a Mark-three formula-two racing sled,’ Cage said, patting the sled.  ‘Together, we are going to learn to fly this baby, and survive the experience.’  He swaggered around round again, ‘Take a good look at her.  She will be your friend, your enemy, your nemesis, and your lover.’  The girls tittered in embarrassment, and the boys looked anywhere except at a girl.  ‘When you leave this Academy, you will know her better than you know yourselves.’  He continued his limping progress, pointing out the main features to the class.

 ‘Any questions?  Yes, Sinita.’

Sinita licked her lips nervously, and the girls around her started to giggle, ‘What happened to your leg, sir?’

‘I don’t see what this has to do with sleds,’ Cage said with a smile, not at all dismayed by the question.  Sinita’s chima turned pink.  ‘But as you have asked – I had a run in with some human marauders.’  Mervyn had the distinct impression Cage enjoyed talking about himself, especially to the girls – they all leaned towards him as he spoke in hushed tones.

‘Humans are among the Galaxies finest warriors, second only to the Centaph -- maybe even their equals.  Give me a squadron of Humans, I say, and I’ll drive the Centaph out of our sector; humans adapt quickly to new situations, they have an insatiable curiosity, are endlessly inventive, and viciously destructive.  A combination of traits which makes them unpredictable and dangerous,’ Mervyn felt several eyes come to rest on him.  De Monsero glanced away quickly as Mervyn looked up.

‘Just when you think you’ve got their measure, they do something new -- as I found to my cost when I fought against them,’ Cage tapped his leg.’  Beside him Mervyn heard Loren muttering indignantly under her breath, ‘Oh, please.’  He guessed she would not be joining the Jeremy Cage fan club.  ‘Of course, no one knows where they come from – slaves originally, but they’re pretty good at escaping.  They gravitate towards Ethrigia because of our physical similarities.  Probably from some uncharted backwater of the galaxy’s spiral arms I would guess.’  Mervyn had heard this theory many times, though he failed to see its relevance to his life – he belonged wherever his family and friends lived.  He was from Starlight, which was all that mattered.