Soft come the dragons

Blanksman, and ship's doctor Amishi were coping with a series of fake emergencies that a group of security men had thought up—most of which could not possibly occur aboard a saucer. A fire had been started in a mock-up of the ship, and the three were to stop it before irreparable damage could be done. Of course it was ridiculous, for the plasterboard of the mock-up burned very much more rapidly than would the special alloy of the real saucer. I stopped a moment to watch the fun and games.
    But Fate was in rare form that morning. The heat—something the security experts had not connected with fire—ignited a stack of boxes behind the "stage." There was a sudden explosion that rocked the mock-up, and the wall of crates came tumbling down over the wooden saucer, burying the crew.
    They said I screamed. I only remember running, tearing at boxes, heaving them out of the way with a furiousness I never knew I possessed. I dragged Amishi out onto the safe floor. He was unconscious but unburned. I remember seeing Malherbe and Blanksman too—all three safe. And the fire crew waving hoses and fog dispensers.
    I don't know why I rushed back in. But they had to drag me out in the end. Whimpering, Malherbe said. Whimpering.
    Schedules were reworked, and the launch date was moved back ten days. Everyone was given a thorough psychic probe. The big shots wanted to be sure no traumas from the incident would render us incapable of acting when we reached our target—Old Sol. But they didn't check back any farther than that fire.
    The day after the near disaster, I came across Amishi sitting in the coffee shop. He was composing one of his poems.
     
    "Let's go
    down foggy paths
    in twisted moonlight
    in purple moon-night
    in some overwhelming
    sort of madness
    taken through open-souled osmosis
    from hatter-mad flowers
    And let's go
    holding hands and laughing
    1 feel your arteries throbbing
    Let's go
    in the cool ice of evening
    through haunted forests
    . where trees bend
    to the white world's end
    craggy and awful
    to snatch away unsuspecting souls
    who think Nature
    is a mother and not a liquidator
    Let's go
    strangers in a strange land
    orphans of the heart
    strangers in a strange land
    now cinders drift apart . . ."
     
    "I think it fits," Alexander said. He was the young operator of the robomechs that would take care of any repair job I might sense during the flight.
    I nodded agreement.
    "I mean, it is a strange land indeed!"
    Amishi looked at me, half-embarrassed. "I want to thank you for yesterday." His yellow skin seemed to redden slightly.
    "No need for thanks, just part of the job."
    "By the way," Alexander interrupted, "how's the ship feel?"
    "Fine. Fine as a ship could feel. Your robomechs may be useless extra baggage."
    He winced at that, and I was glad I had said it. I didn't like Gingos Alexander.
    "Glad to hear optimism," a booming voice said behind me. I turned to see Bruce Krison smiling like an idiot.
    "You're smiling like an idiot," I told him.
    "Thank you," he smiled. "That's one of the nicer things you've ever said to me."
    "Everything running smoothly?"
    "Yes," I said curtly.
    "What about the incident of the fire."
    It was blunt. Too blunt not to catch me off balance. "Close," I finally said.
    "Too close. And unnecessary."
    "I thought the others were still in the fire."
    He looked at me steadily, and I returned his gaze, afraid to, but afraid not to. He sighed. "Well, there's a phone call for you."
    "A phone call?"
    He winked. "A Miss Morain."
    "Tell her I'm not allowed to talk while in training," I said, straightening my tie and turning to leave.
    She called for the seventh time on Launch Day. But conquest was in my blood, and the great eye of the sun lay ahead.
     
    I died in less than a fragment of a millisecond.
    I looked out and saw my body strapped in a chair, needles puncturing it, glucose bottles dangling delicately above it like transparent fruit on a metal tree. There were dark circles under my eyes. I looked dead—gray and all And it always seemed, that flash of an instant when I left my body, that Death had freed me.
    Behind my body sat Amishi, in charge of regulating my slowed metabolism—in charge of my life. The lights on his scopes pulsated green and yellow. In the shadows stood the captain, without duties, trying to look like his job really mattered. We all knew that it didn't; he was an ornament, a leftover from the days when men sailed the seas and lower skies.
    I left that scene,