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Stories from the Verse
In Verse Proportion
Chapter 38: Brown 207
Table of Contents
Previous chapter: Slade 180
“I found them.”
Vashti stared blankly at Derek for a moment, then started and said, “Oh! The--the translation thingies? That’s good, right?”
“Well, yes. I know where they are--I just don’t know how to get them.”
Her gaze told him she expected more.
“They’re in a cargo storage area tucked between decks sixteen and fifteen--that makes them a bit more than half way down. We can take one of the elevators to get there.”
After a moment, she asked, “But?”
He shrugged. “We’ll be close to the center line of the ship, which is about fifty miles from stem to stern, twenty-five miles in girth at the midpoint. I could calculate the area, but there aren’t a lot of cities that big. It’s close to a thousand square miles. We could be searching for quite a while, just to figure out how to find our way.”
She nodded. “Well,” she said, “you said there would be adventures. It sounds like we’re going to try one.”
He was a little skeptical about this particular adventure, but he gave a reluctant nod, and said, “All right, then, this weekend. We’ll need to take probably everything--I will probably need to hack something somewhere, and we’ll want weapons for defense, and food and water and gear for sleeping, and anyway if something kills us I don’t want our gear to be ten miles above us somewhere. Plan for it.” He turned to go to his office.
“Where are you going?”
“To see if the computer can give me any hint as to how to find these things.”
She paused a moment, then said, “Come to bed. You need sleep; you can do that tomorrow.”
He hesitated, but then decided she was right. They would be doing this in two days; that should be ample time to try to prepare for it.
There is a behind-the-writings look at the thoughts, influences, and ideas of this chapter, along with twenty other sequential chapters of this novel, in mark Joseph "young" web log entry #437: Characters Relate. Given a moment, this link should take you directly to the section relevant to this chapter. It may contain spoilers of upcoming chapters.
As to the old stories that have long been here:
