Reaching For The Stars

The newcomers face broke into a wide grin. “Sorry about this, you must wonder what sort of place you`ve come to. I`m Hiram Clarke and actually I`m the principal. Mr Zebedee is our caretaker, a bit eccentric I`m afraid, but he does love his little joke, usually at my expense.” Everyone burst out laughing at this revelation. Once they had calmed down the principal said he would summon the student leaders to come to the study and also said he would organise some proper refreshments. Some ten minutes later there was a knock at the door and the principal called out “Come in”. The door opened to reveal three young people, two men and a girl. They introduced themselves as Paul, Tony and Maggie the group leaders for the expedition. They were all qualified tutors in the Life Sciences department and had a group of eight third year undergraduates going on the expedition. They explained that as a major part of their doctorates, they were looking closely at how life had evolved in different parts of the Galaxy. They said that there were eleven passengers in total, including themselves, and were concerned that there would be enough room for all of them. Peter reassured them, saying that they had their own deck on board with everything they needed there, also the exclusive use of three laboratories, all fully equipped. He added that they would be welcome to mix with him and the crew if they wished, and suggested showing them round the saucer. The student leaders readily agreed and hurried off to round up the rest of their group, saying that they would meet Peter and the others back outside the saucer in a quarter of an hour. Peter mentioned to the principal about their idea of loading all the student`s kit while they were there and the principal agreed this was an excellent idea, suggesting in turn that they take the students with them as well as luggage when they left the university, again saving a lot of time in transport. Peter and the crew all thought this was a great idea.

After a couple of hours all the student`s luggage was stowed on their deck and everybody was ready to depart. The students had been really excited when they learnt about the principal`s idea for them to board now in Lincoln rather than two days later in London. As there was plenty of room on the flight deck, thanks to fold down seats around the outer edge of the deck, Peter invited all the student party up to the flight deck for the journey back to London. Once everyone was seated, Chris started the main motors and took the saucer up into the air. Only Maggie had flown before and that was in a converted wide bodied traditional aircraft on a holiday when she was younger, so flying in a saucer was totally new to all of them. Like Maureen on her first flight in the Ranger, the previous day, all the students grabbed their seat arms and in most cases looked petrified when the saucer lifted into the air. Chris had a wicked gleam in his eye as they left the ground, and switching on a monitor above the pilots station, which showed their altitude, he took the saucer up rapidly, at about a mile a second, nothing like full speed but enough to show the students what the saucer was capable of. There were gasps all round at the rapid take off. Maureen giggled behind her hand, thinking that yesterday she would have reacted just like the students were doing now. Fiona glanced over at Chris, giggling and saying something like “you rotten sod” as she watched the students faces. He stopped climbing after a half minute putting them just over thirty miles high, which was high enough to show the students the Earth`s curvature. The students gradually got over the rapid climb and started to admire the view from the windows, which remained un-shuttered as they were still in atmospheric flight. The high speed demonstration completed, Chris dropped the saucer back down to three thousand feet and adjusted the speed accordingly so that their passengers could admire the scenery passing beneath the craft. The journey back to Heathrow took just over half an hour and the students were still excited about flying when they touched down. Peter told them that they were welcome to stay on board on their deck for the remainder of the weekend as they wouldn`t be leaving until mid-morning Monday, and added that if they wanted to leave the saucer and go exploring in London that was fine as well. He said that if they left the saucer it would be quite secure where it was so all their kit and personal items would be safe. He showed the three leaders how to operate the main doors from inside and out and said if they went off the spaceport to ensure they had their university identity badges with them to get back into the secure area. Fiona said that the galley was fully stocked so anything they wanted to eat, to just go right ahead and have it. All of them knew how to operate the computer cookers so everybody was happy.

Once Peter and the crew had left the saucer, the subject of their remaining free time came up. Bill said he wanted to spend some time working on an old, oil powered car that he was renovating in his spare time, hoping one day to exhibit it at classic vehicle shows. Chris asked Fiona if she fancied going down to Brighton to which she agreed and Peter and Maureen decided to take a trip down to the New Forest to see Peter`s parents who had moved back out of London, to a riverside house in Lymington when Peter`s father had retired. Once back in the underground garage, the party split up to go their separate ways. Peter offered Chris and Fiona a lift back into central London but they declined saying they wanted to get something to eat first, then would jump on the underground back to Southgate before heading off to Brighton. Peter and Maureen got in to Peter s car and headed out of town towards the motorway which would take them to the New Forest. Peter called his parents on the car`s video phone and asked if it was ok to come down overnight with Maureen, to which his parents eagerly agreed. Peter`s mother said she would have a meal waiting for them when they arrived. Only about three quarters of an hour after leaving Heathrow, Peter turned the car through the gates of his parent`s house and drove up the driveway to park in front of the house. The house was a traditional thatched cottage, albeit with modern thatch replacement and stood in its own extensive gardens. Peter`s father was a keen gardener and that was one of the reasons they had chosen this property, the other being that it had river frontage with its own private jetty. His parents owned a small boat which they used to putter up and down the coast when the weather was reasonable. Peter`s mother met them at the front door and said that her husband was pottering about somewhere in the garden and that Peter should go and find him and tell him that the meal would be ready in an hour. She ushered Maureen inside chattering away as if she hadn`t seen her for ages when in fact it was only about ten days.

Peter eventually found his father down on the jetty cleaning the boat. After washing his hands, his father led the way back to the house. The women were in the kitchen doing the final preparations for the meal so Peter and his father went into the lounge and settled in two of the comfy chairs. His father turned on the television and found a gardening program. The smell of newly mown grass filled the room as all televisions nowadays had smell vision as standard, so that the set transmitted smells appropriate to the program being viewed, into the air. There was a manual override for this if the smells generated were not to the viewer`s liking, quite handy with some nature programs!! Peter`s mother called that the meal was ready so they moved into the dining room and sat down. His mother had turned out a tasty meat pie with various vegetables and home grown potatoes. For dessert there was a home-made apricot pie with ice cream, all swilled down with some excellent rosé wine.

Over dinner, Peter`s father suggested that as the youngsters didn`t have to be back in London until early Monday morning, that if the weather was fine maybe they could take the boat over to the Isle of Wight for a picnic lunch, the next day, which everybody thought was great idea. Peter`s mother asked if they wanted one room or two for the night, already knowing the answer, and just smiling when this was confirmed!

The following morning after a full English breakfast, they made up a picnic and carried it down to the jetty. While the women stowed it safely in the cabin, Peter gave his father a hand starting the engine and casting off from the jetty. The boat was quite old and still had a petrol driven outboard engine, so was quite noisy and smelly but as it was on a boat and the fumes got carried away, it didn`t matter too much. Peter`s father had a supply of petrol in a shed near the jetty but said that it was getting increasingly difficult to get supplies nowadays, and that soon he would either have to buy a newer boat or convert the current one to a modern engine. Maureen thought the old cabin cruiser was lovely and actually quite liked the smell of petrol and exhaust from the outboard. The boat wasn`t built for speed and was comfortable at low speed. Peter`s father knew a secluded cove just south of Totland Bay on the island, where he could run the boat up onto the sand to keep it safe while they had their picnic. The weather was lovely and warm again and there was only a slight swell on the sea and the trip took about forty five minutes.

The day was very pleasant and passed too quickly and soon it was time for Peter and Maureen to say their goodbyes and return to London. They had told his parents about their forthcoming trip and Maureen had shown his father where they would be going on a star map that he had. He was impressed with Maureen`s knowledge and said that in some ways he wished he was going along with them, to which his mother responded that he was too old to go gallivanting round the galaxy.

Early the next morning they were all back at the spaceport ready to go. The students had decided to go into London on the Saturday afternoon but had spent the Sunday on board going through their equipment and kit to make sure they hadn`t forgotten anything. The students were a pleasant bunch of under graduates four boys and four girls. Ian, Duncan, Steven, Barry, Lisa, Cindy, Megan and Sylvia, all in their early to mid-twenties. The girls had sorted out all their accommodation, with a room each as there was plenty of space on their deck, four on one side of the galley and four on the other. They had a separate lounge area as well all nicely furnished. The girls said it was almost like an old fashioned ocean cruise ship and they had already personalised their space with some prints on the wall. While in London on Saturday afternoon they had purchased some cushions and these were now on the chairs and sofa in their lounge.

When Peter and the crew had arrived at the spaceport that morning they were told some rather disturbing news by the duty commander. The prisoner they had bought back from Moon Base Six on Friday had somehow managed to escape custody and had killed one of his guards in the process, the victim being a young married father of two, named Clive Archer who had only been a member of the Police force for just over year. Peter and the crew sent their condolences to his widow. They were told that the force suspected that he had had inside help to break out and a massive manhunt was now in progress to find and re-arrest him. The commanders parting words were to make sure they had no stow-aways on board their saucer when they took off. He wished them all good luck before sending them on their way.

Once back on the saucer they thoroughly checked everywhere as per the commanders instruction and when the students asked what they were doing, Chris explained what had happened over the weekend. They also set a robot to search the harder to reach areas of the craft but the whole saucer was clean much to everyone`s relief. Their first destination was a planet called Fron which was in the Orion constellation and was twenty eight light years away. The journey was scheduled to take three days so it would give the students plenty of time to get accustomed to space travel. Just after ten in the morning, the clearance came through from the control tower and Peter took the saucer up, quite a bit more gently than Chris had done on the Saturday afternoon. They rapidly entered space, only apparent to the occupants when the window shutters operated. Now, instead of standard aircraft instruments the pilot`s panel was blacked out with only a course setting and a speed and time indicator showing. The auto pilot was engaged and immediately bought their speed up to maximum speed. Everyone settled in for the three day flight.