“You’d be Bek Rowe?” the man inquired with a grin, his manner open and friendly and immediately disarming. Bek nodded. “I’m this lady’s Captain. Redden Alt Mer.” He stuck out his hand in greeting, and Bek took it. “You’re to be my cabin boy, Bek. You can call me Captain or sir. Or you can call me Big Red, like nearly everyone else does. Have you sailed before?”
Bek shook his head. “Not really. On the Rainbow Lake once or twice and on rivers and streams in the Highlands.”
The tall man laughed. “Goodness, they’ve given me a cabin boy with no sea legs at all! No experience on open water or free air either, Bek? What am I to do with you?”
Bek grimaced. “Hope for the best?”
“No, no, no, we can’t be relying on hope to see you through.”
He grinned anew. “Are you a quick study?”
“I think so.”
“Good, that will help our cause. This morning is all I’ve got to teach you what I know before we set out, so we must make the most of it. You know about airships, do you?”
“A little.” Bek was feeling foolish and slow, but the tall man was not unkind or intimidating.
“You’ll know everything by the time I’m done.” He paused. “A few words of advice to begin with, Bek. I’m a Rover, so you know two things right off. One, I’ve forgotten more about airships than other men have learned, and with the crew of Rovers I’ve chosen to serve under me, I can see us through anything. So don’t ever question or doubt me. Second, don’t ever say anything bad about Rovers—not even if you think I can’t hear you.”
He waited for Bek to answer, so Bek said, “No, sir.”
“Good. Now here’s the really important thing to remember.”
The cheerful face took on a serious, almost contemplative cast. “The Druid’s in charge of this expedition, so I am obliged to respect his wishes and obey his orders save where the safety of the ship and crew are concerned. He’s ordered me to take you on as cabin boy. That’s fine. But you and I need to understand each other. The Druid intends you to serve as his eyes and ears aboard ship. He wants you to watch everyone and everything, me included. That’s fine, too. I expect you can do this and do it well. But I don’t want you thinking I don’t know why you’re really here. Fair enough?”
Bek flushed. “I’m not a spy.”
“Did I say you were? Did I suggest that you were anything of the sort?” The Rover shook his head reprovingly. “Smart lads keep their eyes and ears open in any case. I don’t begrudge any man that advantage. My purpose in bringing this up is to make sure you understand that as clever as the Druid thinks he is, he’s no more clever than I am. I wouldn’t want you to make a foolish assumption about your Captain.”
Bek nodded. “Me either.”
“Good lad!” Redden Alt Mer seemed genuinely pleased. “Now let’s put all that behind us and begin our lessons. Come with me.”
He took Bek over to the airship and had him climb the rope ladder to the decking. There, standing amidships with the boy, he began a step-by-step explanation of the ship’s operation. The sails were called light sheaths. Their function was to gather light, either direct or ambient, from the skies for conversion to energy. Light could be drawn from any source, day or night. Direct light was best, but frequently it was not to be found, so the availability and usefulness of ambient light was the key to an airship’s survival. Light energy gathered by the sheaths was relayed by lines called radian draws. The draws took the heat down to the decking and into containers called parse tubes, which housed diapson crystals. The crystals, when properly prepared by craftsmen, received and converted the light energy to the energy that propelled and steered the airship. Hooding and unhooding the crystals determined the amount of thrust and direction the airship took.
Redden Alt Mer had Bek repeat all this back when he was finished, word for word. Intrigued by the process and interested to learn everything about how it worked, the boy did so faultlessly. The Rover was pleased. Understanding the principles of airship flight was crucial to learning how to operate her. But it took years to learn how to fly an airship properly, as the Federation pilots had not yet discovered. The nuances of hooding and unhooding the crystals, of riding and sideslipping wind currents, and of avoiding downdrafts and lightfalls that could change the momentum and responsiveness of an airship in an instant were not easily mastered. Rovers were the best pilots, he offered without a trace of boasting. Rovers were born to the free life, and they adapted and understood flight better than other men.