In last week’s episode, David learned the basics about the Day of the Lord. In this week’s episode, David struggles with the more humbling aspects of his duties, and starts to be accepted by the crew…
After the evening meal was served and the galley put in good order, Ranell asked David, “Did you ever own a recreational vehicle like a trailer or motor home?”
“No, I never had the money for one of those.” David shook his head as he wiped the last of the galley surfaces with a disinfecting towel.
“That’s OK,” Ranell said. “The reason I ask is that normally the ground crew takes care of pumping our gray and black water tanks, but with the Response Team forward deployed, that leaves just you and me from the flight crew to do it.”
“What do we have to do?” David asked.
You have to step lively, David. I told you that you would be cleaning their toilets. The voice of Lieutenant Rodriguez plagued David like a fly buzzing around on the inside of his head, but he could ignore it with effort.
Ranell answered, “I’ll show you when we get to Loring, but it’s a lot like pumping the tanks on an RV.”
“Whatever you need, Boss,” David replied dourly.
“Oh, and Mr. Wilson,” Ranell had more to say on the matter.
“Yes?”
“Have you been issued all of your cold-weather gear?”
“Yes, Doc,” David said, “they issued it to me from the supply room at the Umatilla Aerodrome.”
“Have you tried it on? Does it all fit properly?”
“Yeah, I tried it all on.”
“Good, you’ll need all of it when we get to Loring,” Ranell nodded. “We’ll be getting in around midnight, and the temperature is going to be right on the edge of freezing with rain forecast that will probably turn to ice. Oh, and you’ll also need some heavy-duty rubber gloves. You can find those in the supply closet.”
Oh, happy day, Lieutenant Rodriguez whispered, you’re going to get to muck out their filth.
“Mr. Wilson?” Ranell asked cautiously.
“Yeah, Doc?” David was startled out of his reverie.
“Is something troubling you? You seem to have some kind of chip on your shoulder. Is there a problem with the holding tanks?”
Damn, this guy is perceptive. “No, Doc, um, that’s not it…”
“What is it, then? I can tell something’s been bothering you.”
“It’s nothing, Doc. I don’t have any problem cleaning the tanks.”
Ranell drummed his fingers on the sparkling countertop. “It’s a small ship, Mr. Wilson. I know Lieutenant Singh spoke to you.”
Then why didn’t you help me? David’s breathing grew rapid. “Yeah. That’s it,” he admitted. “He chewed me out, but I guess I deserved it.” He held his arms stiffly against his sides with his hands balled into fists. He looked down at the floor in front of his shoes. At least everyone on board thinks you deserved it. But what did I do that was so wrong?
“It’s not about whether you deserved anything or not.” Ranell placed his hand on David’s shoulder, a potentially dangerous move considering how close to the boiling point he was.
Ranell ducked his head to catch David’s gaze and re-engage him. “You’re new to this ship. What you’re learning is that we already have an established culture aboard the St. Paul. That culture is neither right nor wrong. It’s just the accretion of lives and experiences that we’ve built up over time. The same is true everywhere we go. It’s hard to learn the local culture, and that’s what you’re doing now.”
David didn’t relax, but at least the guns weren’t talking. He was trying to listen. “It was just a dumb joke…” his voice trailed off. Why bother telling him he’s wrong? He’s not going to listen to you. He didn’t help you. David wanted to swat away Lieutenant Rodriguez’s voice.
Ranell calmly removed his hand and drummed on the countertop once more. “I’ll have to be blunt because I want to make this clear: We all knew your joke was inappropriate. The ship’s captain was giving you specific instructions about a critical aspect of this vessel’s operation. He even prefaced his comments by explaining that these systems had taken years to develop.”
David gritted his teeth.
“One of us had to confront you with that fact. By allowing Lieutenant Singh to do it, we kept the correction at the lowest level.”
They were all in on it! “I understand Doc. I’m just the servant, and I shouldn’t get uppity.”
Ranell sighed.
“Let me ask you a question, Doc.” David’s sense of moral outrage was growing.
“Shoot.”
“How do you do it? You, at least, have a Ph.D. How did you come to be just another servant on this ship?”
To David’s surprise, instead of rising to this challenge, Ranell just gave him the strangest look and then said in a rather astonished voice, “Oh Mr. Wilson, I’m afraid you really don’t know anything about my kind of service.”
Normally David would have taken a comment like that as an insult to his own military service. But he could tell that wasn’t what Ranell was talking about, and the quartermaster’s relaxed posture and easy grin had a calming effect on him. At least there’s one guy on board I can speak freely with.
“Let me give you a bit of advice, if I may?” From his tone it was clear that this wasn’t just a simple turn of phrase. Ranell was sincerely asking David’s permission to give him advice.
“OK.”
“You can probably get by around here, for a while, by just doing the jobs we assign to you, and no more. But sooner or later you’re going to have to make a decision. You’re going to have to decide if you really support these officers. Really support them from your heart, understand?” Ranell watched David’s eyes closely.
“Look Mr. Wilson, these officers are just men. Like all men they make mistakes. But they need you and me to support them. To truly support them. They can’t do their jobs without us. Is any of this making sense?”
David couldn’t speak. Powerful emotions were knotted up within him and he dared not let his veneer of control crack for fear that all the emotions come spilling out.
Ranell seemed to understand and didn’t press him. “Just try a little bit of trust. I promise you won’t regret it.”
While David reflected on Ranell’s counsel about trying to trust the other members of the crew, the captain and the navigator were coming up with their own plan to make David feel more welcome aboard the ship.
In the cockpit, Lieutenant Singh took a break from the computer screen he was monitoring to peer outside through the St. Paul’s windshield. Because he was sitting in the right-hand side co-pilot seat, Singh had to bend forward and crane his head to stare around Captain Pruitt.
“What are you doing?” Pruitt asked.
“The weather map is giving me an indication of an event off the port bow.”
“What kind of event?” Pruitt with calm professional detachment.
“Could be Aurora Borealis.”
“Really?” Pruitt could not conceal his enthusiasm. “Where?”
“I can’t see,” replied Singh. “It should be on the horizon, but the envelope is obscuring my view from here. Can you see it?”
The St. Paul’s cockpit was suspended beneath the giant tri-lobed hull of her envelope. Much like three traditionally shaped airships stuck together side-by-side, the enormous envelop obscured the view of anything above the cockpit, as well as of anything behind the great airship.
Pruitt also bent forward and craned his neck to get a better view of the horizon. From his seat on the left-hand side of the cockpit, he could barely make out the shimmering colors on the horizon. “I’ve got it,” he said, pointing awkwardly up and to his left. “Can you activate the Barco dome so we can get a better look?”
Singh’s brilliant smile was answer enough for Pruitt’s question, but then the lieutenant stopped as he reached for the activation switch. “Hey, Captain, why don’t we bring the new guy up here to see this?”
Pruitt locked eyes with Singh knowingly. “Great idea.” Then he swiveled in his chair to look aft towards the main cabin where David and Ranell were deeply immersed in conversation. “Excuse me for interrupting gentlemen, but would you care to join me on the flight deck? I have something here I think you might like to see.”
On the St. Paul, the cockpit consisted of the pilot and co-pilot’s chair. Immediately behind those two seats, in the same compartment, were the navigator’s station and two additional flight seats. The entire area was open with a high, domed ceiling. Taken together, this room was designated as the flight deck, and it allowed for several additional personnel to collaborate with the flight crew or for guests to enjoy the view through the front windshield. At the captain’s invitation, Ranell and David took positions in the remaining swiveling flight seats.
With a gleam in his eye, Captain Pruitt turned to David and said, “Tell me what you can see from there, Mr. Wilson.”
The St. Paul had already passed by Winnipeg over an hour ago, so David could see nothing but darkness out of the windshield. “A bunch of blinking lights and controls?” He asked, trying hard not to sound sarcastic as he waved at the instrument panel. “What’s with the chrome bulldog?”
“Oh that?” Pruitt followed David’s gaze. “That’s in honor of Lieutenant Colonel Alfred Masury. He was a vice president of the Mack Truck company and designed the bulldog hood ornament.”
“It’s cool. Why’d you guys put it on there?”
“Well, for two reasons,” Pruitt began, “First, because the St. Paul used to be a cargo ship that we affectionately called the ‘Sky Tug.’ Second, because Masury was a huge fan of airships, and he died during the crash of the Akron in 1933.”
“Oh.” David was surprised to learn that bit of trivia. “I didn’t know Mack trucks had anything to do with airships.”
“That was during the first Golden Age of airship aviation,” Pruitt beamed, “but that’s not what we brought you up here for.”
“Prepare to be amazed,” Singh said dramatically as he reached for the activator switch. “Behold!”
Suddenly, the domed ceiling above David’s head darkened, to be replaced by a vast canopy of a starry night. The image was crystal clear, and he could see the radiant path of the Milky Way in its majestic progression surrounded by countless stars. The night was clear, and with no ambient light to pollute the view, the stars shone with unbelievable clarity. It was as though someone had ripped off the top of the St. Paul and exposed them all to the sky above.
“Oh! Look there!” exclaimed Ranell.
David turned to follow the direction of Ranell’s outstretched hand, and his gaze fell upon his first sight of the magically swirling purple, green, and gold light that made the Aurora Borealis. He stared, mesmerized as the radiant curtains of shimmering light undulated along the lines of interaction between the ionized plasma of the solar wind with the earth’s magnetic field. David almost forgot to breathe until Captain Pruitt gently broke the spell.
“This never gets old,” Pruitt said in a voice filled with wonder.
“How?” David haltingly began with a question. “How is this possible?”
“It’s simulator technology,” Singh replied as if that explained everything.
Pruitt could tell that David needed a few more details. “In the old days when the hybrids were first being fielded, they realized we had a problem with visibility. You see,” he said, motioning towards the pilot’s yoke in the cockpit, “with our thrust-vectoring props, I can maneuver the St. Paul forward, backward, up, down, and sideways, just like a helicopter if she’s not loaded with cargo. The trouble is with her big envelope, I can’t see in most of those directions, so I have to steer her blind, guided by just radio communication with an off-board observer.”
Singh continued the explanation, “That’s when they realized the new simulators they were building for training flight crews could be adapted to provide a full 360-degree view while aboard flying airships, not just for simulators on the ground.” He was obviously proud of the technology.
“You can’t really see it now, except here at the boundary between the dome and the windshield.” Pruitt pointed to a slightly blurry line running horizontally across the cockpit at about the height of a standing person’s head. “Below this line is real. Above our heads is a 3.4-meter acrylic dome made by the Barco Corporation out of Belgium. It uses liquid crystal on silicon technology, and it’s fed by ten high-definition cameras we have mounted on the hull.”
“That is so cool.” David gasped, awestruck as he sat mesmerized by the shimmering lights.
There was no hurry, and they all enjoyed the cosmic show for a long time. Finally, Ranell told David to try to grab a few hours of sleep before the St. Paul arrived at the Loring Aerodrome. “We’re trying for a quick turnaround before we get airborne again, and we’ll have a lot to do in a short amount of time. So, rest while you can because we’re going to have to hustle.”
David had a lot to think about as he made his way back to his cabin. He still didn’t care much for Lieutenant Singh, but maybe he could try trusting the other guys a little.
You’re setting yourself up for failure, said the voice of Lieutenant Rodriguez.
Maybe not every officer is as wretched as you were! David snapped back. Somewhere in the back of his mind, David noted that he was fighting back against Lieutenant Rodriguez’s vicious comments more often these days. Maybe that’s a good thing.