Castle Spellbound

ANOTHER WORLD

The Sidewise Voyager plunged, if not earthward, then otherworldward.

As calmly as possible, Melanie asked, "Uh, Jeremy? Is there anything we can do?"

"Well, we can always go back into non-space," Jeremy said.

Sitting on Jeremy's lap, Isis shook her head. "O'course," Jeremy went on, "that's no solution. We can't stay there indefinitely. But with no antigrav we can't land anywhere to fix anything. So we're kinda stuck."

Melanie looked through the view port. The ground was coming up frighteningly fast.

"Uh, maybe we'd better do something, like, soon?"

"But if we spend any more time in non-space," Jeremy said, "the ship's hull will take a beating. It can only handle so much stress. What we should do is maybe try a shuffle."

"A shuffle?"

Isis said, "We send the craft on a tangential course, touching each universe in succession but not really entering except for the briefest nanosecond. But that presents another problem."

"Yeah, we get even loster that way," Jeremy said.

"Well, technically that's not true," Isis said. "Without a functioning nav system, we're lost, period. It's just that we could shuffle forever, trying to luck into the castle's universe."

Melanie watched as the ground raced upward at an alarming rate. She said, "Uh, people, I suggest we do something, anything, right now."

Jeremy said, "Huh? Oh, yeah." He reached and flipped a switch.

The view port went completely blank. Outside was nothing but an indeterminate grayness. Non-space; nothingness; nowhere.

Melanie let out a sigh of relief.

"I guess we can stay in non-space long enough to set up a shuffle," Jeremy said. "If we should want to do one."

"Definitely not," Isis said.

"You don't think so?"

"No. We should try to jury-rig a software patch."

"Yeah? How?"

"We use the schematics on board to simulate a nav unit."

Jeremy brightened. "Hey, that's an idea. But how do we calibrate it?"

"By using the readings that are in the storage buffer."

"Might work," Jeremy said. "Might work. But… hmmm."

"Objections?"

"Well, the time factor, for one."

"Good point," Isis said. "But I have a plan. We shuffle until we find an empty universe or one with no planetary masses nearby. We'll be in zero-g, but we can manage."

Jeremy shook his head. "I dunno. First of all… wait a minute. Doesn't this ship always drop in near a planetary mass because it sniffs out big masses in non-space first?"

"Exactly. So we'll have to override."

"Boy, that'll take even more time."

"Certainly. But we have no choice. Of course, we have the option of dropping in and out of non-space."

"That's too risky, and besides we can't do much with the ship systems when we need 'em to fly."

"True again."

"But I don't like-" Jeremy glanced at the control panel. "Oops, better get back into normal space before we get squished."

"Squished?" Melanie said.

Jeremy looked at her. "Yeah, the pressure could flatten us like an aluminum beer can."

The sky-or another one-appeared again, and again the ship began to nose over and dive for the ground. To Melanie the experience was beginning to seem like being trapped on an endless roller coaster ride. Her stomach did a flip-flop.

Jeremy and Isis debated again while the ship dove. Melanie waited as long as she could stand it, then shouted a warning. Jeremy responded, sending the ship back into non-space. Jeremy and his "assistant" then carried on the technical discussion until it became time to dump back into normal space. And the horrifying cycle began over again. Melanie couldn't bear it.

"Jeremy," she said. "Do something."

"Huh?"

"Do something. Get us back home. I don't care how you do it."

"Hey, we're trying, Melanie."

"You're not trying hard enough. If this up and down stuff goes on any longer, I'm going to puke all over the compartment."

"Don't get it on the controls, please!"

"Jeremy, it's going to go all over the place. I'm sick, Jeremy. It's coming up. I can feel it."

Jeremy made a face. "Oh, God, please don't. I can't stand it when that happens. Makes me wanna puke, too."

"Then do something, Jeremy. You're supposed to be a genius."

"Wait, I have an idea," Isis said. "Jeremy, you were taking readings on the location of the magical disturbance shortly before you took the ship out, weren't you?"

"Yeah, why?"

"Why don't we use the ship's sensors to detect the spell from non-space? That would give us the vector parameters for home, wouldn't it?"

Jeremy snapped his fingers. "It would if you recorded the readings for me to calibrate the sensors with."

Isis smiled. "I did, Jeremy. I automatically record everything you do at the work station. The buffer has it all."

"Great! Isis, I love you."

"Jeremy, darling!"

The two embraced as the ground rushed up yet again. Melanie screamed, "We are going to fucking crash if you people don't get on the stick!"

"Sorry!" Isis said and swiveled toward the control panel. She hit the thruster just in the nick of time. The Voyager slipped back into the temporary safety of non-space. Melanie nearly fainted.

"One thing," Jeremy said. "Those coordinates, the ones pinpointing the disturbance, could be anywhere in the castle. We'll materialize there. It could be a broom closet, for all we know. We have enough trouble landing in the graving dock, which is, like, huge."

"We will be cutting it very close, Jeremy dear. But if we get our entry velocity down as close to zero as we possibly can, we'll have a very good chance of making it with minimum casualties."

"That's going to take some fancy math," Jeremy said.

"Math is our business," Isis said brightly. "Now, dear, let's get to work. We have only forty-five seconds left before we have to dip back into normal space again."

"Right. Boost your clock speed to five hundred megahertz."

"Done, dearest Jeremy."

Melanie rolled her eyes. Minimum casualties. Wonderful. Suddenly realizing that the Gooch brothers hadn't uttered a peep in some time, Melanie looked back.

They were fast asleep.