Entry 64

Butterflies fluttered around my stomach as I followed Ven into the hall. I had eaten as much of breakfast as I could, considering my excitement, and I was now on my way to my first lesson on how to fly Blaue. I wondered what had made Ven change his mind about teaching me, but I was afraid to ask lest he remember an excellent reason and decide not to teach me.

Ven led me to the end of the hall I had never been to and the wall opened in front of us. It revealed a short staircase, which Ven took in stride. I followed more nervously after.

At the top of the stairs was the ship’s cockpit.

In many ways it was exactly like what I expected a cockpit to be like and in other ways it was nothing like I expected. There was a large, wall sized view screen at one side of the room, but like in Star Trek, the view screen was not a window. It was more of a computer screen that could show you whatever you wanted. It currently showed a map of the stars, a path through the stars, and a point that I assumed indicated the ship. The upper right hand corner of the screen held a list of numbers that I presumed meant something.

In front of the view screen was one chair for a sole pilot. Instead of being an austere metal contraption it was plush and blue, like a chair in a car.

To my right was another chair, but this chair was in front of a wall that held buttons, switches, and keyboards. A few small screens dotted the wall, but mainly the wall held all sorts of controls.

To my left was a third chair, which had a view screen much smaller than the original but it still took up half of the wall. Around the view screen were several other buttons and switches.

“Does Blaue require three pilots?” I asked, wondering how Ven had been managing to fly her if that was so.

“No,” Ven answered. “The ship only requires a captain and an artificial cognizant.” He motioned to the large view screen. “This is the main area I work from. Here Blaue and I decide our course, keep track of our position, and anything else we need to know. And this is not the only view the screen has.” He touched the side of the screen and immediately the screen changed to show Blaue in her entirety, and numbers around different parts of the ship. “This view helps me to know that every part of the ship is working properly. These numbers tell me the temperature of the hull, the strength of the hull, and any other facts or statistics I need to show.” He touched another point on the screen which caused the screen to change again. This time the screen showed nothing but blackness. “This is actually what’s in front of us, should I feel the need to ‘see’ out the window. Clearly, this isn’t glass. But Blaue has a visual recorder various parts of her hull and I can axis any of them from here.”

“But being a captain is fairly simple when you’re at this control point,” Ven said. “Blaue takes care of everything. She can fly herself. She needs me to make the decisions, to tell her where to go, but other than that she can take care of herself. There is not a lot of piloting involved.”

“Then why not just have ships run by artificial cognizant?” I asked. “Why have captains?” If Blaue could run cargo from one point to another by herself – if she was given the directive – why did Ven have to be there at all?

“Because things go wrong,” Ven answered simply, “and that’s what these other two sections of the cockpit are for.”