Entry 67

Ven finished explaining the last console, which is basically used if everything else in the ship breaks down and asked, "Do you have any questions?"

"I don't think so," I answered. "Either that, or I have so many questions I don't know where to begin. But right now it seems pretty straightforward. Or at least, your explanation does."

"Would you like to see how I set a course?" Ven asked. I nodded, and Ven stepped up to the large view screen. Blaue materialized beside him with a smile.

"I already have the course we are currently taking set," Ven explained, motioning to the view screen. "You can see here the trajectory plotted to get us to our destination and the fuel use associated with that." He paused. "Usually when talking about space travel and trajectories you'll here about delta V's. Delta V's are basically the fuel cost associated with going anywhere. Fuel is generally the limiting factor in space travel because you can only take so much of it with you. So you try to minimize your delta V when going anywhere so that you use less fuel. Do you understand?"

"Delta v relates to fuel," I said, and that was about all I understood from his explanation.

"Yes," Ven said. "So when picking a trajectory I basically tell Blaue the destination I have in mind. Let's do a sample scenario. Blaue, pull up a new screen with a practice trajectory calculation." The view screen changed from our current trajectory to a screen that simply showed the stars.

"First I tell Blaue where I would like to go," Ven said. "In this case, say the Human Colony." Suddenly the screen zoomed in on an area of stars. In the top right corner was a bright red dot and in the bottom left corner was the blue symbol that represented the ship.

"So we want to get to here," Ven pointed to the red dot. "But see all this empty space between us and there? There are no roads in space, no designated travel paths. We could go anyway we wanted. The choices are pretty much unlimited. But when I tell Blaue I want to go there the first thing she is going to do is find the trajectory that uses the least amount of delta V. However, minimizing delta V can mean that it will take us a really long time to get there. So generally she gives me three possible trajectories first, a minimum delta V trajectory, a minimum time trajectory, and a trajectory that minimizes both delta V and time to the best it can." As he spoke, three curves appeared on the screen between the ship and the destination.

"If none of these trajectories suit me then I need to give Blaue more parameters," Ven continued. "I might have a deadline. I may need to be at the human colony by a certain date. Blaue will then give me the trajectory that minimizes delta V while getting me to the destination on time."

"Or maybe I heard there is some sort of spacial anomaly in this sector," he motioned to an area of space that one of the current trajectory paths went straight through. "And I don't want to go there. So I'll tell Blaue to avoid that region, so she'll have to calculated new trajectories based on that. Is this making sense?"

"Yes," I said. "To get the answer you want you have to give Blaue the correct inputs."

"Exactly." Ven smiled, which lit up his face, making him even more handsome than normal. I'll admit, my heart fluttered a little bit.

Ven was being so nice to me, so companionable, teaching me about his ship. It was easy to forget that I didn't like him 100% because he disliked my brother. But then again, my brother was currently trying to break all ties with me.

Is this my future? I wondered. Ven instead of John? The thought was depressing, and my heart stopped fluttering.

Sure I liked Ven, 75% of the time, but he wasn't my brother. He could never be John.