Stunned, Dusty dropped into the pilot's chair and looked around him
in a completely dazed manner. Below his feet were pedals and just
below the surface of the slanting panel were a pair of knee-flappers
that could be pressed without losing the thrust on a foot pedal. The
desk-thing was studded with large levers mounted in curve-segments all
carefully marked in the calibrations of the Marandanian language. To
his left was a panel filled with push-buttons from the floor to the
level above his head where his long arm could reach without standing
up. To his right was a similar panel. Dead ahead was a flat plate that
looked like frosted glass and seemed to Dusty about as useful. It
neither glowed, nor showed a spot of color other than the very logical
reticule-lines which were to be used for aiming the ship. Above the
plate of glass was a line of meters and another line of them below.
Dusty shivered. No matter in which way he reached he could touch
buttons, or thumb levers or turn dials.
Doubtless the competent Marandanian pilot played this console like a
pianist--strictly from practise. A mere matter of training; when the
concert master calls for 'A' the musician automatically reaches for the
right position and drops his forefinger.
This was no instrument to play by ear.
Or--was it?
"Barb!"
"Yes, Dusty?"
"Barb, find that damned menslator and bring it up here. It might--"
A moment later she came up the stairs with the small instrument in
her hands. She gasped as she saw the array of controls and asked, "I
thought he said it was easy?"
"To him," growled Dusty. He fitted the menslator on his shoulder by
its strap and fiddled with the controls. He hit one setting that made
Barbara cry out inexplicably (which irritated him) and then he found
another setting that made him feel like a hundred and seventy pounds of
toothache (then he forgave Barbara) and after some more fiddling with
the tuning and the gain Dusty hit the right setting.
Everything became clear to him.
Directly in front of him was a meter that read "Rhenic Doubler Current"
and to one side was a lever labelled "Phanoband Isolator" and some
push-buttons marked "Polylateral Overload Reset" and "Primary Exchange
Test." The rest, too, were very logical but equally meaningless. "Drive
Pulse Synchronizer" must have some definite function because it was a
large lever almost in the middle of the desk-panel and what one did
with it was undoubtedly taught in the first grade of spaceman's school.
There was a large and interesting handwheel labelled "Drive Angle Trim"
which Dusty gathered to be the gizmo used to equalize the drivers so
the ship wouldn't yaw in flight, but he was not quite sure. There was
another called the "Pre-flight Check Sequence" which probably checked
the multitudinous functions of the instruments as it was turned from
position to position, but what it did or what it told the pilot made no
never-mind to Dusty Britton of The Space Patrol.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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