Ode to Ooorah

By jinnis

"And all I ask is a tall ship, and a star to steer her by"

John Masefield

Have you ever felt that longing, the insatiable craving to travel, to find something behind the horizon of your mundane days governed by corporate interests? Well, I did.

One awful day, riding home in a suburb train amidst grey faced, snivelling, and disillusioned commuters, I found my unlikely escape. Squeezed in my seat between a sturdy woman with four heavy shopping bags and a suited man tapping away on the laptop he balanced on his knees, I exchanged a glance with the teen opposite me. She had plugs in her ears and wore her curly hair in an enormous frizzy bun on top of her head. Without acknowledging my weak attempt at a smile, her gaze returned to the screen of her phone. Embarrassed, I pulled out my device and scrolled to the orange W-app in search of a worthwhile read.

And that's where my life took a turn. The story I stumbled upon turned out to be an anthology of some kind, a collection of the weirdest tales I had encountered. Lost in worlds beyond my imagination, a voice intruded into my bubble.

"Hey, stranger, can I help you?"

I looked up, disoriented and irritated by the interruption. "I'm fine, thanks." My gaze wandered back to the screen.

"Are you sure? You seemed kind of lost and just about to fall down the engine well."

"What?" As I focused on the little bot's worried expression, thoughts raced through my brain like tiny Formula 1 open-wheelers on a racecourse. Why was a knee-high bot on crawlers addressing me? How could its metal face express worry? Why did it talk about an engine well? And where, for toad's sake, was I? For I clearly wasn't aboard a commuting train but stood mere steps away from an abyss. And what an abyss—a maze of tubes, catwalks, and ladders surrounded a shaft with a diameter of several hundred meters. I could make out life forms bustling around on them, some bipedal and humanoid, others resembling oversized insects or reptiles. A deep hum swung in the air and down in the depth glowed the blueish eye of Cherenkov radiation like a beacon.

My knees felt like jelly and a swarm of icy ants crawled up my spine as I grabbed the flimsy railing between myself and the drop. "Engine well, huh? Where are we?"

"Not in Kansas anymore, Toto."

I turned towards the unfamiliar voice. Okay, aside from an Aussie accent, the woman had human eyes and a smile I could relate to. "Hey, I'm LV. Welcome to the mother-ship. I see you already met H'ver." The little bot chirped and rubbed its side against LV's ankle. "He's quite affectionate."

"He might have saved me from falling." I pointed down the well, the ants still swarming my spine with chilly feet.

My new acquaintance laughed. "Pretty sure someone or something would have caught you. We watch out for each other here, you know?"

That sounded nice and not at all like the office. "And where exactly is here?"

She shrugged. "Somewhere in the Multiverse. I would have to ask Mag. She's the one in charge of the maps and stuff. Pretty sure she tracks our journey in one of her elaborate spreadsheets. But come along, I'm on my way to the bridge."

She guide me to a steep stair on the brim of the abyss that took us upwards. I was glad I didn't have vertigo but kept my hand on the railing, anyway. "Don't you have lifts ore something on this ship?"

"We do. But unfortunately, it's easy to get lost while travelling by lift, and the transporter is even worse. Several of the crew haven't been seen for a while because of that." She pointed at a shiny door marked turbo-lift. "Take Jeff, for example. Since he went for a quick visit to the recreation area, he's registered as missing. The same goes for a few who prefer beaming from one place to another. They pop up sporadically just to disappear into the system soon again. Me, I prefer the old-fashioned way of getting around."

I could relate, but still found our trek exhausting. Several levels up, we ran into a pair of men in old style suits and a woman wearing tight black leather. The darker-haired man scrutinised me through his monocle. "Ah, a fresh face. Perhaps you can join us for tea and cake one of these days? What do you think, my dear Smith?"

The woman rolled her eyes and stamped her knee-length boot, shaking the metal grid we were standing on. "Jones, don't dawdle. We must secure the energy cube."

"Right, Miss Kris. On my way."

He nodded at LV and me before he stormed down the walkway in pursuit of his companions. LV looked after them and shrugged. "These were Smith and Jones, and their sidekick Kris. Haven't seen them in a while."

"Interesting folks living on this ship."

"That's so true. But wait until you meet the great ape in the library, or the ancient thing living in the cooling water of the primary drive. Some say it's the son of Cthulhu himself."

Nice—I wasn't convinced this was the excitement I needed in my life. "What's this ship, a new edition of Noah's ark?"

She chuckled and led me up another stair. "Kind of. See it as a haven for creative minds. You could also say we're running on the stories the ship's crew creates."

A woman in a colourful pirate costume burst from a door, brushed white dust from her breeches and joined us. "Ah, I was looking for you, LV. I was so close to get my baguettes right when Tim called from the bridge."

"We were already on our way, Mag. May I present you our new guest?"

"Nice to have you on board. I already felt your vibes. Time to get the Ooorah travelling again."

"The Ooorah?"

Mag patted a metal support. "The old lady we call the mother-ship. She craves stories and creativity like other ships gobble up fuel, but in exchange, she carries us across the multiverse at will."

With me close to wheezing, we climbed a few more levels and reached the bridge. To my surprise, it was exactly what the name suggested: a wide bridge spanning the abyss of the ship's central well in an impressive arch. The space on top was divided into several areas, including a park with trees, flower beds and benches, a cozy café with wicker chairs and parasols, a sitting area, and a technical area that seemed to be the control centre of the ship. There, Mag introduced two more crew members waiting for us.

"This is Tim." He reached out a hand, and I shook it, wondering if he was a cyborg or an android or just a human resembling a machine. "And this is Nab, our chronicler." She pointed at a woman with black hair and shiny eyes.

Before I could compliment her on her beautiful embroidered dress, we were interrupted by a man in blue coveralls, something looking like an ancient notebook and fountain pen peeking out of his breast pocket. He cleaned grease from his thumb with a rag and addressed no one in particular. "We should be good to travel again. Engines are fixed, the gravity should be less erratic, and the future awaits us."

"Great news, John." Mag patted his shoulder. "High time we get under way." She looked at me. "Ready for an adventure?"

"Sure." Since I had no inkling how to leave this place, and since they all seemed a lot friendlier than what I was looking forward to at my workplace, I could as well embrace this thing, whatever it was, right? "But who is in charge of this ship?"

Mag exchanged a glance with LV before she pointed at the hammock spanned between two palm trees in the centre of the bridge.

"Sorry, haven't seen the captain in a while. Mad Mike makes it a habit to disappear from time to time, as is his right. He also appears from time to time."

"And who is in command while he isn't around?"

LV shrugged. "Whoever sees fit. There were others before him, and there will be others in the future. Want to have a go?"

"Um, I'm not qualified in the least and don't know the first thing about space travel or quantum physics."

John nudged me. "But you have imagination, yes? That's all we need, and someone will step in if you want to take a break."

I hoped he was right, and I knew it probably was a bad idea to give in, but the hammock beckoned. With a shrug, I climbed into it, and H'ver pulled up to hand me a fancy drink decorated with a little umbrella. "Welcome aboard, captain."

I still wondered how the little bot possibly could have climbed the stairs so fast when Tim sat down at a thing that looked like a gaming station, but was probably the navigation controls. "Where to, captain?"

A valid question, indeed. One I couldn't answer. But if the multiverse was ours to explore, only time and destiny would judge my decisions. I waved my hand in the general direction of the sparkling stars and the great unknown in front of us.

"Bring us out there."