Delight of the Navigator - Episode III of the Oxbrain in Space Series

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Crossword Adventures with Oxbrain

Episode III:
The UFO turns out to be easy for Oxbrain to fly, and he christens his little spaceship the
"Delight of the Navigator"
by John T Sherman
Illustrated by Katie Burgess

_____ In our last episode, Oxbrain fumes in frustration when he is left in an abandoned UFO.
_____ It dawned on Oxbrain that he was totally alone in the UFO, and that he had to figure out how the spacecraft worked if there was to be any hope of his returning home. He peered out of a porthole and gasped-- for directly below was the Milky Way galaxy in all its immense glory, covering half the sky, perhaps a hundred thousand light years away.
_____TThe galaxy beckoned, like a city at night might beckon to a little boy as he peers out of an airplane window as it circles to land, or like a huge amusement park at dusk, seen from atop a ferris wheel. Immense. Wondrous. Lonely. And somewhere, one of the billions of lights below was home... but which one?
_____He turned to the array of computers and screens in the ship. Some showed star positions and flight paths, and rows upon rows of numerical data.
_____ At a small recess to the side was a chair, and a screen displaying a caricature of a face with a puzzled expression. Oxbrain sat down in the chair, and realized that telepathic instructions were being fed directly into his brain, instructions on how to operate the ship. He learned that by pressing the correct sequence of buttons on the main computer terminal, the ship would retrace its flight back to earth.
_____He immediately got up, and remembering the instructions, pressed a bunch of oddly-marked buttons on the keypad. On the screen, a 3-D image of the galaxy resolved, showing a line projecting the ship's path back to Earth.
_____ Imperceptibly at first, the ship began its mind-boggling descent back to Earth. Now moving at thousands of times the speed of light, from the ship's vantage point the galaxy seemed to spin slowly. Old stars glowed red and then extinguished like lights in a Christmas display, while supernovas flashed across the galaxy like lightbulbs at a rock concert. Stars ignited in their cloudy cradles-- the whole galaxy came alive and fast-forwarded in time as the ship hurtled with mind-numbing speed into the present.
_____ Oxbrain was ecstatic that he was headed back home, and began dancing around the bridge, twirling like a madman as the Milky Way swirled behind him.
_____ The spacecraft skirted the galaxy and circled it for a while, like a car on a beltway. It swerved left and then swung right at Proxima Centauri. Oxbrain hummed a tune to himself and fancied himself on a giant roller coaster.
_____ Well now, everything looks just fine and dandy, doesn't it, Oxbrain? You're home free (or are you...?) Let's see what happens in the next episode, but for now, have fun going home...

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