master in the sky

“A long time ago all ships were propelled by sails only”, the Skymaster of the excuse for a ship that I lucklessly find myself on after leaving Talinn behind tells me somewhat redundantly. His cabin is a mess, his beard a tangle and his eyes perpetually crossed. But his kite is perfect. He reminds me of those honorable gauchos who would feed their horse before feeding themselves.
At some point after a long time ago, ships were powered by one or another derivative of hydrocarbon. Then it ran out. Now ships are propelled by a combination of wind and solar power. The Skymaster’s job is to fly the enormous kite attached to the bow of the ship. The Solmaster looks after the solar panels.
“There is no justification for that lazy good-for-nothing narcissist’s existence on this ship”, he informs me as we make our way up what would have been the quarterdeck 400 years ago. I worry about his eyes doing a 360° rotation in his head.
From this I gather that the Skymaster and the Solmaster don’t get along. It seems to be a tradition of sorts on ships; stemming from their inherently different psychological makeup (insert any large number of favorite neuroses here) required by the skills that essentially are fundamentally, directly and even diametrically opposed. Basically, to use my least favorite garbage word, the Skymaster needs to be a control freak, never not having his full attention on the kite. The Solmaster goes for a tan amongst his solar panels while they suck up the juice. Needless to say that lazy good-for-nothing narcissist is the nicest thing a Skymaster has to say about a Solmaster.
“Used to be I was kiting just for the heck of it. Strap myself in, float above water, say hello to the gods.”
“Are all Skymasters former kite boarders” I ask.
“I wouldn’t say that all Kite Boarders become Skymasters. But all Skymasters certainly are Kite Boarders.”
Since we are about to head up to the SkyCon, the lookout from which the Skymaster controls the Kite, I decide to overlook his slightly cryptomanic Sagan reference. The SkyCon is raised 20 feet above the bow on a spindle of a pole. I am afraid to get up into it at the same time as the Skymaster. It looks flimsy.
“It only looks like it will be carried away with the slightest breeze. There is some nano-shit in there, keeps it from getting ripped out”. He proceeds to tell me in much too much detail how the kite is attached to the SkyCon. None of which I believe because how can the power from a 5000m² kite be transmitted to a ship displacing 10k tons through a spindle of a pole, no matter how much really small shit is in there? If you don’t believe me, wrap a kite line around your index finger and let a 2m² kite drop down into speed.
In the SkyCon the Skymaster straps himself into a climber’s safety harness on steroids which is suspended in the middle of the SkyCon by six lines of fiber that are too thin to see. The lines from this low-grade spider web lead through small holes to the outside.
“Step back into that recess, unless you want your head lopped off by these lines. There is some nano…”
“… shit in there, keeps it from being ripped off, I know, I know” says I as I step.
“Right, let’s grab some sky.”
He taps a button on the floor with his left big toe (he is barefoot) and a trap door opens below the bow of the ship. After small clanking noises ebb away, a piece of fabric starts to unfurl from the trap door. It seems to be suspended by nothing and raised by magic. Then I notice the morning sun glinting of the lines leading from the kite over various pulleys to where I stand. In fact the lines attached to the kite are the same lines leading from the low-grade spider web out the holes of the SkyCon. I have to fight a sudden urge to vacate the area as I have visions of nano-shit strengthened lines snapping and reducing the Skymaster and me to small heaps of steaming meat and puddles of slowly cooling blood. The Skymaster proves that he smells my fear because he snaps the lines in the wind which is catching in the piece of fabric that at this point does not look like a kite but like a used Pariser (you need to be from Vienna to get this, sorry). The nano-strength snapping sounds like a 45 going of behind my left ear. I tell him where he can shove his practical jokes unless he wants me to perform nasty forms of ritual rape and torture on his firstborn. He doesn’t take this seriously, probably because he is twice as large as I am, but nevertheless stops snapping the lines. My guess is that that’s just not good for all the nano-shit, and who would want that to hit the fan?
Slowly, the kite unfurls to its full size, which is intimidating. No wonder this guy thinks he is the king of the world in his little SkyCon above the bow. It takes an hour to deploy the kite fully, at which point it is suspended 500 meters above the ocean, making lazy eights in the sky. He calls it m8ing.
By the time this is achieved I have come to understand a simple truth about Skymasters. They are a higher evolved species then you and I. Strapped into their harness on steroids, suspended a couple of inches above ground by invisible lines, they perform a ballet more elegant than the Bolshoi. They calibrate the monster at the end of their lines with such finesse as to boggle the mind. At this point I could emasculate you with certain intimidating mathematical formulas that describe to you in detail the staggering power that is transmitted from this kite to the ship, while the interface between the two is a single human who is attached to both by lines that you can’t see. But I won’t. Suffice it to say it’s like having a medium-sized jet engine strapped to your ass with twine.
Two of the lines are attached to the harness at his hips and one each to his arms and legs. Every time the Skymaster pulls on a line in his spider web, turns his hips slightly, traces a circle with his left leg, or produces any number of cryptic movements, the kite in the sky obeys. I am entranced as this superhuman performs pirouettes in the SkyCon while the kite leverages his every move. Complicated patterns that only become apparent at their midpoint leave me undecided if I would rather watch a hairy, dirty, cross-eyed sailor perform ballet that is mildly influenced by Arabesque and fully suspended in midair, or a condom the size of a soccer pitch m8ting in the sky.
In the end I only resolve that we seem to still evolve. Even though we may not see it for our perspective is too limited.