This is a little light relief in the moderately serious novella War and Space
The Space
Cowboys Complaints
We, the space cowboys of the Interstellar Exploration Ship
‘Highway to Heaven’, are not happy. We
generally like it on board our vessel, and our Cows like it as well. The Cows are specially bred Jersey
Cattle. They are the most docile and
intelligent cows in the universe. But
when the ship was trying to avoid the alien beam weapon and missile we were all
sloshing around in the acceleration tanks. Just imagine what it is like to be with a herd of Cows in water for
hours while the ship is accelerating at 6 g and changing course erratically.
We understand that Cattle are too big to take high
accelerations so they have to be immersed in water while the ship takes evasive
action.
We like our captain; he is very approachable and
reasonable. When we told him the problem
and asked if he could guarantee that there would be no violent evasive action
when we go back to the aliens, he could not give us the assurance we needed. We took him up on his offer to not go on the
ship this voyage. Now we are looking
after our Space Cows on a farm in Victoria.
All our Cows were born in space. They suffer from agoraphobia; we have to be
with them all the time to keep them from panicking. And they miss our regular sessions in the
acceleration tanks. We have to go in the
farm dam with them for an hour each day. It is cold in Victoria
this time of the year so we wear wet suits.
We explained to the neighbours what we are doing, but
passers by give us very strange looks.
This extract also appears on Steve's personal website at: