Chapter 18: Voyager

"And may God keep safe all those who sail in her."

With those words, the First Lady pressed the button that swung a bottle against the hull of the Voyager. It burst with a satisfying display of froth. The expression on her face suggested that it was not always so satisfying.

A cheer went up from the assembled crowd. The First Lady turned and the cheering renewed itself. She waved. The President took her arm and they led the platform contingent down the steps. I moved up to their side and escorted them to the Officers' mess for lunch.

After lunch, we gave the crew time to board the Voyager before we took ourselves for the grand tour. I accompanied the President and the First Lady. The party that followed us round included Captain Groves, Lieutenant-Commander Chalmers, and Bob Mather. We started the tour on deck one, the lowest, at the stern of Voyager. I explained that there had been some minor changes from the specifications arrived at the conference held in Washington. For example, the conference had not anticipated the inclusion of a flag officer aboard.

At the stern, there were twenty shuttles encapsulated down both quarters. Susan and I demonstrated how we entered the shuttles and then went on to show how we dispatched the message drones from the stern. Forward of the shuttle bays are the heavy mechanical workshops, specimen storage for geological and biological specimens and the laboratories. Forward of the laboratories are the quarters for the non-commissioned scientists

It was the First lady who spotted large unused areas on deck one. I explained that these areas concealed the components of the undercarriage. Further forward still we arrived at a large conference room. Then in the bow we entered the Captains office to starboard. I told the party that my office to port was identical. Between the two was the bridge. The main obvious difference between our bridge and those in Star Trek is at the front. Ours has a large observation viewport with screens above it. There isn't an ops position and the helmsman is sunk well below the eye line of the Command positions.

"Isn't it like the bridge of the 'Star trek' ships?" asked the President.

"Yes," I replied. "They got that more or less right, even though they put it in the wrong position on the ship. Have you noticed that there is only one position in the lowest part of the bridge? That's for the helmsman. The seats on the level behind the helmsman comprise the command level. They are for the Captain, First Officer and myself. Back here are the remaining bridge positions. Let's go up to deck two. We will have to climb up the steps though as I'm afraid we don't have Star Trek's turbo lifts ... yet."

I led the party out of the bridge and up the port-side stairs. Deck two is principally engineering. Forward are a pair of forty-inch Cassegrain telescopes, which are used stereoscopically or independently. Instead of the all round telescopes that I had installed in the Enterprise, we had a better coverage of small video cameras with forty-to-one zoom lenses. Behind the telescopes, in the center of the vessel is the drive room and the adjacent workshops. The drive room held two complete drives in a fore and aft layout. We had found that by using this arrangement we could dispense with the flywheel that we had used on the Enterprise. At the stern of deck two are the engineers' quarters.

Climbing to deck three, we entered the forward lounge, which also served as the mess. The large view port in the bow gave a good view to the front of the vessel. The front half of the mess is double height. The Officers Mess on deck four stops short of the bow giving a magnificent view out of the panoramic bow viewport. I explained to the party that the slight tint to the port was due to the metallic layer which preserved the essential conductivity that existed throughout the surface of the hull.