The Crash

The space ship was a sentient one, which means that it was, in a way, alive. It could see through its sensors and process what it saw. It could also sense that its dimensional engines were no longer working. It realized that if it crashed into something, it could be destroyed. And it knew that if it was destroyed, its sentience would end.

Therefore, the ship, which was called Tanhi, immediately cut out its power engines, as well, and "hit the brakes."

The trajectory of the ship continued to bring it right toward the Polar Bear Library, but now it was slowing down precipitously. It also flashed, very briefly, on the Distant Early Warning (DEW) sensors, but too quickly for anyone to see it.

Tanhi fired its retro rockets, and landed...very gently...on the roof of the Polar Bear Library.

Inside the building, Wordsworth was alone. The rest of the complement of her fellow librarians had left just minutes ago. But she had wanted to do some research with one of the books in the reference section, and those books were not allowed out of the library...even if one was a librarian!

Wordsworth heard a tremendous crash on the roof above her, and the very building itself seemed to shake. [The concept of "very gently," when talking about a rocket ship, is a relative one.]

"What the..." said Wordsworth.

She ran out of the building, turned to look up, and saw the sleek lines of a rocket ship, its nose pointed toward the sky.

As she looked at it...it shimmered and disappeared.




Vocabulary
sentient - having the power of perception by the senses; conscious
sentience - capacity for sensation or feeling
"hit the brakes" - When a phrase is surrounded by quotation marks, that is alerting the reader that the phrase is being used to convey a certain meaning. For example, the driver of a car "hits the brakes" with his foot. A rocket has an entirely different braking system! But using that phrase conveys the same meaning.
precipitously - to bring about suddenly
retro rockets - a small, auxiliary rocket engine, part of a larger rocket vehicle, with its exhaust nozzle pointed toward the direction of flight, for decelerating the larger rocket or separating one stage from another
complement - the full number of officers and crew required on a ship, not to be confused with a compliment: an expression of praise, commendation, or admiration
very building itself seemed to shake - a poetic way of emphasizing the subject of the sentence. "Very" in this context means "being such in the true or fullest sense of the term"
relative - something having, or standing in, some relation to something else, not to be confused with a family relative, such as parents, aunts, etc.
shimmered - to appear to quiver or vibrate