The Lost Star's Sea

by C. Litka

  06

  We missed the Halfway Islands. At the 30 round mark we began looking for the distant cloud bank that would be our first glimpse of the islands. By the 35th round, we'd pretty much abandoned hope. We had no real reason for calling on them, we were still well supplied, but it got everyone, save the Captain, wondering about how far off course we might be. Without the gyroscope record, the course had been plotted using the log which recorded the bright spot reading and the air current reading the Captain had taken twice a round. They had then undertaken to follow these readings and the course they described in reverse. Missing the Halfway Islands showed how small errors over time build up.

  The Captain did not seem concerned. 'The Halfway Islands are a tiny group of islands, the Saraime are not. We won't miss the Saraime.'

  True enough, though the Saraime Archipelago was divided into those five groups, they tended to be a month's sailing long, but only a few rounds sailing narrow. We were approaching them from their narrow end, and if we struck one of the inner seas, we could miss them entirely, though I'm sure that when the time came that we should be in the Saraime, and had not sighted them, we would alter our course inward to strike them? If we hadn't missed them "high" or "low". Navigating in a mass of moving air with only one point of reference over the course of 50 plus rounds is always going to be an iffy thing - without the "talent", as it proved to be.

  So we sailed on. Working watch on watch off, my engines kept my mind occupied so that I didn't have a lot of time to worry about navigation. If I wanted anything to worry about, I worried about the soul stones - and what ValDare, or indeed, any of the crew would do about them on our arrival back in the Saraime.

  I realized that word of the vast treasure trove of what I felt, at least, very dangerous wealth could not be kept secret. ValDare had sunk a great deal of coin into this project and to abandon it, along with the vids of the Dragon-people wearing the soul stone headdresses, would put a serious dent in his coin vault. I wasn't sure of where he stood on the matter. Scholar PinTin, and his students, dedicated to searching out the truth, would not likely turn a blind eye to one of the great mysteries of the Saraime either. I was, however, pretty sure they'd be in no hurry to return, even if they could raise the funds for the expedition, since they had a pretty good idea of what their reception would be - and the reliability of the crew that would take them there. The crew, well, they'd tell their tales. Nothing in the Saraime would keep them quiet, though, I suspected, that they'd be seen as spinners of fantastic tales, as I am. Captain KimTara's watch officers might be more creditable witnesses, if they talked. So the big unanswered question was if ValDare or anyone else would bet the fortune it would take to equip another expedition to find a tiny group of islands in an endless sea on their tale and vague directions. We only found the islands with DeArjen's talent. If Captain KimTara and her mates missed the Halfway Islands on our return voyage, the prospect of finding DeArjen's Islands in the Endless Sea 50 rounds distant, without a long and extensive search, even with one or more of those navigators on board, seemed pretty iffy. It would be a very long and costly project. In the end, I had to believe that only ValDare, who knew firsthand that the treasure existed, would be confident enough to mount such an expensive and potentially deadly expedition. I didn't press him on the matter, but I had the impression that his experiences with the Dragon-people - and the greed of anyone along with him - would make him very reluctant to return.