by Roger Moore
“Maybe we’d better get back to the ship,” said Aelfred, rising to his feet, his cup forgotten on the ground. “We can ask our multilegged friends if this is natural and harmless, or if we’re supposed to scream now.”
“Aelfred,” said Sylvie. “If the sun is —”
“You no fear,” said a chirping, singsong voice behind them. They turned in surprise to see a tall rastipede approaching, its eight legs thumping softly through the undergrowth. Teldin couldn’t tell if it was the leader he had spoken with earlier. They all looked so much alike.
“Sun is healthy,” said the insect-centaur. “Sun have not much light now. World is dark soon. World you have no night? You fear dark?”
“You mean the sun is going out?” Teldin asked in amazement. His nose twitched, but he fought the urge to sneeze. “We are not afraid of the night, but we thought there was no night here because the sun couldn’t set.”
“I not listen you true,” said the rastipede, twisting its head slightly. “You say ‘set’? What is ‘set’?”
Teldin started to explain what a sunset was, but the urge to sneeze overcame him too rapidly. He backed away, trying not to fall over, as he sneezed violently two dozen times in a row. Sylvie abruptly took over for him, quickly explaining to the rastipede the rudiments of day and night on spherical worlds. The rastipede appeared to be even more confused as she spoke, asking a stream of strange questions, until Sylvie finally gave up.
“It’s no use,” she said. “They’ve lived here for so many generations that they don’t remember what it’s like to live on a regular planet. They’ve never seen their sun set. The sun just goes out, and it gets dark. The sun goes back on again eventually, and that’s dawn here.” She looked up at the rapidly darkening star. Teldin looked up, too, and found that he could now see the sun’s broad, reddened disk clearly. It was featureless and smooth, seemingly perfect.
Aelfred dropped his gaze. “I’m in serious need of a drink. If there’s anything left of that little keg of ale we pulled off the ship, let’s drain it and get some sleep. This place has been very entertaining, but I’ve almost lost all sense of time. And you,” he said, nudging Sylvie again, “you need your beauty est. You’ve worked too hard. I’m your captain, and I’m ordering you to turn yourself in for a nap.”
“Will you tuck me in?” Sylvie asked straight-faced, then glanced at Teldin and colored, biting her lip.
Aelfred saw her expression and laughed, putting his arm around her. “Sure, I’ll tuck you in,” he said. “Excuse us, Teldin. I’ve got some official duties to perform.”
Sylvie mumbled something in embarrassment as Aelfred led her away to the ship. Teldin managed to smile in spite of himself, then sneezed and sneezed until he felt he would never stop. When he finally finished, exhausted, he looked up and noticed that the rastipede was gone, too.
Grandfather, he thought to himself as the red sun went out overhead, the things you’ve missed. If I die from this wretched allergy and find you by Paladine’s side, I’m going to tell you some tales that will lay you out all over again.
*****
Nightfall could not have come soon enough for the ship’s tired crew. Dyffed and the other gnomes, once they had gotten used to the phenomenon, watched the sun go out until the gnomes were nearly incapacitated from stiff necks. During the sun’s fade-out, the gnomes built a bonfire and talked with the rastipedes until exhaustion overcame the former and they fell asleep across the lakeshore in every possible spot. The insect folk stayed up, moving to and fro among the sleeping travelers and keeping guard over them.
Teldin watched it all, unable to sleep because of his allergy. The rastipedes were changing their guard in shifts, he noticed; a few would leave together just as other rastipedes would approach the informal encampment. He decided the new creatures were fresh from the underground home that Aelfred had spoken of. It was impossible to tell, really, but as a theory it wasn’t a bad one. If they were communicating by smell, as Aelfred had suggested earlier, then they were “talking” up a storm.
Teldin found Gaye asleep under a tree, wrapped in a light blanket that Teldin recognized in the firelight as having come from his cabin aboard the ship. The night air was warm enough that he didn’t think she really needed it, but he wasn’t in the mood to bother her about it. After making sure she was in good shape, he got up and continued his slow walk around the lakeshore, sniffing and sneezing and wishing, just a little bit, that he could cut off his nose.
His feet finally brought him to the numerous poles and ropes strung from the lakeshore to a hastily built framework about a hundred feet inland, on which the Perilous Halibut rested about a man’s height off the ground. The ship’s tail fin had been straightened, the oars and propeller drive had been repaired with the rastipedes astounding carpentry skills, and the two large mounds of active fur tied on long rope tethers to a nearby tree attested to the complete recovery of the giant hamsters. Teldin listened to the hamsters’ rumbling reeep! reeep! sounds, then turned away, shaking his head and smiling despite his sinus agony.
It was then that Teldin heard a faint, deep voice from the other side of the ship. He stopped and listened, trying to make out the words, but the noise from the obviously nocturnal giant hamsters drowned it out. He hesitated for a moment, then walked toward the source of the talking as quietly as he could.
“We should leave in the morning, shortly after the sun lights up,” he heard the voice say. It sounded like Gomja. He must be talking with a rastipede leader, one that could cast a language-translating spell. He knew from talking with Sylvie and other wizards that such a spell was fairly minor, but the idea that insects could cast spells at all still surprised him, even when he felt nothing could surprise him anymore.
Still moving in silence, Teldin rounded the side of the ship. It was impossible to see anything clearly in the darkness. The bonfire was far on the other side of the ship, and Teldin had noticed earlier that the sky had no stars; it was pitch black above him, though he imagined he could see faint, distant lights near the horizon.
“No, they’ve been very friendly so far,” Gomja’s voice said. “Our situation is quite good. We shouldn’t need any assistance unless … oh.” Teldin heard a rustling in the darkness. “Sir? Is that you?”
“Who are you talking to?” Teldin asked. He wished his eyes would stop tearing up. He could barely see as it was. He walked forward slowly, one hand out to keep from walking into the wooden struts holding up the Perilous Halibut. “I thought I heard you talking with someone.”
“Oh,” said Gomja. Teldin heard something big move right in front of him, and he stopped. He could hear the giff breathing hoarsely and rapidly, perhaps only ten feet away. “I, um, was talking with myself, sir. Forgive me for that. I don’t do it very often.”
“I don’t mind,” said Teldin, puzzled. He looked around, seeing and hearing no other being. “I just thought that … well, forget it. You should get some sleep, First Colonel-Commander. We could have a busy day tomorrow.”
“Yes, sir!” said Gomja, heartily and quickly. “I’ll turn in in a short while, not long at all. I was having trouble getting used to things here, I’m afraid. You must admit, sir, that this is a very queer place.” Teldin heard the giff yawn. It was still too dark to see more than Gomja’s outline.
Teldin nodded, then turned to go. “Well, good night to you. Let’s hope we get off the ground without any trouble. We have a giant four-legged beast to find, Dyffed says. I don’t want you to blink and miss it.”
“Oh, very good, sir!” Gomja said, laughing briefly. “Good night to you, too!”
Teldin made his way back around the ship to the vicinity of the campfire. He wiped his face with his hands, feeling his thick moustache and realizing how long it had been since he’d shaved. He’d have to take care of that first thing in the morning. Was this antimagical lake water good to shave with? He’d know soon enough.
He found a spot at random and lay down, settling himself near a tree,
and forced himself to relax and ignore his sinuses. It was difficult, but he managed to drift off after a long period and enter a realm full of strange and bothersome dreams.
He was in his room aboard the Perilous Halibut with Gaye. It was night, and she was leaning close to him. “Teldin,” she said softly. He could smell her perfume as she started to reach for him. He knew they were doing wrong, and they were about to crash. The ship was falling straight down toward the other side of the darkened sphere, falling like a rock from an infinite tower. He tried to hold on to something and tried to protect Gaye, but he couldn’t find a way to do it. They were falling toward the sea on the far side of the black sphere. In the sea were monstrous shapes greater than whales, their blackness darker than the night-lit waters in which they swam. “Teldin” Gaye said, holding his face. A titanic shark leaped out of the sea, its white-fanged mouth wider than a world. It wasn’t going to miss them.
“Teldin, wake up!” Gaye said, shaking his arm. He blinked, then involuntarily shielded his face against the brilliant sky. Gaye looked down at him, her black tangled hair littered with small sticks and bits of leaves and grass. “Time to get up. The sun’s on again! Boy, you slept like a rock!”
*****
After two hours of traveling straight up, Teldin could see that the footprint shape of the lake was much clearer. His sinuses clearing up at last, he stared out of his cabin porthole, feeling a curious sense of deja vu. Hadn’t he done this before? He had the feeling that someone was about to enter his cabin, but he shrugged off the feeling and concentrated on the view. He guessed that they were about seventy miles up.
Loomfinger was on the helm for now. Sylvie had slept badly the night before, and she was so exhausted that she could not be awakened. Aelfred had made the helm substitution so the ship could get on its way as soon as possible. With enough altitude, Aelfred hoped the ship’s speed would increase regardless of who ran it. Then, too, if they had to find a beast like the one that had made those unbelievable footprints, they would need all the altitude they could get.
Someone knocked on Teldin’s door. Gaye, he thought, not quite sure why he believed it was her. He heaved a sigh and left the bed, walking over to his door. He crouched as he opened it, to avoid banging his head on the door frame.
“Ah, Teldin!” cried Dyffed. “Just the man I wanted to see, and here I am, seeing you!” The gnome gave a hearty chuckle. Dyffed had not changed his clothes in the last month; his brown tweed suit was fraying apart at the elbows, his lime-green shirt was a lifeless green-brown, and his bright yellow tie was decorated with hundreds of food stains.
Maybe seeing Gaye wouldn’t have been such a bad idea, Teldin thought. “What do you want?” he asked tiredly.
“Miss Gaeadrelle Goldring informs me that you have the thingfinder!” Seeing Teldin’s blank expression, the gnome hurried on. “The thingfinder! Smallish crimson box, about so big, which I thought I had lost when the hamsters got loose but which Miss Gaeadrelle Goldring says she found and took with her when we left Ironpiece, then —”
“I’ve got it,” Teldin said, leaving the door open to walk back to his bed. He reached down and opened a drawer in a bedside dresser, then pulled out the red box. He gave it to Dyffed. “I forgot all about it. Forgive me for that.”
The bald gnome inspected the box, then gave Teldin a glowing smile. “Marvelous – it’s in perfect shape! You’ve taken excellent care of it, not what I would have expected from someone not born to the rigors and demands of science and technology, the exacting care that they – oops.” He gingerly withdrew and pocketed a broken gear fragment from the open back of the box. “Do hope that wasn’t important,” he muttered. He looked up at Tel Jin again, the incident forgotten. “As I was saying, let’s be off!”
“Off where?” Teldin asked cautiously.
“Why, off to find the fal, of course!” announced the gnome, as if the goal had been perfectly obvious from the start. “We’ll go topside and swing our little thingfinder around and see what thing we find!”
Teldin looked down at the red box as if it were a live serpent. He remembered the way the gnomes with Dyffed had ducked when it was pointed in their direction, back in the hangar on Ironpiece. “Is that thing dangerous to use?”
“Dangerous? You mean dangerous?” The gnome appeared astonished. “Why, not at all. It’s perfectly safe. There’s not a thing it could do to harm either of us. At least, not that I know of. I mean, my colleagues on Ironpiece had made only this one model, and they hadn’t had time to properly test it, but they gave me their utmost assurances that nothing could go wrong, nothing that they could possibly imagine. It’s as safe as the Bank of Ironpiece, Reorx bless it.” The gnome chewed his lower lip. “But I guess I shouldn’t say that now, should I. How fast they go. The bank had experienced some difficulties, but no one had thought …”
Five minutes later, the two were on the top deck. The wind wasn’t particularly troublesome because the gnome at the helm couldn’t give the spelljammer the speed that the more-experienced wizard Sylvie could, but Teldin still kept his cloak reduced to necklace length to keep it from flapping against him. He suddenly felt queazy about approaching the low railing around the top deck while the ship was in flight. The suddenness with which the ship had entered Herdspace and the excitement of the earlier air battle had negated all his nervousness before; now the situation was very different. He kept low, reaching the railing and sitting down next to it with one leg against a railing post for additional support.
There were few clouds around. Teldin remembered how clear the sky had been that morning, and he wondered if the weather was merely going through a pleasant period or if this was the natural state of things. With luck, they wouldn’t be in this crystal sphere long enough to find out.
Dyffed had no qualms about being on the top deck, and he peered over the side of the ship to the ground, now many miles below them. Teldin almost closed his eyes, not wanting to see the gnome fall over by accident. “Lovely view, just lovely,” murmured the gnome, then stood back with the red thingfinder in his hands. “Now, let’s see what we shall see.”
Teldin’s teeth gritted together as the gnome made a few adjustments inside the box, then raised it to his face. “We’re looking for our friend the falmadaraatha, One Six Nine, or old ‘Thirteen Squared,’ as we used to call him. That’s an inside joke, you see, because the value of thirteen squared is —”
“You’ve already told me about that,” said Teldin wearily. “Just let me know if you see anything.”
The gnome began scanning ahead of the ship, the wind whipping his filthy tie around his neck. “You see, this device works on a certain amount of latent psionic energy present in the mind of the operator. You need not be a fully accredited psionicist to use it, since we all possess a certain degree of —”
“Dyffed,” interrupted Teldin. “I haven’t the faintest idea of what you are talking about. Pretend that I’m stupid, then explain it to me.”
“Oh,” said the gnome. “Well, um, what you do … you think of something, then you look for it through here” – he indicated the dark glass window on the box with a finger – “and then the box front, here, lets you see the object. I tried to locate you once with this, before we left Ironpiece, and got the most curious reaction when this perfectly imbecilic moron got in the way. Would you believe that this silly box said that this obviously low-grade-but-still-gnomish gnome was actually you? I was quite annoyed, really. Thought I was going to have my funding cut off for it, but then the hamsters escaped, and you know, I can’t see a single thing through this.” The gnome lowered the red box and turned it over. “Ah. Forgot to turn it on.” He made a final adjustment, then looked through it again. “Ah, much better. One Six Nine, One Six Nine, One Six Nine … really quite a nice chap, I must say. Makes an excellent carrot dip. I remember once when I came here with —”
“Can you find the Spelljammer with that?” Teldin asked abruptly, amazed he hadn’t thought to ask before now.<
br />
“Why, certainly,” said Dyffed, “if it’s in this sphere, then we should...” The gnome swung the thingfinder in several wide arcs, eventually covering the range of the sky and ship. “Well, so much for that. Must be in another crystal sphere. Back to One Six Nine. Fine chap, as I was saying —”
“Dyffed,” interrupted Teldin again. “If you’ve been to this sphere before, and you’ve visited One Six Nine’s home, then why don’t you know the way to get there? Why didn’t you say anything about what we should expect when we got to this sphere, like these ‘megafauna’ you talk about?”
“What?” The gnome lowered the thingfinder and looked at Teldin in surprise. “Oh, well, I … I …” He looked confused, staring at the view wi th a vaguely troubled look. “I forgot about it, I’m afraid. Because this sphere pops ships inside it, so they never go through it, it’s almost impossible to come in where you want to be. You just can’t tell from the outside, you know. I also meant to tell you about the mega-fauna, I really did. I was going to say something about the antimagical water, too, since I’ve read some papers about that – quite fascinating, really. The megafauna’s tracks destroy all magical power beneath them, simply crush it out, voiding the dweomer. We are speaking of pressures greater than three point one four one five nine two six five three five nine times ten to the thirty-seventh power scruples per square acre, of course, far beyond any known magical tolerance levels, once the megafauna puts down its foot – a process which takes centuries, as you can imagine. There are local legends in Herd-space to the effect that eventually all of the megafauna will crush out ail magical power, and magic will cease to exist in this sphere. That’s the ‘Quiet Whimper’ theory, you see, and the other view is the ‘Unsteady State’ theory, in which the footsteps taken by megafauna after the magic is crushed out will then bring magic back. A fascinating idea, the latter, but, as yet, there’s no real —”
“Wait,” Teldin interrupted. “One more question: How do we get out of this sphere?”
