The Rings of Salammis

Off Course - Part 2

     "Could something be interfering with the propulsion spells?" ventured Thomas timidly. "Making them send us off in the wrong direction, or something?"

     "The Gods alone know," replied Saturn wearily, rubbing his eyepatch with the heel of his hand. "There's so much magic aboard this ship, some if it must interfere even despite the shayen separation magics. As much magic as a small kingdom, contained in a metal ball twenty five yards across. We could all be turned into insects at any moment.”

     He paused while he took a deep breath to steady himself. “May I ask why none of you used the Helm of Farsensing in my absence? If you had, you would have seen for yourself where we actually were.”

     “Well, the thing is, there’s only the one helmet at the moment,” said Thomas, a little sheepishly. “I know that the eventual plan is for every member of the bridge crew to have his own, but at the moment there's just the one, which you seem to have claimed for yourself.” He smiled his embarrassment. “The rest of us were a little scared to touch it in case you got angry.”

     Saturn stared in disbelief. “What are you? A wizard or an infant?”

     "At least we can get home safely if we need to," said Timothy, trying to inject a cheerful tone. "We know the teleportation chamber works. The clay man used it."

     "Yes, we can all get home safely enough," the elderly wizard replied, "but if we can't control the ship's flight it becomes useless to us."

     "Could it be sabotage?" asked Prup Chull. "Perhaps the clay man did something else before attacking the Orb of Skydeath Protection."

     "That is certainly a possibility, my good friend," said Tana Antallan, "but why would it do such a thing? If it was confident that it could kill all of us without damaging the ship, why would it reduce the value and usefulness of the prize? Besides, if my understanding of the timescale is correct it had only a few minutes between leaving the soldiers and being interrupted by master Gown." He inclined his head to the younger wizard, who smiled gratefully back. "It simply did not have the time to do anything else. It must be a flaw in the ship itself, therefore. I suggest a series of test manoeuvres to see if we can identify the problem."

     "Why not?" replied Saturn with weary resignation. "Can't do any harm. Very well. We can use Kronos as a reference point. Let's try a little thrust directly towards it, say about a couple of thousand miles an hour. That'll give us plenty of time to swerve away if we find ourselves on a collision course."

     Rin Wellin, in the chamber above, heard the instructions and gave the necessary words of command to the Orb of Propulsion.

     Saturn had configured the mirror so that it showed a magnified view of the tiny moon as seen from the ship, as if they were seeing it through a telescope, and for a few moments they all gave sighs of relief as it began to swell before them, visibly growing closer. Maybe the shae folk had simply given the wrong instructions to the Orb, they were all thinking. It happened. Everyone was fallible, even the shae folk, and it could easily be that they had, in all innocence, said the wrong word, sending them in the wrong direction. If that was really all that had happened...

     Thomas imagined the shae folk sheepishly hanging their heads, the others subjecting them to a little good natured ribbing, maybe even Saturn himself, and then all of them having a good laugh as they remembered how worried they'd been. Their relief that the problem had just evaporated away. The Orb certainly seemed to be behaving itself now, at any rate...

     Then, with a sick feeling of horror, they saw the tiny moon begin to drift, ever so slowly, away from the centre of the mirror. "We're changing course," said Timothy softly, as if afraid that speaking too loudly would make the problem worse.