The Rings of Salammis

The Rings - Part 2

     Arriving back on the bridge, Saturn demanded a report from Timothy Birch. The cleric told him that he'd seen nothing leaving Tharia and heading out into space, although he pointed out again that he wasn't able to watch the whole planet. Saturn nodded, then put on a Coronet of Farspeaking for an update from Seskip on the progress of the interrogation.

     "There were six of them," the Head Proctor informed him. "Haskar believes that the others are long gone by now. They had a system of hidden signs along the mountain path, changed every day, to tell each other that all was well. When the signs were not updated following our discovery of their hideout, Haskar believes that his colleagues will have been tipped off and fled. We have now updated the signs, of course. It may not be too late."

     "Have you learned anything else of interest?" asked Saturn.

     "Nothing much. They were apparently motivated solely by the fear that we would enslave them if we were able to reach their world. Their experiences with the race they know only as the Masters have left them paranoid on that point. They meant us no harm. They simply hoped that we would abandon the Rossem Project if they hampered us enough. Schoena Scull's death was a tragic accident. Not that that's any excuse, of course. I'll be conferring with the Director later today, discussing a suitable punishment for them."

     "He'd better not go soft on them," growled Saturn angrily. "What they did was an act of war."

     "I'll make sure he remembers that," agreed the Head Proctor. "Soon, we'll know the exact location of their world, and I'm going to be pressing him for a punitive strike in the near future. Evaluate their defences, that sort of thing."

     Saturn scowled. He agreed with what Seskip was saying, but to be told by a man he considered a mere functionary... He should remember his place, he thought, being careful not to transmit these thoughts over the Farspeaking link. His job is just to enforce the laws, keep the students in line, not dictate policy. He's getting above himself.

     It was Saturn's own fault, of course. He'd been away from the valley much too much lately. First on the mission to the Southern Continent and now aboard the Ship of Space. He needed to be back in the University, keeping an eye on things. The trouble was, he also needed desperately to be in charge of this mission searching for the Shipbuilder civilisation. That was not a job he dared leave to any lesser man. What he needed was to find a man he could trust to look after things in the valley while he was away, or he might return to find the Director firmly in the Head Proctor's pocket, with no easy way to remedy the situation.

     It occurred to him that these were dangerous thoughts to be thinking while he had a Farspeaking link open to his rival. All it would take was one mistake, and Seskip was not a man to make an enemy of. Not openly, anyway. "Good," he said, therefore. "Let me know if you learn anything more of importance."

     It felt good to give the upstart a direct order, senior wizard to mere functionary, and he thought he detected a trace of anger in the Head Proctor's acknowledgement. A moment later the connection was broken and he removed the Coronet with a grimace of satisfaction.

     He looked at the ring, still turning in the scrying mirror, and brought his attention back to the matter at hand. He looked again at the markings engraved around the inner and outer edges. The motion of the ring made it hard to see them properly. There were details he couldn't quite make out. Never mind, there'd be plenty of time to inspect it later.

     "Can we attach a line to it?" asked Timothy.

     "Not while it's still spinning," replied Saturn. "And even if it weren't spinning, towing it with a line would risk pulling it into a collision with us. There is a magic spell that will do the job, but it requires spoken words and we know from experiments conducted on the surface of Kronos that you need air to speak magic words. Even wearing Necklaces of Vacuum Breathing, you can't speak in a vacuum." He sighed. "It may be possible to pre-cast it."