The Rings of Salammis

The Rings - Part 4

    Now that they had a basic grasp of the principles of orbital dynamics, it took them just a couple of hours to speed past the smallest moon and take up position alongside the globe. As the Ship of Space nudged itself to within twenty feet of the object, Saturn and Thomas, floating above the equatorial walkway, could see how one side of it had been pitted and blasted by violent energies leaving it scorched and blackened, and there was no doubt in either of their minds that the outer shell of the object had been designed to protect something inside. Something that was still active. Both of them could feel the waves of magical force emanating from it, so powerful that Saturn considered moving the ship a little further away in case it interfered with any of the ship's magics.

     "Can we remove the outer shell?" asked Thomas across the Farspeaking link Saturn had created between them.

     "Possibly," replied the elder wizard, "but I would prefer to know what I can expect to find inside first. I precast a divination spell before coming out here and I want to see what it can tell us first."

     "Most divination spells need you to touch the object," pointed out Thomas.

     "Yes, and this one is no different." He produced a coiled length of light rope from inside his robes and tied one end of it to the railing. "It has been known for centuries that two magical objects feel a very slight attraction to each other. Down on Tharia this is too slight to be noticed, but up here it should be enough to hold me in contact with the globe." He tied the other end of the rope around his waist.

     Thomas felt a grudging admiration for his superior. That was not something he would have been happy to attempt, no matter what the reward in new knowledge. "Be careful," he said as Saturn gathered himself up into a ball and launched himself out into space.

     The first two times he missed the globe and Thomas had to pull him back to try again. The third time he touched the globe, but was unable to stop himself from bouncing off. Except for the scars of heat and meteorite impacts the globe was perfectly smooth. There was nothing for him to grab hold of. The fourth time, though, Saturn pushed himself away as gently as possible, with only the tiniest flexing of his feet against the railing, and although he was a little off course he was now moving slowly enough for the attractive force he'd mentioned to gather him in. He touched the globe as gently as a feather and was then held against it by a force so feeble that the slightest twitch of a muscle would have sent him drifting off again. Hardly daring to breathe, he made the tiny hand movement that triggered the precast divination spell.

     Thomas watched in breathless excitement as Saturn clung spread eagled to the globe like a spider on a tennis ball. Another man might have laughed aloud at the incongruous, rather undignified spectacle he made, but no such thought entered the younger wizard's head. To him, this was simply the only way to obtain essential information, and that was why Saturn had chosen him to assist him in this venture, forbidding anyone else from leaving the ship. Saturn had read Thomas's mind inside and out on many occasions and knew he didn't have a single derisive bone in his body. He could, without any fear of appearing foolish or ridiculous, do things in front of Thomas that fear of losing dignity would have prevented him from doing in front of anyone else.

     Saturn remained silent for several minutes, concentrating intently, before commanding Thomas to pull him back again. He looked thoughtful as he drifted back to the railing, and Thomas had to prompt him before he would share what he'd learned.

     "Very little," the elder wizard replied. "Only two things, really. First, it is indeed a protective shell, as we suspected. Designed to shield something inside. It has apparently served its purpose now, however. There appears to be no reason why it can't now be removed. Indeed, I seemed to sense that it should have been removed long ago. Whoever created it and placed it here has apparently never made use of it."