The Worlds of the Sheaf

Veglia - Part 7

     The chamber took up most of the interior of the ship. There was perhaps a couple of yards between the outer hull and the inner skin that formed the walls. In places the inner skin had been cut away to reveal a labyrinthine network of pipes and tubes, and here and there little red and yellow lights flashed at him.

     He wondered what this ship had been like back in its heyday. Where it had been, what marvels it had witnessed. He wondered what the Masters had been like and what had driven them to cross the gulfs of space. Was it just conquest? Were they really little more than space shologs? Or did they have another side? A peaceful, maybe even a noble side? He reminded himself that human soldiers were rarely the finest specimens of their race, and contemplated what an impartial observer might make of the human race if they only had soldiers to observe.

     There might even be several races or nations of Masters, some of which might be nicer to know than the ones that had enslaved the felisians. Maybe they were still around somewhere. Maybe they would come across them at some point during the course of their mission. Captain Strong might even seek them out deliberately. After all, there could be little doubt that they'd been exploring the Worlds of the Sheaf a lot longer than the felisians. They would be much more likely to know where the Shipbuilders came from.

     He completed his circuit of the room and returned to the older wizard, who'd moved to stand beside the felisians and had his head cocked to one side, as if listening. He's reading their minds, Thomas realised. The older wizard lacked any consideration for the mental privacy of others and read their minds as a matter of routine, simply taking whatever knowledge he wanted without bothering to ask. Thomas knew, he'd had it done to him plenty of times. It was just as well he didn't have any deep, dark secrets to be ashamed of. He waited patiently for the older wizard to finish and step away from the felisians, back to the control console, where they could talk in whispers without being overheard.

     Saturn started touching the glass surface in various places, watching as symbols appeared and changed in response, accompanied by the occasional flash of colour from one or other of the geometric shapes. Apart from that, though, nothing else happened. The board had been disconnected from whatever it had once controlled.

     "You knew Elmias Pastin, didn't you?" asked Saturn, glancing around at the younger wizard.

     "Yes, indeed," replied Thomas. "He was my favourite teacher."

     "He used to bring things back from other universes," Saturn said, looking down at the console thoughtfully. "Things that operated on principles other than magic. Mental energy, for example, or natural philosophy. Some of the natural philosophy artefacts he brought back were similar in some respects to this tabletop. They had tiny levers and rotating knobs and gave the impression of being cruder than this device. At an earlier stage of sophistication perhaps. There was the same sense of function, though. The sense that they were devices that controlled other devices."

     "You think the masters used natural philosophy?" asked Thomas in fascination.

     "It certainly seems that way. Did you sense any magic in here?"

     "No, master. Not even the slightest trace."

     Saturn nodded. "Not unexpected. It was sheerest wishful thinking that our search would be over so quickly. Natural philosophy uses the power of lightning channeled through wires of copper or gold. There was no trace of wire in any of the reconstructions of the Rossem ship our divination spells conjured up. It was definitely powered by magic, not natural philosophy. I think we can be quite certain now that the Masters were not our Shipbuilders."