Jeff Crook: Conundrum

“The vibrations travel up the rope to the ringer, and by tapping on the boom with a hammer, you can send messages down to me as well,” the professor finished.

Commodore Brigg studied the piece of paper for a moment before handing it to Conundrum. “Looks confusing to me. Conundrum is better at these sorts of puzzles. He will be communications officer for this expedition,” he said.

While the professor and the commodore wished each other good luck, Conundrum examined the code. It was a simple system of dashes and dots representing the three hundred sixty-four characters in the Gnomish alphabets. They had seven alphabets, each used for different circumstances, like technical documents, politico-religious treatises, warning labels, and so on. The code seemed simple enough to him, so he tucked it away in a pocket of his vest.

With a final wave, the professor climbed inside the diving bell, his bladderpack bumping awkwardly against the edge. Finally, his heavy duck feet vanished up into the overturned kettle. They saw the light of his glowworm-globe shining faintly through the bell’s tiny porthole. A few moments later, the diving bell rang in a rapid series of thirty-six taps. Commodore Brigg turned to Conundrum, who was counting them out on his fingers and whispering to himself. After a moment’s thought, he said, “The professor says to lower away.”

The commodore turned and shouted down through the aft deck hatch, “Raise the bell.”

With ropes creaking and pulleys squeaking, the diving bell rose from the deck of the Indestructible. Conundrum swung the boom out to a point where the bell hung directly over a dark chasm visible through the green water in the floor of the cavern.

“Lower away!” the commodore shouted. “Slowly!”

The diving bell began to drop. As it touched the water, the ringer in the pulley began to tap out a message. “Stop!” the commodore shouted. The wench ground to a halt. He turned to Conundrum.

“He says, “See you on the other side,” " Conundrum translated with a snicker and a grin.

The commodore laughed. “Go ahead. Lower him down,” he ordered.

The wench shuddered to life again, and the diving bell slipped into the water. Conundrum stood at the stern and watched it sink slowly down through the gaping black chasm at the bottom of the flooded cavern. The rope, stiff as a pole, continued to slip down into the darkness, and the pulley creaked for want of lubrication. He grabbed a bottle of oil and climbed up onto the boom. It struck him as remarkable that, less than a year ago, he would have been terrified to climb out over the water on so narrow a beam. Now he scampered aloft like the nimblest of sailors without even a second thought.

When he had the pulley turning as silent as a whisper, Conundrum slipped back down to the deck. Commodore Brigg stood at the stern, staring down into the water and absently stroking his beard. He nodded to Conundrum, then began pacing the deck with his hands clasped behind his back. After a couple dozen circuits, he paused at the aft deck hatch to watch the endless coils of rope unspool and go quivering up and over the pulley and quietly down into the water. While he watched, a member of the crew attached another coil with a square sailor’s hitch.

“How many does that make, ensign?” he asked.

“Number ten, sir,” the gnome sailor answered, saluting.

“Ten!” the commodore exclaimed. “At a hundred foot apiece, that’s nearing a thousand feet.” He turned to Conundrum.

“Heard anything from below?” he asked.

“Nothing yet,” Conundrum answered. He leaned out, resting his hand on the boom to steady himself. “And the rope’s still going straight down.”

“Better make contact,” the commodore ordered.

Conundrum picked up a hammer and tapped out a quick message on the boom. An answer came back almost immediately.

“I think he says, ‘Nothing unusual yet,’ ” Conundrum translated after a few moments.

“What do you mean, you think he says?” the commodore asked.

“The message was a bit strange,” Conundrum said.

“Actually, it said, ‘Noth_ng unusususual yet_y.’ ”

“Could it have been garbled in transmission?”

“Not like that.”

The commodore called for Doctor Bothy. The portly ship’s physician hurried (as best he could) to the aft deck, where Conundrum repeated the professor’s message with its strange spelling.

“Ask him how he feels,” the doctor said, a worried frown on his face. Conundrum tapped out the query. The answer came back in disjointed segments… feel fyn 2…

“What did he say?” the commodore asked.

“I think he says he feels fine,” Conundrum answered.

Another tapped message arrived, startling them. W__base I __ beautiful.

“What does that mean?” Doctor Bothy asked.

Conundrum shrugged, already concentrating on another message ringing out on the pulley. “Thousand liquid yellow glowing submersibles, faces like moons.”

“Tell him this has gone too far!” the commodore shouted. “Tell him we are pulling him back up.”

Conundrum nodded and dutifully tapped out the message.

It came back, Not.

“You tell him I am ordering the wench reversed,” the commodore said, then turned and shouted to the crew in the engine room. “Prepare to detach the wench and re-attach in reversed position! Stand by the dyno!”

“What’s wrong?” Chief Portlost shouted from shore. He stood atop the crab, inside of which Captain Hawser sat, fingering the controls nervously.

“He’s having hallucinatory distractions of the optical nerve,” Doctor Bothy answered. “The commodore is pulling him back.”

To which the chief responded, “Well, hurry up. Captain Hawser says that the geysers are starting to vent and it’s getting foggy awfully quick, if you know what he means.”

Conundrum said, “The professor just tapped, “Wait. Feel better.” "

Commodore Brigg tore at his beard in frustration. He-knew that if he ended this mission, the professor would only insist on going again. Or worse, Razmous would want to go. And where was that dratted kender, anyway? What about Sir Grumdish? And Sir Tanar?

The ringer on the pulley rattled out a short burst. The commodore broke off his musings to listen to Conundrum’s translation, but the gnome seemed reluctant to speak.

“What is it? What does he say?” Brigg demanded.

“He says, ‘Ahhh!’ ” Conundrum answered sheepishly.

“Ahhh?”

“Ay-aitch-aitch-aitch-exclamation point,” Conundrum confirmed. He pulled out the sheet of paper with the professor’s code and showed it to the commodore. “See here? Three dots and five dashes is an exclamation point.”

“But what does it mean?” the commodore asked.

“Perhaps it is a sigh of surprise and delight?” the doctor offered.

Commodore Brigg shot him a black look, then turned to the open aft deck hatch. “Reverse the-” he began.

The ringer was tapping again, insistently. Conundrum listened for a moment, then shouted, “Stop the wench! Stop! He’s found something.”

Turning back to the boom, he cupped one hand to his ear and began to translate even before the tapping stopped. “He says, “Remarkable! A great roof of rock as far as the eye can see. The rock ap-appears to be porous and filled with air holes like a sponge. I think this is the underside of the continent. Below me, there is a vast darkness swimming with lights. There are millions of tiny glowing shrimp, all swimming up from below and bumping their heads against the underside of the continent. In sufficient numbers, such creatures could exert enough upward force to make the continent float, whether the stone is hot or not.”"