Nigel Findley - The Broken Sphere

The Cloakmaster nodded as he made his decision. "Will you sail with me, Beth-Abz?" he asked. "Will you accept my authority as captain?"

"I have already done so." The hideous creature's response seemed guileless.

Teldin laid both hands flat on the table before him. "You are part of my crew, Beth-Abz," he said quietly. From the corner of his eye he could see Julia's look of disbelief. Yet almost at once he saw her suppress her reaction, saw her shoulders relax as she accepted his decision.

Before him, the lines of the beholder shimmered again as it began its shift back to human form.

"No," Teldin said sharply. The transformation ceased; the beholder returned to its spherical form. "No," the captain repeated, "you'll keep your true shape. I don't want any more deception on this ship. I've had enough of deception."

He turned to Julia. "Please spread the word about our… um… new crew member."

Again Julia stared at him as though he'd lost his mind. "It's going to be a hard sell, Teldin," was all she said.

He shot her a reassuring smile. "Then think of the satisfaction when you succeed."

The privateer Shark hung against the psychedelic backdrop of the Flow, its helm warmed up for station-keeping and prepared for pursuit or flight. In front of the battle dolphin, the outer surface of Heartspace's crystal sphere looked like an infinite wall of mother-of-pearl. From the command deck, the permanent portal into the sphere's interior looked like a black disk limned around the edges with Saint Elmo's fire. At this distance, the portal-actually large enough to accommodate even the biggest ship-appeared about the size of a doubloon held at arm's length.

Captain Berglund leaned back against the aft railing, looking forward down the length of the command deck toward the shimmering portal. He pulled from his belt pouch the folded sheets of parchment he'd been given when he was ashore on Starfall. For the dozenth time since entering the Flow, he reread his orders-he still thought of them as "orders," even though it had been seven years since he'd deserted from military service.

The orders were very specific. Hold station at a specific point outside the Heartspace sphere and wait for a particular vessel to exit through the portal. Intercept said vessel and cripple it. Board and put the crew to the sword… with one exception: the captain was to be spared, no matter what it took to guarantee that. Scuttle the target and head off with all haste into the Flow for a distant crystal sphere, bringing the captain as prisoner.

Berglund stroked his beard as he thought. With the exception of sparing the captain, the orders matched his standard operating procedure. He didn't have a problem with that part of the mission at all… particularly since the nondescript human who'd hired him agreed that Berglund could keep whatever booty he could take from the vessel.

What did bother him was the amount of detail he'd been given about the target. He turned to the second page of the orders. Here was a complete rundown on his victim-a squid ship, he noted again. There was also a manifest detailing all the weapons the vessel carried, its projected time of arrival at the portal, plus an entire crew roster. Berglund simply wasn't used to having this level of intelligence on a target.

Still and all, he thought, it does make my job easier, and guarantees no surprises. You don't refuse a gift ship just because you smell dry rot, do you?

But where did that mystery man get all this information? Berglund wondered again. There was something about this that hinted to the pirate captain that he was getting into something much too big for him.

Yet the payment was big, too, wasn't it? Even if the squid ship turned out to be empty of valuables, Berglund and his crew would make more from this single operation than they'd normally make in a four-month of piracy.

He shook his head. His battle dolphin against a squid ship was normally a much closer fight than he liked. Smaller, less maneuverable, and worse-armed vessels were much more tempting targets. Even though Berglund was a good tactician, there was always the chance of losing such a well-matched battle. Yet the mystery man had said that had been taken care of, too….

A final time he read the section describing how the enemy captain was to be treated. Bound hand and foot, blind-folded, and gagged-that he could understand. But kept unconscious throughout the entire return voyage, even if that meant risking his captive's life through repeated blows to the head? There definitely was more to this mission than he knew.

Still, he supposed, he who pays the piper calls the tune. And this piper was very well paid indeed.

*****

The crew's even better than I expected, Teldin Moore thought. Although the revelation that Beth-Abz was a beholder shocked the crew members down to their very cores, their outward reactions had been calmer than the Cloakmaster would have thought possible. There'd been no hysteria, no outrage, and-Teldin's greatest unspoken fear-no hint that anyone was considering mutiny.

Certainly, the crew had treated the beholder with fear at first, shying away from it whenever it appeared, as though it would vaporize them at any moment. But within only a few days, their reactions had started to change. Fear had faded and quickly become respect. Crewmen still stepped well back when Beth-Abz floated across the main deck or entered the galley, but the wide eyes and grimaces of terror were gone. It hasn't killed me so far, each crew member seemed to think, so why should it now… as long as I don't give it a reason?

For the first week after the revelation, nobody had talked with the beholder, probably because they just didn't know what to say. Teldin, Julia, and Djan-who took the whole matter in stride, as if sailing with an eye tyrant were an everyday thing-had gone out of their way to be seen treating Beth-Abz no differently than the rest of the crew. They'd greeted the creature in the same way they would anyone else, and chatted idly with him whenever they happened to have similar duties.

The example hadn't been missed by the crew. At first cautiously, and then more freely, other members of the Boundless complement had taken to striking up conversations- albeit very brief ones-with the spherical creature. Teldin had known the campaign to integrate Beth-Abz with the rest of the crew was won when he'd wandered into the saloon one graveyard watch and found the beholder trading travelers' tales with a handful of off-duty sailors. When he'd heard them break into laughter together-the harsh, coughing sounds of the beholder's mirth mixing with human chuckles-he'd been amazed.

"I can't believe it," he'd told Djan the next morning, after describing what he'd experienced. "The credit's all yours for picking good spacers."

The half-elf had shaken his head. "No," he'd corrected Teldin, placing a hand on the captain's shoulder, "I think the credit's yours. They trust you, Teldin. They trust your judgment, and they want to sail with you. If a beholder in the crew's mess is acceptable to you, then it's acceptable to them."

In his familiar position on the afterdeck, Teldin shook his head. Everybody's always so keen to trust me, he thought. Sometimes I think I'm the last person they should trust… if they want to stay alive, at least. He took a deep breath and forced the thoughts from his mind. He knew all too well that they'd be back, however.

"Portal ahead, Captain." Djan's voice rang out, echoing hollowly through the speaking tube the half-elf had installed running up the mizzenmast from the helm compartment to the afterdeck. "Slowing to tactical speed."

Teldin stamped on the deck once-the agreed-upon signal for "message received and acknowledged." Then he waved to Julia, who stood on the forecastle by the mainmast.