Nigel Findley - Into the Void

Dana flopped down on a bundle of sails in the corner. "Take it," she said gruffly, indicating the hammock. Not once did she look up or meet his eyes.

Wordlessly, Teldin clambered into the hammock and relaxed with a sigh. He didn't know what to make of Dana's actions, but as a farmer he knew the inadvisability of looking a gift horse in the mouth. He glanced surreptitiously over to Miggins, hoping the boy would give him some clue, but the youth's smug smile didn't tell him anything-or, at least, anything he wanted to know, part of his mind admitted. He shook his head as if to clear it.

The chaotic light of the flow poured into the cabin, washing the bulkheads with ever-changing veneers of color. Under other circumstances, Teldin might have found it beautiful, even somewhat hypnotic. Now, however, it made him feel edgy and a little claustrophobic. Looking around, he saw that the cabin's single oil lamp wasn't burning-why should it be?- but at least it hadn't been removed like the ones in the corridor. "Can't we cover the portholes?" he said a little peevishly. "Here, I'll light the lamp." He reached for the steel and flint he always kept in his belt pouch….

He didn't even see the gnome move, but suddenly Horvath's hand was like a steel band around his wrist. "No!" Horvath said sharply. "No fire."

Teldin looked at the other gnomes. They were all staring at him in horror. "All right," he said reasonably, "no fire, but why?"

Horvath still held his wrist, but the grip had loosened from its initial viselike tightness. "We're in the flow," he explained in a tone he'd reserve for a child or a congenital idiot. "We're in the phlogiston. Don't you know what that means?"

"Obviously not," Teldin replied. The gnome's manner irritated him somewhat, but he was sensible enough to realize that he'd been about to make some major mistake. "What's-" he stumbled over the word "-flegisten?"

"Phlogiston" Horvath repeated. He finally released his grip, leaving Teldin to rub his bruised wrist. "The flow is phlogiston."

"Which is… ?" Teldin prompted.

"Merely the most flammable substance in existence," Horvath said heavily, "flammable and explosive. Why do you think there isn't a light burning in the entire ship?"

Teldin didn't answer. Instead, he remembered Aelfred's actions on the bridge when the Probe had been preparing to move through the open portal. The first mate had said something about "flow stations"… then he'd extinguished the lantern over the chart table. At the time, Teldin hadn't attached any significance to it.

Horvath wasn't finished. "Do you know what would have happened if you'd struck a spark just now?"

Teldin felt a cold stirring in the pit of his stomach'. "What?" "You might well have blown your hand off," the gnome told him flatly. "At the very least, you'd have suffered a nasty burn, at the worst killed yourself, depending on how good your steel and flint are. That's why, when a ship's about to enter the flow, an officer always goes around to make sure everything's at 'flow stations'-no lights, nothing burning. Spacefarers are full of tales about ships being destroyed because the cook didn't know the ship was leaving wildspace and hadn't quenched his stove."

"I've got an idea for a flow-stove…." Miggins piped up, but immediately fell silent again under Horvath's harsh glare. Dana snorted. "That oversized lout of a first mate didn't believe we understood about flow stations."

Horvath's hard expression softened slightly. "Nobody told you that?"

"No," Teldin said, shaking his head vigorously. "I suppose they assumed I already knew it."

Horvath frowned. "Sloppy, that was," he said. "Never assume anything with dirtkickers." He patted Teldin's wrist reassuringly. "My apologies for my anger, Teldin. The fault was theirs-and, I suppose, ours-not yours."

Teldin shook his head. So close… "The phlogiston is really that flammable?" he asked.

"All that and more," Horvath assured him. "Why, my father was trying to invent a phlogiston bomb, a sealed flask of phlogiston with a fuse attached. Never managed it, may his soul rest in caverns of gold." The gnome placed a respectful hand on his chest.

With supreme effort, Teldin choked bad a chuckle. He tried to keep his voice casual and amusement-free as he asked, "Did the bomb work too well?"

Horvath shot him a hard look, then his eyes twinkled and a grin split his face. "No, that's not the way of it. The bomb proved impossible simply because you can't bring phlogiston inside a crystal sphere, no matter what you do. No, my father died well, may the gods rest him, of old age with his family around him."

"I'm sorry," Teldin told him.

The gnome shrugged. "Why?" he asked, a little surprised. "My father's free of the troubles of the world. It's us that have to face them still. I only hope my end is as peaceful." He patted Teldin's wrist again. "Now, you came here to sleep, I warrant, and we're keeping you awake with our talk. We're on watch again soon, so we'll just leave you now." He winked knowingly. "Enjoy it while you can. I hear you'll be back on duty again tomorrow."

*****

As the Probe cruised silently through the chaos of the flow, Teldin slept fitfully. His dreams were short, transitory things, but nonetheless disturbing. Night-black scavvers the size of the ship hurtled at him, or tore at the bodies of Aelfred Silverhorn, Sylvie, or the gnomes. Lort, the crewman devoured by the monster, stood before him, sheathed in his own blood, silently reproachful. Estriss, the mind flayer, stood on the forecastle, silhouetted against the brilliance of the phlogiston, trying to strike a light with Teldin's flint and steel.

In his hammock, Teldin writhed and moaned.

Finally, though, the images faded as he sank deeper and deeper into the well of sleep. Both his body and mind became still….

*****

Space. Velvet blackness and distant stars. Teldin felt as though he were hanging motionless in the darkness of the wildspace the Probe had recently left. He had no body; there was nothing corporeal about him. There was no consciousness of physical existence, not even of thought in the normal sense. He was simply untrammeled perception. Experience impinged on his senses, and he recorded it but felt none of the normal process of analyzing that experience - nor any need for such. He was alone.

Then no longer. With senses more acute than those any corporeal being could ever possess, he saw…

Something - a Presence-was moving against the blackness, eclipsing the stars. It was as black as the backdrop of space, without any discernible boundaries. The only way he could even be sure of its presence was the way in which stats winked out of existence as it moved before them, then reappeared after its passage. There was no way he could gauge the size of the Presence, out here with nothing to measure it against. As with the portal that had opened before the Probe, it could be something small nearby, or of unimaginable size at great distance.

For an unmeasurable time, sight was the only sense to which the Presence registered. There was no sound, no awareness of heat or cold. Then, as though his incorporeal body had somehow been granted another, more delicate sense, he felt something.

There was a sense of questing, as if a powerful intelligence were seeking something.

The capacity for thought returned, and with it came fear. Never had Teldin felt so exposed, so vulnerable. Was the Presence seeking him, he wondered. How could he shield himself from so great a creature?

As suddenly as it had come into being, the new sense was stripped from him. Only sight remained, then even that seemed to be wrenched away. The stars vanished from around him, and absolute darkness enfolded him….