Nigel Findley - Into the Void

"I don't know what in all the hells you're talking about," Aelfred rumbled, "but just on principle I back the captain. Practice. It's important." He was silent for a moment, then went on, "One thing: I don't think it's a good idea to let the rest of the crew know about any of this. I think they've accepted you as some kind of warrior-mage-" he snorted with amusement at this "-so that won't worry them, but if they don't know if the person they're on watch with is who they think it is, or it's you practicing… It's going to do something to morale, if you get my drift."

"I understand."

Aelfred slapped Teldin comradely on the arm. "Well," he said, "if you don't have any more miracles to show me, I should get back on duty. We've got some of the new inductees on the rigging, and if I don't keep an eye on them, we're just as likely to end up back at Krynn as we are at Realmspace." He grimaced. "I know it's a touchy subject, but your diminutive friend, Horvath, has threatened to oversee repairs. Scary."

*****

Despite Aelfred's misgivings, the remainder of the journey through the flow was notable for its lack of mishaps. The "new inductees," as Aelfred called them-actually the surviving members of the deathspider's boarding party-seemed to integrate with the rest of the Probe's crew without any major difficulties. Over the first couple of days after the battle, Teldin could tell a "new inductee" a ship-length away. There was something about the way they walked and stood, as though they wished they could sink into the deck or the bulkhead and just fade from view-"trying to look invisible" was Aelfred's phrase for it. If anyone spoke to them-or even looked at them-they flinched, as though they expected to be beaten. Or worse, Teldin speculated, remembering his own experiences with neogi on Krynn.

Plus, they had a tendency to stand around, trying to look invisible, unless they had specific orders to do something. On the third day after the battle, Teldin saw a perfect example of this. One of the hammership's regular crewmen-a little man named Garay-was standing on the rail, cleaning the sheaves of a rigging block with a marlin spike. As he shifted position, the spike fell from his hand. It landed on the deck, barely a foot in front of a new inductee named Tregimesticus, who just stood there, looking at the spike near his feet.

"Well?" Garay called down from the rigging. "Aren't you going to pick the bloody thing up?"

Tregimesticus jumped as though he'd been whipped, snatched the spike off the deck, and scampered up the rigging to place it right into Garay's hand.

When the man was gone, Garay climbed down and came over to where Teldin was standing. "Dead from the neck up," the crewman grumbled. "I'll be flogged if any of them come around to right thinking."

Surprisingly, though, some of them did start to come around. Perhaps they were the ones who hadn't been aboard the death-spider as long-nobody felt comfortable asking, of course-or perhaps they were just the ones who naturally had stronger wills. In any case, of the ten "new inductees," four seemed slowly to be returning to the land of the living. They started talking to the other crew members-even when they hadn't been spoken to first-and even began to strike up friendships. The other six, including Tregimesticus, didn't seem so lucky or so adaptable. They followed orders with a speed that made the regular crew of the Probe look like sluggards, but they never showed anything that could be mistaken for initiative, and they kept the habit of trying to look invisible.

In any case, the voyage progressed uneventfully. For Teldin, it was a pleasurable time. There was something comforting about the strict routine aboard the Probe. Aelfred returned him to normal watch-standing, which meant that eight hours out of every day was spent scanning the flow for possible danger. The rest of the time he was free to do as he liked. He still shared the cabin with the three surviving gnomes-Horvath, Miggins, and Saliman, but found that his watch-standing schedule was opposed to theirs; when they were on watch, he was asleep, and vice versa.

This didn't mean that they never met, of course. As soon as he had time after the battle, Teldin made a point of tracking down Miggins. He found the young gnome in the starboard side stateroom that had been converted into an infirmary for the many injured in the deathspider's attack. Teldin found it uncomfortable to enter the cabin-like many people who depended on health and strength for their livelihood, he found it deeply disturbing to be around those who were physically impaired-but he forced his qualms out of his mind and put on a smile.

Miggins was almost indecently glad to see him. Although he hadn't seen it, he'd heard about Teldin's exploits on the forecastle. As always, the tales had grown with the telling, and Teldin found that he'd become a sort of personal hero to the youth. Teldin was a little troubled about this but decided this was neither the time nor the place to change Miggins's attitude.

Miggins was progressing well and was glad to tell Teldin all about it. His left arm was grievously wounded, and there was a significant chance that he'd never regain full use of it, but at least the healers' initial concern-that they'd have to amputate to save the gnome's life-had turned out to be baseless.

Conversation had inevitably turned to Dana, "I miss her," Miggins had admitted, "but, you know, I could never really think of her as a gnome. She was more like one of you big folk. She was never too interested in the way things work, and she liked action much more than she did talk."

Teldin had nodded, remembering her feisty manner and the way she'd tried to stand up to Aelfred in the longboat.

"Ah, well," Miggins had continued, "at least she died the way she always said she wanted to-in battle."

Another one who died a "good" death, Teldin had found himself thinking. What would be a good death for me? Or does it really matter?

The injured gnome tired easily, so he'd left soon thereafter. It had saddened him to talk about Dana, but in another way it had been somehow freeing, as if in talking about her-celebrating her existence-he'd come to terms with her passing.

In the days that followed, even though he didn't see the gnomes, he was reminded of their existence by shipboard gossip. Virtually everyone aboard had a favorite "gnome story," about how the small creatures would have "remodeled" the Probe if somebody hadn't caught them before the damage was done. Teldin's favorite was Miggins's suggestion that a hole be cut in the hull to allow the underside of the hammership to be used as a secondary weapons platform. Explanations that this would make the vessel as seaworthy as a brick when it put down on water didn't dissuade the young gnome. All he did was come back with a bewildering description of baffles and gaskets to solve the problem. Predictably, some of the less patient crew members threatened the small creature with death if he so much as mentioned the idea again.

When he wasn't sleeping, Teldin had taken to wandering the ship and talking with those crewmen he met. This had turned out to be a very good idea. Initially the crew had treated him with a respect that contained a healthy measure of fear. They'd stayed out of his way-after all, wasn't he a fighter-mage who could cut them in two or burn them down in their tracks?-and called him "sir." Teldin had decided that the best way to react to this was not to react at all. If he'd told them not to call him sir, he knew they'd have stopped, but that would just have reinforced the aura of authority that he'd inadvertently acquired. Instead, he'd chosen to talk with them exactly the same way he had when he'd first come aboard the Probe. Let them call him sir. He'd chat with them the way he always had and ask the same naive questions.