Chapter Eighteen (Patreon)

Chapter Eighteen

In the deep darkness of the east, the rising conflagratory glow of the Crimson Caldera drew the eye like a lodestone. It revealed the impossibly high slope of the mountains to one side, a stark slope of glassy stone, and the abyss on the other, a cliff that fell down into a nothingness of such terrible import that none could gaze into it for long. Yet the actual source of the light was not clear until the Endeavor drew much closer and could actually look down into the caldera basin.

A volcanic eruption had been frozen in time. The churning froth of lava was halted mid-motion, fiery bolides hung in the air, and fractured rock stood arrested in the midst of splintering. Whatever temporal hand was responsible for the phenomenon tugged at the Endeavor as she sailed closer, making the ship shiver, but the protection granted by Angkor Leng denied that touch with scornful ease.

Jonathan stood on the bridge, watching with sharp eyes as the bridge crew navigated between obstacles. Small chunks of rock clicked and pinged as the hull shoved them aside, sending them tumbling lazily before time caught up with them again and froze them in place. Behind them, a faint blue glow clung to the scattered detritus marking their path, the illumination of the engines held in place the same way as the rest of it.

“There,” he said, pointing out one particular piece of airborne rock. The Crimson Caldera wasn’t just some remote volcano that had been arrested by natural, if esoteric, processes; it had been inhabited, once upon a time. Paved roads stretched across fragments, green fields full of unidentifiable crops hung at crooked angles, halted just as they began to burn. Small buildings built of faceted, gleaming glass were dotted here and there on the pieces of landscape, their panels cracked and crazed mid-shatter.

Yet upon those remains an entirely different race had constructed a series of towers, rising directly upward from the tilted and canted debris. Instead of glass or stone, the towers were ivory, pure white bone sweeping upward to an open bell tower. They were entirely stark and undecorated, a thing of function over form, even the bells themselves no more than dull metal.

“We have to listen for the bells,” Jonathan said. “When you hear one ring, fly toward it, and only by that method will you emerge from the other side. That is how it is described in ancient records, and any other path will find one hopelessly lost, at best.”

“Shame, this is the best visibility we’ve had for ages,” Montgomery said, eyeing the massive glowing expanse in front of them, the sheer scope of the illumination allowing the eye to pick out every detail for miles. Such clarity was an illusion, though, as the very motion of the ship resulted in a subtle shift in the landscape. It was as if they were moving through time as well as space, a thousand frozen moments stacked together.

Montgomery brought the Endeavor to a halt by the first tower, which rose upward from the canted roof of one of the glass dwellings. The lava cast suggestive shadows through the hazy panels, hinting at people still inside, trapped forever in the frozen time of the Crimson Caldera. There was even a human figure clinging to a portion of tether just above it, forever stopped in the action of trying to open the dwelling’s door.

“Who’s that?” Montgomery said, pointing at the unfortunate man with his pipe stem.

“Airman Stutt,” Jonathan said after a moment, dredging the name from memory. He had been more attentive to the people he traveled with, the first time around. “He was one of the ones who absorbed some of that odd light from Angkor Leng, and thought he would be immune to the effect. Professor Loren warned him, but he was too curious. Or too greedy.”

“We have a bottom hatch,” Montgomery said thoughtfully. “Ought to be possible to rescue him without going outside.” Jonathan pressed his lips together, but didn’t immediately reply. It was true that an extra airmen would offset some of their losses, there was also the possibility that the effort would risk the ship. Yet he couldn’t articulate any specific danger, so after a moment he just nodded.

“I have no idea what might happen if you bring him inside,” Jonathan said. “It is entirely possible it’s too late, and at the very least you should have Mister Antomine in attendance.”

“It’s worth trying,” Montgomery said gruffly. “Better than wondering if we could have saved him. Could I prevail upon you to fetch Mister Antomine?”

“Certainly,” Jonathan said politely, as the faster the entire operation was completed, the faster they could continue on, and for the moment he wasn’t needed on the bridge. Sometimes the inquisitor could be found fussing over his broken Lux Guard in the cabin assigned to them, when he thought Eleanor wouldn’t notice, but Jonathan found him in the observation room. The inquisitor closed the notebook he was writing in when Jonathan entered, though it was unlikely there was anything particularly sensitive there. So far as Jonathan had seen, they were merely Antomine’s own notes on the journey.

“From your last expedition?” Antomine raised his eyebrows at Jonathan’s description of the situation. “So he’s been stuck there for, what, five years?”

“Something of that nature,” Jonathan agreed. “Though I doubt the duration matters.”

“I suppose not,” Antomine said, glancing out the observation deck at the fractured and frozen moment of cataclysm.

“You mean you hope it doesn’t matter,” Eleanor said, leaning into the observation room and tapping her cigarette into the ashtray there. “If he’s been stuck there for five years, completely frozen but still aware of it, he’s going to be absolutely gone.”

“And that will be my responsibility to deal with,” Antomine said stiffly as he rose from his seat, giving Eleanor a quelling look. “But if we can rescue a man from the darkness, we will.”

Jonathan tapped his cane thoughtfully on the deck, a short rhythmic tattoo, and then followed after. He didn’t hold any personal feelings toward Airman Stutt, but if the man was sane he might well have some insight on their path forward. Even if not, an extra hand would be useful.

As they descended the stairwell the sound of a bell came, strangely distinct despite sounding from some distant place outside the ship. Eleanor and Antomine glanced around, but Jonathan waved dismissively.

“That’s normal here. You’ll hear them all the time.” There was no telling what the intervals might be, but within the Crimson Caldera the sound of bells was the only one that could ever be heard.

The Endeavor bumped and swayed as the engines pulsed, the pilot maneuvering carefully down toward the dwelling and the time-lost airman above it. By the time they reached the cargo deck there was already a cluster of airmen around the opened bottom hatch, which was large enough to fit a carriage through. One of the men was peering down through it and shouting directions, which were relayed by speaking-tube to the bridge.

“Port. Forward. Stop! A touch port.” The litany of instructions continued as they arrived, with Antomine continuing on until he was a few paces from the open hatch, while Jonathan and Eleanor hung back. He didn’t trust that the process would be safe, even if he couldn’t come up with any particular danger.

The pilot managed the Endeavor’s massive bulk with surprising finesse, and only a few minutes later the still form of Airman Stutt and his attendant tether slid upward through the hatch. He was a short, densely-built man whose eyes and mouth were nearly lost under shaggy hair and a bushy moustache and beard, but even so it was clear he wasn’t aware of his surroundings. One of the crew lassoed him with a different tether, pulling him off to the side before the hatch swung shut. Stutt hung in the air as Antomine approached, but slowly, ever so slowly, began to drift downward. At first, Jonathan couldn’t tell whether it was due to the Endeavor rising or if something else was at play, but Antomine’s white-pupiled eyes burned with light and the fall accelerated.

“That is bizarre,” Eleanor muttered, as Stutt’s movement became steadily faster over the next minute or so, the man both falling and recognizing the fall in slow motion, reaching out to catch himself. Nobody tried to help him, for the very simple reason that there was no telling what that might do. It might help, but it might equally spread the slowed time to whomever touched Stutt.

Time seemed to catch up with him all at once and he dropped heavily to the deck, landing in a crouch as he looked around. The remains of the tether with him pattered to the deck. The Endeavor was obviously a human airship and yet not the same one he had left, so Stutt only looked confused rather than alarmed. Antomine stepped forward and offered him a hand.

“Airman Stutt? I am Inquisitor Antomine, and you’re aboard His Majesty’s Ship the Endeavor. It has been approximately five years.”

“What? I was just — Mister Heights!” Stutt’s eyes, darting around unfamiliar faces, landed on Jonathan. “Is this true? You look…” Stutt trailed off, studying Jonathan with confusion. “Different.”

“It is true,” Jonathan said calmly, not wanting to imply any undue unfamiliarity. Stutt was more familiar with him than the reverse, and Jonathan had no patience to serve as the man’s guide. Antomine could take that role. “It is mostly through the efforts of Captain Montgomery and Inquisitor Antomine that you have been freed.”

“Ah! My apologies.” Stutt recovered with aplomb and took Antomine’s hand. “I’ve never met an inquisitor before, Mister Antomine.”

“Quite understandable,” Antomine said, smiling broadly and looking just like an eager youth. “Most people haven’t. As I said, you’ve been stuck there for five years or more, so the question is — do you remember anything? How are you feeling? Wouldn’t want you to collapse on us.”

“Er, I’m sorry, Inquisitor Antomine. I only know I was trying to open the door and then I was here.” Stutt sounded apologetic, and Jonathan nodded to himself. It was unfortunate that Stutt hadn’t absorbed any esoteric knowledge while he was trapped — though it was still possible he had and just hadn’t realized it yet. That rarely happened, as such secrets burned like fire inside the mind, but it wasn’t unheard of.

Montgomery appeared from the stairs, and Jonathan merely tilted his head in Stutt’s direction so Montgomery strode over to make introductions. A new crewmember was more in the Captain’s jurisdiction than Jonathan’s, if there was no occult knowledge to be gained or used. Eleanor looked disappointed too, though he wasn’t sure what she expected from Stutt.

A bell rang once again, somewhere in the distance, and everyone glanced in that direction save for Stutt, who clutched his head and groaned. Antomine instantly reached out to touch his shoulder, looking at Jonathan, who shook his head. The inquisitor and with the ship’s doctor were far better equipped to deal with whatever aftereffects Stutt was suffering from. It would take something far stranger for Jonathan’s expertise to be of any use.

Even if Stutt wasn’t whole and hale, there was a good amount of grinning and back-slapping among the crewmembers responsible for the rescue. With luck, Stutt wouldn’t be permanently afflicted and could be put to work, and so offset some of the losses the Endeavor had incurred on the journey. Every hand mattered. That was the extent of Jonathan’s interest, and when Antomine and the ship’s doctor began to escort Stutt to the stairs, Jonathan returned to the observation deck, looking out at the frozen landscape and tapping his fingers on his cane.

Fortunately for his patience, the Endeavor began moving once again not long after, once a third bell came, this time from yet another direction. There was no rhyme or reason to it Jonathan had been able to discover, and nobody wanted to test what would happen if they didn’t follow the proscribed route. The glowing churn of lava and the fixed shockwaves of the ancient calamity threatened absolute destruction should time ever resume — or should the ship fly into some fragment somewhere that was mere moments ahead of the rest.

“If we could pull Stutt out, maybe we can grab something else,” Eleanor said, interrupting his musings. “I mean, if we see something on the way.” She walked up to the glass, gesturing with her cigarette holder. “There’s got to be all kinds of bits and pieces that aren’t simply lava.”

“I don’t imagine it will be worth the time and effort for a random piece of glass or metal,” Jonathan said, not wanting to waste time on useless curiosity. Retrieving an airman had obvious benefits, but he wouldn’t countenance scraping through debris. Anyone who wanted to satisfy their curiosity about the mysteries of the east could do it on their own time.

“Maybe not, but there might be a person, or some kind of device,” Eleanor said hopefully. “There’s got to be more stuff the deeper we go.”

“There is,” Jonathan acknowledged with a frown. “There is a city, but on the last journey we only ever saw it from a distance. The bells never led us there.”

“Shame,” Eleanor said. “Hopefully we’ll have the chance this time. The more I can bring back with me, the better.” Sarah was sitting off to one side, mending clothes, so Eleanor’s word choice was purposefully ambiguous. Jonathan doubted Eleanor was really fooling them, as anyone with two eyes and a brain could see she was restive and independent by nature, but maintaining appearances was important.

“We haven’t reached the end of the journey just yet. There will be other opportunities that are less fraught than this.” Jonathan wasn’t certain what exactly Eleanor was fishing for, or if she was merely expressing some wistful hope, but either way he preferred not to waste too much time in the Crimson Caldera.

“I guess you’ve seen this all before,” Eleanor said, dropping bonelessly into one of the chairs. “Any idea what caused all this? Another dreaming god like before?”

“Few humans have come this far east, let alone studied its phenomena,” Jonathan said. “We don’t have many fragments from other races, either. Whatever civilization was responsible for – or suffering from – this catastrophe is older than the ones who made the bells, who are still older than the ones who built Angkor Leng.” Jonathan tapped his cane on the floor, soft punctuation to the gap of eons they contemplated from the observation deck. “The best we have is wild guesses, hints of how one thing connects to another. Often, it’s best not to contemplate matters too closely, as you well know.”

“I suppose,” Eleanor said, eyeing him suspiciously. “But you’re an explorer! I figured you’d be interested in all this stuff, at least in passing.”

“Once, I was,” Jonathan admitted. “But I found what I was looking for. Once you succeed in your goal, once you have a clear path, the world becomes a very different place.” He closed his eyes briefly, letting the sunlight flood through and ground him once again. The exercise did little to cure his impatience, but it did improve his mood. “Take some time to consider what might drive you after you accomplish your goals.”

Eleanor wrinkled her nose at him, but nodded slowly. Jonathan doubted she had put too much thought into it, as simply escaping from the influence of the Reflected Council was enough of a task, and such a goal was always transitory to begin with. The certainty and freedom involved in finding something ineffably profound to pursue was impossible to know or imagine until the event.

He was certain Antomine would agree, though perhaps with reservations. The inquisitor had nearly the same burning zeal and dedication to his particular obsession as Jonathan did, a passion that Eleanor lacked. Until she found it, he doubted that she’d ever quite understand his perspective.

“You here after sunlight, correct?” The question came from Sarah, which quite nearly startled Jonathan. Eleanor’s guards didn’t interact with him much, preferring to keep their own council or that of Eleanor. “Do you think it’s like the old fable, some alchemist’s catholicon and cornucopia all in one?”

“Nothing so crude,” he said, though words were not enough to describe the exact qualities of what he had witnessed. “It is more this: we have seen that the dreams of the thing beneath Angkor Leng were ever so much more than the rock and air we surround ourselves with. Compared to the sunlight I have seen, those great imaginings are merely tales spun by firelight, passing fancies given form only by the closeness of shadow.”

“I see,” Sarah said, her brow furrowing in a way that suggest she did not. Eleanor pressed her lips together and gave a faint nod, and considering she was privy to her own secrets she probably had some inkling.

Jonathan’s answer was enough for Sarah, as she returned to her mending without further comment, and Eleanor pulled on her cigarette in silence. The smoke drifted in the air before being pulled into the vents, carried away and outside the ship. There it would join the molten rock, all of it still and frozen, trapped in time.

The odd mismatch of stillness where there should have been motion wore on the mind after a time, even with the protection the ship gave. Something about the shifting stillness was disturbing to the human psyche, though Jonathan didn’t judge it to be more than an annoyance.

“I judge Mister Stutt merely needs some rest,” Antomine announced as he joined them in the observation room. “He may hate the sound of bells for the rest of his life, but that is a small price to pay for avoiding that fate. Held suspended for all eternity.”

“I don’t know it’d be all eternity,” Eleanor disagreed, turning to look at him, and then glance at Jonathan. “We’ve seen ancient things destroyed ourselves on this trip. No matter how old this is, someday it’ll be gone.”

“Indeed,” Antomine said, his eyebrows raised in surprise. “That is rather more fatalistic than your usual outlook, Miss McAvey.”

“Maybe so,” Eleanor said, taking another drag on her cigarette. “I don’t know, maybe it was just thinking about being stuck here.” She waved the cigarette holder at a small rock, little more than a pebble, as it tapped against the forward glass and was sent sliding off to the side.

“If we have been safe so far, I imagine we’ll continue to be so,” Antomine said, shooting a glance at Jonathan.

“The Discovery was a far slower ship than the Endeavor and we saw no troubles during our entire time,” Jonathan confirmed, though he suspected that Eleanor’s discomfort might have more to do with her own secrets than with the situation as such. Inside the Caldera’s frozen time, her understanding of how to eschew light might well be constrained or crippled. Jonathan believed that nothing would ever be able touch his experience of sunlight, but should he ever find it even slightly obscured it would be like tearing out a piece of his soul, or a way of thinking from his mind.

“I think I’ll get lunch,” Eleanor decided, turning away from the view and sweeping out of the observation room. Antomine watched her go, looking slightly worried, but Jonathan wasn’t bothered. She’d likely regain her usual attitude once they left. True, it would take more than a day to judge by his prior experiences, but that was hardly an imposition.

The ship slid deeper into the Caldera, sometimes changing course after a matter of minutes and at other times having to wait at a bell tower for hours before hearing another. The first part of their journey was mostly over a churning sea of lava, with fragments of dwellings and the attendant belltowers like islands floating above. Once they got deeper into the Caldera, more solid land appeared, entire hills and valleys hurled into the air and caught in the midst of breaking apart.

Faceted glass buildings were mixed with assemblages of opalescent cubes, which seemed to oppose the buildings in both style and shape but were seamlessly merged together in defiance of that appraisal. In places the cubes or the glass were cracked open from the force of the cataclysm, revealing tiny slices of alien interiors. What was visible in those narrow views was incomprehensible to the eye, jumbled shapes and colors that hinted and suggested but never resolved into anything.

The sight was a tantalizing one, begging for someone to enter and explore.  Jonathan himself no longer felt compelled to try, but he remembered the first trip and – judging from the muttered comments he heard from Eleanor and the bridge crew – the temptation remained. It was all moot, for anyone who tried would suffer the same fate as Stutt, but a more fractious crew or a more biddable captain might have given it a try even knowing the dangers.

Their route, indirect as it was, took them almost directly through the center of the Crimson Caldera. Jonathan’s prior experience with the Discovery had ended up skirting around the shattered mounds of the city there, where the opalescent cubes were the size of city blocks and the faceted glass buildings grew like mushrooms from the fractured ground. The Endeavor flew above the city, letting its passengers look down at strange vehicles of sharp angles and faceted curves cluttering the broken streets.

Here and there were even figures of those who once – and still – inhabited the city, things that were long of limb and shining with a metallic glitter. Montgomery studied them through his spyglass, swinging it from one creature to the next. After a while he grunted and handed the glass off to his navigator.

“Creepiest thing,” Montgomery said. “I’d swear they’re looking in our direction.”

“They are,” Jonathan said, taking a moment to study the beings. He didn’t need the spyglass. “I’m not sure what that means.” The Caldera was still time-lost, still frozen in the shattered instants of destruction. Things did change as they passed from fragment to fragment, like a pane of glass seen at an angle, but they were only the most minute differences and they didn’t sum to any passage of time. The arrow of cause and effect ran in both directions.

“Engines to three quarters,” Montgomery ordered. “Envelope expansion to eighty percent. I don’t want to linger.”

“I fully endorse that, Captain,” Jonathan said, paying closer attention to the frozen figures. They didn’t move, of course, as nothing could move in the frozen world of the Crimson Caldera, but with each shift and alteration, subtle as it was, they seemed to track the Endeavor as if the ship itself were part of their strange stasis.

Jonathan didn’t think that they had lost their protection against the Crimson Caldera’s strange effects, for everything was still utterly still for every moment but the ones where they crossed the invisible boundaries. Plumes of lava hung in the air, rock and dirt and water defied the course of nature as they halted mid-rise or mid-fall. Yet there was clearly some feedback at play, for as they moved onward, crossing from one slice of time to another, the figures on the streets below continued to stare.

One of the belltowers congealed into view, reluctantly assembling itself atop one of the buildings as the Endeavor drew near. Disconcertingly, there were a few of the strange beings leaning out of cracked glass or ruptured mother-of-pearl, all peering up at where the Endeavor halted next to the bell. Jonathan kept a close eye on them, but they didn’t move any more than the surroundings. Not that he trusted that apparent obstacle; in a place where time itself was broken, the gap between appearance and truth could be far greater than usual.

“I swear, if I see one of those things crawling up here…” Montgomery muttered, though there was nothing they could do if motion resumed. Jonathan chuckled darkly, and turned away from the bridge windows.

“Zint may not be effective, but I’ll inform Antomine,” he said, agreeing with Montgomery’s implicit plans. “It won’t hurt to be ready.” Jonathan strode out of the bridge, ascending to the passenger level and finding Antomine in the observation room. The remaining Lux Guard was likely the best shot, with artillery or rifles, even if any actual combat was likely to presage something catastrophic.

“Surely you have some idea of what’s going on,” Antomine said, after Jonathan had filled him in on the phenomenon. “You’ve been doing this sort of exploration all your life.”

“Some theories, yes,” Jonathan admitted. “Ones that would perhaps be relevant if we were here to uncover the secrets of the Caldera, or the bell towers, or to connect them to other ruins we’ve found.”

“From what I’ve seen, those are not secrets that should be carried back to Beacon,” Antomine waved his hand at the frozen time visible through the windows, cast in the glow of molten rock. “We don’t need to threaten our cities with any of this, either the disrupted time or the cataclysm. In my experience, such things cannot be separated.”

“I won’t argue with you on that,” Jonathan said, though he knew that in some cases the risks that secrets brought were well worth the benefits. His own quest was firmly in that realm, but the graveyard near the end of their journey would make it challenging to convince anyone who hadn’t seen sunlight itself. In his mind, it was only proof of the value of what he sought, as everything truly worth acquiring had some risk to it. “I suppose it would be best to make ready for any eventuality.”

Antomine rose and went to fetch his remaining Lux Guard. Eleanor was not in evidence; she had mostly retired to her cabin, but her maids still spent a goodly amount of time on the observation deck, and Marie gave him a nod as she slipped out to no doubt update Eleanor of the events. Jonathan returned his regard to the frozen world, seeing nothing he could exert himself with that would alter things. They were reliant on the bells, and those were under an auspice none of them understood.

The minutes dragged on, and Jonathan’s frown deepened as no toll came. The inconstant nature of the signal demanded a certain sort of patience, but the still figures in the city below made him uneasy. After so long plumbing ancient and forgotten places, Jonathan trusted his instincts that they had strayed somewhere more dangerous than the rest of the Caldera.

Finally another bell sounded, and the Endeavor shuddered into motion once again, turning to follow the sound. Jonathan watched closely as the ship slid through instants, seeing more figures appear crawling out of the jumbled masses of glass and cube. None of them moved, but with the flickers of backward and forward time additional details resolved themselves, like a magnifying glass bringing things into focus.

Most of the watchers were far below them, but some were close enough that anyone would be able to make out the long, vertical slit-like eyes on the stretched metallic faces, each one bearing a lugubrious cast to the narrow line of a mouth. The inhuman features were too distorted to Jonathan’s sensibilities to make out what emotion it truly held, but their interest was clear enough.

“Mister Antomine? Mister Heights?” Jonathan glanced back to find an able airmen from belowdecks, looking faintly wide around the eyes, and Antomine one pace out of his cabin. “It’s Airman Stutt, sirs. The doc sent for both of you.”

“Very well,” Jonathan said, cane thumping on the floor with enough force to make the airman jump. “Lead on.”

The able airman brought them down one deck, to the twin hallways of the crew deck, and guided him to a particular cabin. The last portion of guidance was hardly needed, as between the airmen loitering in the halls and the sound of thumping and shouting it was obvious where the problem lay. The crew made way for the inquisitor and stepped further away as Jonathan followed before the ship’s doctor flagged them down, the portly, red-faced man mopping sweat from his brow.

“He just seemed to go berserk after that last bell,” the sawbones said, waving his hand at the closed and barred cabin door from which came the commotion. “He’d been complaining of headaches after each one, but they didn’t last long and he was just fine afterward. Now, he’s, well. I figure it’s something in, ah, your line of work.” He glanced between Antomine and Jonathan.

“Thank you, Timothy,” Antomine said, while Jonathan drummed his fingers on the cane. It was obvious why the doctor had sent for Jonathan in addition to the Inquisitor — the language Stutt was speaking was not a human tongue. “Do you recognize it, Mister Heights?” Antomine continued, reaching up to touch his Inquisitor’s medallion with the absent nature of long habit.

“A few words,” Jonathan said, brow furrowed as he concentrated. “One moment.” He removed one of his notebooks from inside his jacket, along with a stick of charcoal, and began making notes. His facility with the tongues of the true east was moderate at best, and not set to paper. What Stutt was speaking was, while related, an older dialect and it was difficult to puzzle out the fragments.

Nevertheless, Jonathan got enough from the ranting. Certain phrases like ‘I am here’ and ‘let me out’ made that clear — not to mention ‘stop ship, find bells.’ Stutt was talking to the figures, the strange inhabitants of the frozen landscape. He was what they were fixed on, most certainly, rather than what should have been the evanescent presence of the Endeavor.

Jonathan’s immediate reaction was that it would be best for all concern to simply release Stutt back to the world in stasis. Like most who were exposed to the strange secrets of the places beyond human regions, Stutt had been changed. Yet, he had enough presence of mind to know that no others would agree unless Antomine stepped in.

“Stutt is connected to the things that dwell here, now.” Jonathan informed them bluntly, not bothering to explain how he knew. “So long as he is aboard I suspect they will dog our path.”

“And if he is removed from the Caldera?” Antomine asked, with predictable soft-heartedness.

“Likely it will fade, in time. Perhaps even instantly, given the nature of this place.” Jonathan scowled at the door as Stutt shouted some particularly loud imprecation whose meaning Jonathan didn’t know but could very well guess.

“Then we shall trade efficiency for time,” Antomine said. “I shall inform the captain that we need the engines at full.” Some of the men winced as their zint potency was, while not yet low, at the point of diminishing returns. At full thrust, the engine would deplete it far faster than normal and until they refined more on the other side of the Caldera they ran the risk of sapping the entire ship’s systems. “Is there anything you can do?” The inquisitor tilted his head toward Stutt’s door and looked out at Jonathan from underneath his broad-brimmed hat.

“I will have to research the matter,” Jonathan said honestly. “I have rarely found ways to cure such afflictions. I believe that is more the specialty of the Inquisition.”

“Perhaps, but my options are limited,” Antomine said. “See what you can do, Mister Heights,” the inquisitor said, more an order than a request, and turned on his heel. He vanished into the bridge and Jonathan thumped his cane on the deck, a sharp crack that had the airmen around him backing away from his displeasure.

“Ensure that he does not leave,” Jonathan said, dismissing the irritation he felt at being ordered by the inquisitor. It hardly mattered, and anything that reduced their travel time was for the better. He climbed up the stairs, and was still on the stairwell when the ship shivered as the engines put out their full power. Then the Endeavor lurched, shuddering and trembling, as metal squealed below.

The ship had run into something or, worse, something had run into it.

Chapter Index