Tak

Sereena - Part 2

     Strong stared intently into the image in the scrying mirror, mentally willing the scout ship to come into view, and he relaxed in relief when he saw it. Its sails were being furled and its masts folded against the hull by her crew, all of whom wore Necklaces of Vacuum Breathing which turned out to work equally well as a protection against poison gas. The ship, now propelled solely by its Orb of Levitation, crept slowly forward towards its mothership, while one of the crewmen hurriedly took down the rope handrail that ran around the small ship's fore and aft decks.

     To slide into its cradle it had to be exactly on target, so one of the men in the hanger deck waved directions to a crewman on the scout ship, who conveyed them to the smaller ship's Orbmaster. Up a bit, left a bit, down a bit... Strong commanded the scrying mirror to show the Jules Verne from outside and watched as the Dragonfly nudged its way in through the door, where the ship's gravity pulled it down onto the oiled slipway of the cradle. The scoutship slid easily the rest of the way to sit beside its twin, its upper decks mere inches below the hanger's ceiling, and then the door was winched closed. The crew, crouched over so as not to bang their heads on the hanger's ceiling, then eased their way out through the door in the scout ship's hull and began slipping locking bolts into position to hold the Dragonfly firmly in place.

     "Captain Strong," the hanger master said. "The Dragonfly is aboard and secure."

     "Very good," Strong replied. "I'll be down momentarily." He ended the Farspeaking link, and the magical connection was broken with a brief squawk.

     Arriving on the hanger deck, Strong took Matthew Winterwell to one side to hear his preliminary report. Like the rest of the Dragonfly's crew, Matthew was wrapped up in several layers of thick clothing, to keep out the bitter cold, and there were ice crystals frozen around his bearded mouth. It was colder than the Ice Continent out there. A climatic condition they'd expected after discovering that the worlds orbiting closer to the yellow sun than Tharia were also hotter than their homeworld.

     "There's nothing out there, sir," the Flight Leader stated flatly. "Nothing but rocks, wind and dust. We saw no sign of life at all." He began to flush with heat and struggled out of his heavy coat, draping it casually across a coil of rope sitting on the deck before starting on the thick, woollen layers below.

     "Nothing out of the ordinary?" Strong demanded. "Nothing worth a mention?"

     "Well, one thing, perhaps. At the extreme southern end of our search pattern, Rin Wellin said he could sense a very faint magical field. Probably nothing but a local concentration of ambient magic, he says, and he couldn't be sure there was anything there at all. It was at the very limit of his perception. We couldn't investigate without leaving the search area, and that far from the volcano it would have been too dark to see a thing anyway. It's probably nothing, like he says, sir."

     Strong nodded. "We'd better check it out anyway. We can use a Sun Stone to illuminate the area. The ship performed well?"

     "Perfectly. No problems at all. The only real problem was that all the winds blew towards the volcano. We had to use the elemental to move us outwards, but that wasn't the ship's fault. Sir, how can the winds blow inwards from all directions? The air has to go somewhere, doesn't it?"

     "We'll let the sages worry about that. Go see to your men. I'll be on the bridge."

     He returned to the centre of the ship, where Father Blandor was waiting for him. He gave his orders to the Orbmaster and the Jules Verne began to drift eastwards.

     "Found something?" asked the cleric.

     "Probably not," replied the Captain, who went on to explain the possible magical anomaly. "Saturn'll expect a full report, so we've got to check it out."