Conundrum aom-1

by Jeff Crook

  “But what about the drying of the orbital surfaces?” the professor asked with the avidity of a fellow scientist.

  “A simple device could be invented, not unlike your spectacles, which periodically squirts soothing fluids into the eyes. I should know. I’ve already invented it,” Doctor Bothy declared humbly.

  “Sounds fascinating,” the professor agreed.

  “A squirting device?” Razmous asked. “Actually, I think I have something here in pouches that is quite similar, if only…”he muttered as he began to rummage through his pouches.

  “Another time,” the doctor said with a sharp glance.

  “What medical equipment have you still to load?” the commodore asked with rising impatience.

  “Just my Peerupitscope. It is on its way from Mount Nevermind, but they are having some trouble with the mule train transportation system,” Doctor Bothy said.

  “Mules? How quaint! Why don’t they use our newer, mechanical transportation systems?” Commodore Brigg asked.

  “The Coastandroll is still down for repairs. They are having trouble with the braking system, which, if not resolved, may reclassify the steam-powered rail cars as a system for launching heavy projectiles. The Weapons Guild seems most interested in its applications. Besides, the Peerupitscope is too long to make the corners.”

  “Can’t we get along without it?” the commodore asked. “I am anxious to set sail.”

  “Why take the risk? The Peerupitscope is an invaluable tool of the medical sciences. With it, we can look into matters previously hidden from our knowledge.”

  “Oh, very well,” Commodore Brigg said as he turned and stalked up the gangplank. “Only remember, we have a schedule to keep. We sail in three days!”

  Chapter

  5

  The morning of the launch of the MNS Indestructible dawned as bright and clear as anyone who dares the perils of the briny deeps could desire. Not a cloud marred the brilliant blue dome of the sky, and it seemed a fine day for putting out to sea.

  Hundreds of gnomes gathered along the bluff overlooking the shipyard where the Indestructible waited in the quays. In their midst stood a smallish catapult, newly built for the occasion out of Sancrist yew wood and gnome-forged iron, gilt with silver images of gnomes in flight. The purpose of the machine remained something of a mystery even to those busily examining and commenting on its newest safety features and design improvements. Papers fluttered in the stiffening land breeze as several dozen gnomes attempted to sketch the catapult’s more interesting safety devices.

  The event had the party atmosphere of a technology fair, the gnomish national pastime. There were banners, flags, and standards of the various representative guilds snapping in the land breeze. The largest contingent was from the Maritime Sciences Guild, naturally enough, but almost as prevalent were the members of the Boilermakers Guild. Important personages from this guild had been wheeled out from the hospital for the occasion, their bandages decorated with ribbons and buttons of every color of the rainbow. The Caterers Guild drove their steam-powered serving trays through the crowd, proffering a variety of savories, prepared by automatic stoves towed behind them and shot out of dispenser tubes at random into the crowd, most of which were nabbed by the hundreds of seagulls swarming overhead.

  There was, of course, a wagon of beer parked beneath a nearby tree. In the wagon’s traces stood Bright Dancer, Sir Grumdish’s doughty steed, who seemed happy enough in his new occupation, if fence posts can be happy. The beer, being the product of a gnomish brewery, packed quite a wallop, enough to satisfy gnomish sensibilities-despite the early hour, many having sensibly already begun-though dwarves might have found the recipe a bit lacking. Luckily, there were no dwarves around to complain.

  Indeed there were dwarves watching, but from a safe distance across the bay, and they had their own beer, which they weren’t inclined to share. They sat behind a row of tower shields, somewhat apart from the other citizens of the city who had gathered to witness the promised event.

  The city of Pax treated the event as something of a spectacle. The citizens thronged the docks-at a respectful distance of course-to watch and wonder at the preposterousness of gnomes. “The ship is supposed to sink on purpose, which means that it won’t,” was the consensus among the onlookers. Still, the occasion promised to be fun, and wagers were being taken as to how fast the strange-looking vessel would sink, and when it did, how many of the twenty crew members would survive.

  A great cheer went up from the gnomish side of the harbor as Commodore Brigg and his crew took their places on the narrow aft deck of the Indestructible. Out from the top of the mast rippled the red banner of the Maritime Sciences Guild, crackling in the wind. The crew saluted it, while a band on shore hooted, honked, oom-pahed, and bellowed in a weird cacophony of sound that purported to be an anthem of some sort. It frightened away most of the gulls. The crew remained rigidly at attention throughout the song’s ten-and-a-half-minute duration, while the band members, nearly invisible in a jungle of brass, tooted and blew until their faces were quite flushed. When the song wandered off to its broken and disjointed conclusion, it was discovered that three band members had succumbed to asphyxiation, still propped up inside their instruments, some of which required a team of horses to move.

  Afterward, Commodore Brigg made a speech, little of which could be heard or even understood by those in the city across the bay-the common gnomish dialect being too compressed and rapidly-spoken for the human ear to comprehend. With much heroic gesturing, the commodore extolled the virtues of the Indestructible, from its sleek, shark-like body to its innovations in propulsion and weaponry. He promised that, before they put out to sea, everyone would witness a demonstration of the ship’s most remarkable features. To that end, a decommissioned garbage scow had been towed into the center of the bay. They would circle the scow once, then submerge and sink her.

  This brought an appreciative round of applause from the crowd of gnomes and indistinguishable noise from the other onlookers. At a shout from the commodore, the crew members scurried to their stations below decks, while Commodore Brigg and Navigator Snork climbed into the conning tower. Now the ship’s single mast began to rise, growing taller and taller. When it shuddered to a stop at its full height, Commodore Brigg gave a nod and a wave to the crowd.

  Suddenly, members of the Maritime Sciences swarmed around the curious small catapult at the top of the bluff. The dwarves across the bay perked up, smiles splitting their grim beards, while the betting grew hot and furious amongst the humans. Something was loaded into the basket of the catapult, and with a loud huzzah! fired at the Indestructible.

  It missed, splashing in the bay a hundred yards aft. Another was loaded and fired. This missile struck the ship’s taut rigging, bounced off with a twang, and clouted an onlooker in the forehead, knocking him senseless to the wharf. A pack of gully dwarves swarmed out from their hiding places beneath the pier and looted his body before anyone could say Jack Robinson. A third missile was loaded and fired. This one struck where it was supposed to, shattering against the bow of the ship and dousing its iron hull with a generous splash of golden foamy giggle-hiccup. Third time seemed to be the charm, indeed.

  The band struck up a march as the ship slipped from its moorings into the bay. Someone in the crowd set off a volley of gnomish fireworks, which wreaked havoc among the crowd and frightened Bright Dancer from his stupor; he snorted once and galloped away with all the beer. As several gnomes leaped in pursuit, one of the representatives of the Boilermakers Guild, who unfortunately had not locked the brakes on his eight-wheeled chair, got bumped from behind and ended up in the bay.

  Meanwhile, Commodore Brigg ordered the MNS Indestructible hard alee once clear of docks. She swung slowly round, her iron sides gleaming darkly, like some great whale come up to take a look at the city. Except it was a whale with a stepped mast, up which now rose the ship’s sails. Two gnomes scurried to the bow along her footrails to secure the jib to inset s
tirrup belays-quite ingenious! — while four more raised the boom from the aftdeck and rigged the mainsail and main gaff topsail.

  Actually, they didn’t need all this sail to make a turn around the harbor, but Commodore Brigg wanted to show off the Indestructible under full sail. The fresh breeze carried them past the jetty and well out into the main fjord of Gunthar, and threatened to take them on out to sea, which would have been a public relations disaster. At least they hadn’t sunk yet, which was making unhappy the lives of the oddsmakers on shore. The dwarves drank their beer and watched patiently.

  They were almost out of sight of the city when Commodore Brigg, tearing at his beard in frustration, ordered all sails lowered. The Indestructible handled like a barrel under sail, and he couldn’t get the ship turned in the narrow inlet for fear of running her aground. Finally, with all the sheets safely stowed below decks, he ordered the engines powered up and the main flowpellar engaged. The engines were, in fact, large springs, and to power them up one simply turned them by way of a crank until they were tight. Spring engines were found to be much safer underwater than steam engines, even if they did occasionally break their retaining bolts and unwind rather explosively and all at once.

  The flowpellar was the large six-bladed fan fitted into the ship’s stern. When spun, this ingenious device chopped up the water into a chaotic froth. Since it is a well-established fact-the Natural Philosophies Guild having proven it in their famous 213,000-page treatise on the subject-that Nature abhors chaos, when the flowpellar creates this chaotic froth, the water behind the ship rushes in to still it. At the same time, this wave of water pushes against the stern of the ship, thus imparting forward motion.

  Thus the Indestructible moved back into the bay under her own power. The gnomes along the shore had recovered the beer wagon, and so they were cheering mightily at the ship’s return. Not a few thought she had already completed the voyage for which she had been built. The townspeople of Pax also cheered, especially those who had money riding on a generous time spread before the Indestructible sank completely. The dwarves watched patiently.

  Commodore Brigg ordered a stealthy assault on the garbage scow. They completed their circuit of the bay and hove-to before the gnomish shipyard, her bow pointed directly at the unsuspecting scow. The commodore ordered all hands below, UAEPs loaded, and Tube One flooded and pressurized. The mast was retracted, leaving only its top third above deck. Navigator Snork ushered the last sailor into the hatch before following himself, leaving the commodore above. With one final wave to the crowd on shore, the skipper stepped into the hatch, climbed down, and secured it behind him. The gnomish band broke into song.

  The Indestructible lay still in the water, without a sign of life about her. Seagulls settled onto her mast and conning tower, while the waves lapped quietly at her darkly gleaming hull. The band finished its song and the cheering crowd quieted into bemused silence. The dwarves glanced at one another with a knowing glint in their eyes.

  Suddenly, the gulls lifted off the Indestructible, squawking in irritation. The waters around her sides began to bubble as though she were floating in a pool of gigglehiccup. The ship commenced to sink, slowly and evenly, as if on purpose. As it sank, the flowpellar started spinning, propelling the ship toward its waiting victim. Her nose dipped beneath the surface, dark water rolled over her bow and she descended into the depths bit by bit. Now the pair of fins situated fore of the conning tower started to swim in the air. As the ship sank deeper and the water reached this strange apparatus, its purpose became apparent. The fins swirled in the mounting wave and the nose of the ship dipped even deeper, sending the Indestructible into a swift and graceful dive. The water mounted higher, swirling around and then over the conning tower, until all that remained above water was the mast. Suddenly, it, too, vanished beneath the waves, leaving behind hardly a ripple. A trail of bubbles continued toward the garbage scow for a few more seconds until the last bubbles appeared, popped, and were gone.

  The crowd waited in breathless anticipation. It seemed improbable if not entirely impossible that the gnomes had actually built something that worked as it was supposed to work. Those who had bet heavily on its sinking gnawed their fingernails, while those who had wagered a copper or two on the ship actually performing as promised made quick mental calculations of the fortunes they stood to receive, and then began to sweat. The dwarves muttered into their beers.

  Then a bald brown head appeared on the surface not far from where the Indestructible had slipped beneath the waves. It was joined by a second, and then a third, then a dozen, then a narrow, spritely head sporting a bedraggled topknot. For the next few minutes, more gnome heads bobbed up, until the crowd along the shore counted an even twenty. Those who had bet on all the crew surviving made quite a nice return on their wagers, as this had garnered the best odds next to the ship actually working.

  Dozens of small fishing craft darted out from the city docks and in less than thirty minutes, the rescue was complete. The gnomes (and their kender companion) were treated to a sumptuous breakfast at the Ring and Feather, a reputable inn not far from the docks, for it was still quite early in the morning and most people were not quite ready to go home yet. The mayor stopped by to offer his condolences, which were graciously accepted by Commodore Brigg despite the fact that he already had a nasty sniffle. The dwarves finished their beers and returned to their forges.

  In six weeks’ time, the gnomes raised the Indestructible and pumped her dry. The problem had lain with the seal around the mast-there wasn’t one. Never in gnomish shipbuilding had anyone ever needed to place a seal around a mast, and so they never even thought of installing one, obvious though it seemed upon post-sinking reflection.

  So they pumped the vessel out, held an enormous fish fry with all the fish left floundering inside the ship, and replaced all her now-rusted gears, switches, levers, motors, and springs. A few rust spots had also appeared on the gleaming black hull, but these were deemed to give the ship character and were ignored. Members of the original crew who had fled, never to be seen again after the breakfast in the Ring and Feather that inauspicious morning of the Indestructible’s first-note: first-sinking, were replaced. Returning crew members were trained to operate the various improvements conceived, designed, created and installed since the ship sank to the bottom of the harbor six weeks before.

  The morning of the relaunch of the MNS Indestructible dawned brighter and clearer than the first, and it seemed impossible that the sky could be any bluer. Despite the brilliance of the day, there were noticeably fewer attendees watching from the city. The gnomes were there in full regalia, of course, but there wasn’t any band, and the catapult that had launched the Indestructible with a bottle of gigglehiccup had already been shipped to Mount Nevermind to be put to the use for which it was designed-launching loaves of bread from the Baker’s Guild level up to the Dining Hall level. On the city side, the dwarves were noticeably absent, as were the bookmakers and gamblers, who couldn’t get odds on the ship’s success. A few bums, old salts, seadogs, rummies, and loungers idled around the docks, but the results of the launch seemed such a foregone conclusion that most of the citizens of Pax who desired distraction this fair morning were attending the unveiling of a new marble statue of Gunthar uth Wistan, former grandmaster of the Knights of Solamnia, dead some thirty years. The statue had been erected in the city center by the family of Lady Jessica of Isherwood, herself a Knight of some renown. Even as the Indestructible slipped out of the quays, the mayor of Pax was giving a speech honoring Lord Gunthar’s achievements, as well as the generosity of Lady Jessica.

  Commodore Brigg gave no speech. He wore a dark leather jacket and a leather cap pulled well down over his eyes, hiding the angry coals smoldering there. But the grim set of his white-bearded chin, and the harsh bark of his voice as he ordered the ship on a direct course for the garbage scow still anchored in the midst of the harbor, betrayed his disgust with humans and their fickle ways, as few had bothered to come to
see them off.

  As the Indestructible neared its rusting victim, the gnomes along the shore cheered with new enthusiasm, and their shouts brought something of a smile to Commodore Brigg’s face. He ordered both UAEP tubes flooded and pressurized in preparation for firing. Deep inside the ship, things begin to clang and clamor busily. The commodore took aim on the scow, sighting along the lubber’s line drawn on the forward rail of the conning tower. He lifted a small flexible tube, blew into it, and then shouted “Prepare to fire!” Something in the bowels of the ship rang out like a struck bell, sending vibrations throughout the ship.

  Commodore Brigg placed the tube to his ear, listened for a moment, then put it to his mouth again. As he began to blow, his outpuffed cheeks were suddenly filled with seawater. He dashed the spewing hose from his mouth, coughing and gagging. The stern of the ship began to sink, lifting her how out of the water. Commodore Brigg opened the hatch to see what was the matter, but this only hastened the ship’s demise. Green seawater fountained forth from the opened hatch, bowling the commodore overboard while vomiting out much of the crew along with the water. The Indestructible slipped stern foremost beneath the waves, pausing only long enough to launch one of its UAEPs in a concussive explosion and spray of green seawater.

  The giant arrow scribed a tremendous arc hundreds of feet in the air across the brilliant blue sky. The people along the docks (and the gnomes) suddenly realized, to their horror, that the projectile was bound to fall to earth somewhere within the confines of the city. Commodore Brigg cringed as he bobbed in the water.

  The UAEP descended like a hive of bees, buzzing madly over the first row of warehouses, past streets of homes and businesses, onward and downward toward the city square. It streaked down an alley, slicing through clotheslines strung between the buildings like so many strings of a harp, before passing over the crowd gathered to listen to the mayor’s dedication speech. It then struck off the head of the statue of Lord Gunthar, as neatly as an executioner’s blade, just as the mayor and the sculptor were triumphantly pulling aside its covering sheet. The head leaped from Lord Gunthar’s shoulders in nothing less than complete surprise and landed on the mayor’s foot, breaking only his pinky toe, by some strange luck. The giant arrow careened off the statue, passed through the open second story bedroom window of the house of Nathan the Tailor, through the open bedroom door, down the hall, and out the open staircase window without touching a thing or waking any of the occupants of the house. From there, it skipped once off the shallowly-pitched roof of a chicken house, frightening its occupants out of three days” laying before coming to a quivering stop inside the slat wood fences of a pig sty owned by the dwarf Dernbannin-who was busy at his forge next door and heard the whole thing, he would loudly proclaim in the months that followed- and neatly skewering his prized and much-beloved pig, Humphrey Afterwards, no one could say who squealed the louder: Humphrey, or the mayor with his broken pinky toe.