Conundrum

by Jeff Crook

  “Commodore Brigg,” he said. “Have we begun our descent?”

  The commodore ignored him, and instead stepped back with a broad smile on his face. “Lower the Peerupitscope,” he said softly. The long gleaming tube of metal sank into the floor.

  “Commodore Brigg,” Sir Tanar said insistently, clearing his throat for emphasis.

  Again, the commodore ignored him. Turning to Snork, he said calmly, as though telling the cook what to prepare for tonight’s mess, “Navigator, surface the ship.”

  “Aye, sir!” Snork assented with a red gleam in his eye. He turned to Sir Grumdish.

  “Emergency ascent!” he shouted. “Blow the ballast tanks! Engage the ascending flowpellar!”

  Sir Grumdish shouted down the ladder to engineering, “Emergency ascent, aye! Engineer, blow the ballast tanks! Engage the ascending flowpellars!”

  They heard the chief shouting, “Blow the ballast tanks, aye! Engage the ascending flowpellars, aye!” His voice quickly became lost in the whir and shriek of spinning gears and clattering spring cranks.

  Responding to the controls, Indestructible leaped upward. The crew staggered and held on as the bow of the ship tilted upward and the engines drove her through the water. The brownish light shining through the porthole quickly brightened and shaded to a deep red, then a pale pink. Suddenly, it vanished, replaced by fingers of foam running down the surface of the glass. The bow of the ship rose up out of the water like a breaching whale, then came down with a heavy surge, huge waves lashing out to either side.

  “Fire the UAEPs!” the commodore shouted.

  “Fire the UAEPs!” Sir Grumdish repeated. “Aye!”

  Just as the ship began to settle back into the water, it lurched backward. Twin forty-foot-long sprays of glistening water erupted from the bow, and from them shot two enormous arrows, directly at the minotaur vessel.

  The pirates spun round in surprise at the sudden appearance of the Indestructible less than a hundred yards off their starboard rail. Half panicked by the sight, their crew tried to swing their catapult around and bring it to bear on the gnomes” submersible, but their efforts were wasted. One UAEP swept through them, scattering them across the decks and knocking not a few overboard. The other UAEP struck home in the mast, thudding into the hard timber and splitting it from base to wind-bellied topsail.

  The minotaur captain, seeing the steel-headed ram jutting out from the bow of the Indestructible, recognized the hopelessness of the situation. Already, the mainmast of the pirate galley was cracking under the weight of the sails and push of the wind. He swept out his scimitar and roared in a bestial voice, “She’s gonna ram us! Prepare to board and take ’em, lads!”

  Indestructible closed on her helpless prey. The crew cheered as the galley’s mainmast split asunder, spilling its sheets and lines in a chaotic heap upon her decks and burying many of her crew. But they saw numerous other pirates, steel in hand, gathering at her starboard rail, the red gleam of murder in their eyes.

  The commodore held on. “Full speed!” he shouted. “Brace for impact!”

  Indestructible struck the waves, spray flying before its bow. The galley loomed closer, larger, fining up the porthole with its stout timbers. And then, with a rending shriek of metal and cracking of wood, the Indestructible lurched to a sudden stop. Everything not tied down or braced flew forward, smashing against walls and bulkheads.

  Conundrum climbed to his feet and pressed his face against the bridge porthole. “That’s done her!” he screamed joyously, pointing at the sea rushing into the pirate galley around the bow of the Indestructible, which was firmly lodged into a hole in the galley’s side large enough to swallow a small whale. The others crowded closer to witness the destruction.

  Suddenly, a dark shape dropped before them, its hideous bestial face filling up the window, red eyes blazing, forward swept horns rising from its head. It had a dagger clamped firmly in its mouth, and a scimitar in one sledgelike fist, swept back to strike. The bitter edge of the blade pinged against the glass of the porthole, inflicting no damage but causing everyone to leap back in fear. Other shapes dropped around it, and soon they were pounding on the hatch with their blades.

  “Let’s hope they don’t have hammers!” the commodore said, laughing nervously. He turned and shouted down the ladder, “Withdraw the ram!”

  “It’s stuck!” Chief Portlost answered as he climbed up to the bridge. He stood before the commodore, wringing his beard in frustration.

  “Well, back us up. They’re boarding us,” the commodore said.

  “We can’t, sir!” the chief wailed in dismay. “We don’t have a reverse.”

  “Is it broken?”

  “No, sir. We never designed the ship to go in reverse,” the chief answered.

  “Well, that’s torn it,” the commodore said, placing his fists on his hips and stomping his foot.

  “Commodore,” Snork said. “The galley’s sinking.” Already, the sea covered half the porthole. The pounding on the hatch had an air of desperation to it, and the minotaur outside the porthole had dropped his scimitar and was trying his dagger against the hatch’s seals.

  “She’s sinking,” the commodore repeated, “and taking us with her.”

  19

  “Well, Chief, this may complete your Life Quest,” Commodore Brigg said. “This is a wondrously bad mishap by any definition. I hope you’re recording it.”

  Chief Pordost’s head appeared at the top of the ladder. “Thanks for reminding me! Let me get my notebook.” He disappeared below decks.

  Now, seawater completely filled the view from the porthole. They saw a pair of large booted feet kicking madly and rising slowly upward. A stream of bubbles poured out of the gaping hole in the galley’s side and vanished upward as well. The sunlight shining through the water grew steadily dimmer and browner.

  “How deep do you suppose it is here, Navigator?” the commodore asked, almost as if he were asking for the time of day.

  Snork shook his head and shrugged, unable to find words, then turned back to the porthole. Gradually, it grew darker and darker, until it was like a large black eye peering back at them. And still they sank, the two ships twirling round and round each other. Commodore Brigg didn’t voice his greatest concern-that they’d come to rest on the sea floor upside down, or worse, beneath the galley. That’s why he didn’t order the ballast tanks flooded, for he hoped the Indestructible’s buoyancy might keep them on top, if not pull them free entirely.

  As the two ships sank deeper and deeper into the Blood Sea, the hull of the Indestructible began to pop and groan in a most alarming fashion. The deck beneath their feet buckled, bowing up a good three inches during the course of their descent. Here and there, where the hull was exposed, they noticed water droplets forming around the ship’s seams, and the air grew noticeably cooler. Every once in a while, the entire ship shuddered from stem to stern, rattling their teeth and everything else not bolted to the deck. Outside the ship, the sea slowly grew as black as a dark elf s heart.

  Suddenly, there was a groan, and a shudder more violent than any they had yet experienced passed through the length of the ship. They felt the ship slow, settle, and come to rest with a bump on the bottom of the Blood Sea. Commodore Brigg looked around at his officers and crew that had gathered in the forward corridor and around the ladder leading below. He thrust out his chin, his beard bristling defiantly, and tugged at the bottom of his jacket. “Well,” he said. “Here we are.”

  Razmous stood before the porthole, his jaw hanging open like a broken gate, his eyes glazed. Conundrum touched his arm, and slowly the kender’s head swiveled round to look down at him.

  “Isn’t it fantastic?” the kender asked dreamily.

  “I can’t take this any more,” Sir Tanar said in a voice tinged with hysteria. His claustrophobia seemed to be getting the better of him at last. He ran toward the ladder leading up to the hatch. “My magic will save me,” he snarled. “To the Abyss with the rest of you
!”

  Sir Grumdish caught the Thorn Knight around the legs and dragged him to the deck before he could reach the ladder. He and the professor sat on Sir Tanar’s back to keep him from rising. The wizard clawed at the floor, spitting curses and threatening to kill them all. Doctor Bothy hurried from sick bay and administered a sedative to the base of the Thorn Knight’s skull. Sir Tanar went limp at the blow, though he continued to moan and gibber incoherently. The doctor passed his reflex hammer to Conundrum in case the Thorn Knight needed another dose of sedative, then directed Sir Grumdish and the professor to carry the Knight to his cabin.

  The two gnomes heaved Sir Tanar’s limp bones between them and staggered forward, the doctor and Conundrum following. They entered Sir Tanar’s chambers and tossed him into his hammock. Sir Grumdish staggered back, blowing heavily and digging his knuckles into the small of his back. In the blue light of the glowwormglobes, his white beard looked grayer and older than before, and there were dark circles under his eyes.

  “Why, oh why did I ever come on this voyage?” he moaned. “I should be questing after dragons, not dragging hysterical wizards back to their cabins. I miss the smell of fewmets, the crackle of a fire at night, the sound of a sword unsheathing. A pox on the maritime sciences!”

  “Now, now,” Doctor Bothy said. “I’ve got something that will cure you. Come to sick bay and I’ll give you a little nip.” The two departed.

  Sir Tanar lay in his hammock, twitching feebly, his eyelids fluttering. Conundrum stood at his side, filled with an unreasoning concern. He didn’t quite understand why he should be worried about this human, but he couldn’t help the way he felt. Even as he stroked the Thorn Knight’s brow and tried to comfort him, deep down inside he felt repulsed by the sight of the ungainly, sprawling, pale-skinned human. It was quite mystifying.

  To take his mind off his conflicting emotions, Conundrum watched the professor, who was at that moment standing before the how porthole, a blue glowwormglobe resting in the palm of his outstretched hand. At first, Conundrum wasn’t sure what the professor was looking at, but as he gazed closer, his eyes met with a startling, fascinating, and thoroughly gruesome sight.

  They were inside the galley.

  When the Indestructible rammed the galley, her iron-shod bow had punched completely through the galley’s wooden hull and become lodged in the hole. Sir Tanar’s cabin was located in the bow of the Indestructible, so the light from the professor’s glowwormglobe shining through the forward porthole actually illuminated the interior of the pirate ship’s hold. The murky water, filled now with freshly-stirred mud from the sea floor, seemed nearly as thick and opaque as tarbean tea, and things floated in it, things difficult to identify because they were hovering, without gravity pressing them down into their accustomed shapes. What appeared at first to be a shred of fog proved in fact to he a bolt of diaphanous silk, partially unrolled, stolen from the-gods-only-knew-where. Personal items littered the scene-brushes, curry combs, leather flasks crushed flat by the weight of the water, a cracked mirror, a hunk of half-eaten meat with teeth marks plainly visible'.

  But what filled Conundrum with horror were the bodies, six at least. They were all minotaurs, but a sickening feeling washed over Conundrum when he looked at their bestial faces. In each case, the mouth hung open, and the tongue, mottled gray, dangled out the side. The eyes, too, were open, and seemed to be staring at something very far away. Their ears, their big bovine ears, struck him as the most pathetic. Soft, keen, intelligent, they swayed in the gentle currents and eddies still swirling through the hold, as though they yet listened for the order to abandon ship.

  Conundrum turned away, trying to blank the vision from his mind. He ground his teeth and clawed at his curly red beard in frustration. All he ever wanted to do was solve puzzles. He wasn’t a warrior or a sailor. The sight of the drowned pirates filled him with cold loathing, and disgust, and pity-yes, pity-even for an enemy, even for a monster like a minotaur.

  Doctor Bothy stuck his head into the room. “How’s the patient?” he asked.

  Conundrum composed himself and looked at Sir Tanar. The Thorn Knight had regained consciousness. He sat up and glared about, feeling the back of his head and counting the lumps.

  “Feeling better?” the doctor asked with a smile. Behind him stood Sir Grumdish, cheeks flushed and beaming happily. “I could give you another shot if you are still nervous.”

  “No!” Sir Tanar shouted, then winced. “That won’t be necessary,” he finished in muted tones, but his eyes flashed with hate.

  “Good, the commodore wants everyone on the bridge.”

  The officers and crew of the MNS Indestructible drew together around the commodore. Their trembling white beards and drawn faces turned to him in the dim blue light. He’d ordered all but one glowwormglobe covered in order to darken the bridge. This allowed them to see, through the bridge porthole, the professor’s light shining from the bow porthole inside the sunken galley. It revealed to them the true gravity of their situation.

  They were strangely silent-quiet as no gnome should be. Usually, given a situation calling for ingenuity and daring, they would have all been talking at once as rapidly as their tongues could wag, proposing, discussing, arguing, counter-arguing, counter-proposing, revising, and discarding a dozen ideas and theories all at the same time. But they needed to he able to get their hands on the problem, so to speak, and this was something quite beyond anyone’s grasp. For the problem literally lay outside their ship, and that was the one place none of them could go, not even wearing the professor’s diving suit. The steel head of the ram could not be withdrawn from the heavy beam into which it had embedded itself. The Indestructible and the pirate galley were bound together, irreversibly it seemed.

  The commodore had called them all together to discuss their options, but when it seemed no one had anything to say, no theories to offer or experiments to try, he turned to Chief Portlost. “Chief,” he said, “how long would it take to reverse the engine?”

  “Well, if we were in dry dock and I had a full crew of engineers,” he pondered, tapping his front teeth with a pencil, “I should say a month at least. Of course, it would require dismantling the ship.”

  “That doesn’t sound practical, given our present situation,” the commodore said.

  “Yes, I agree,” the chief replied. “You must admit, this is certainly a remarkable and unforeseen occurrence. You would have thought we would have included a reverse gear in the design from the beginning, wouldn’t you? This will require months, simply months of investigation. There’ll be interviews, and committees, and commissions, and possibly even a task force. We’ll produce a study of the events, with speculation and conclusions. It should run at least ten thousand pages. That is, if we live, of course.”

  “The good thing is,” Snork offered, “we’ll know better with the next ship design.”

  Everyone agreed that this was indeed an excellent point. “Should we call the next prototype the Class D?” the commodore asked.

  “That would be the logical progression,” Chief Portlost answered. The mood among the crew began to lighten somewhat, now that they had something positive to think about-the design of the next ship. Several spontaneous discussions broke out, and one argument.

  But Sir Tanar silenced all debates when he cried, still a little hysterically, “There isn’t going to be another ship, you… you… you… gnomes! You’re all going to die here. We’re trapped! Trapped like rats!”

  He glared wildly around at the small, brown faces turned toward him, then stepped back when he saw Doctor Bothy edging toward him, reflex hammer in hand.

  “Speak for yourself.” The commodore pshawed. “You don’t understand, do you? Humans never do. You humans look at us, and you see a funny little people, a race of preposterous inventors. Sometimes you find our inventions useful, like the gnomeflinger, and sometimes they seem ridiculous, like the gnomeflinger. You’re always ready to take our successes and profit by them, but you ar
e also always ready to disparage our mishaps, not knowing that the mishap is at least as important as the success, if not more so. For only from the mishap do we learn.” He turned back to the crew. “Now,” he said, his lips setting into a grim line. “We know what can’t be done. Tell me what can be done.”

  “We can escape in the ascending kettles,” Conundrum offered, reminding them of his invention.

  “Possibly, and I had already thought of that,” the commodore said. “But I am not yet ready to abandon the Indestructible. She’s not a perfect ship, but she is mine. And besides, even if we did escape, that would only leave us lost in the middle of the Blood Sea.”

  “What about the ascending and descending flowpellars?” Chief Portlost asked. “We might use them to wiggle free.”

  “They’re pinned in the retracted position by the galley’s hull,” Snork answered.

  “But we might still wiggle free,” Chief Portlost countered, “by repeatedly flooding and emptying the aft ballast tank.”

  “Now that’s an idea,” the commodore said.

  “What we really need is some rearward thrust,” Conundrum said. “If we could put a pole out and push against the galley somehow. Perhaps through the Peerupitscope?”

  “The UAEPs!” Professor Hap-Troggensbottle exclaimed.

  “What about them?” the commodore asked. “There isn’t room to fire them. The arrow probably wouldn’t even make it all the way out of the pressure tube, and what good would that do us?”

  “You’ve all felt the way the ship lurches back when they are fired,” the professor said excitedly. “The outward force of the released pressurized water generates a momentary reverse force on the ship.”

  “He’s right,” the chief agreed.