Into the Void

For an instant, the black wall was invisible. A thin line of blue-white brilliance encircled the ship. Then the vessel was through.

Teldin's curiosity overcame the sense of weakness that still possessed him, and he forced himself to his feet. He edged his way past the officers at the chart table and descended the three shallow steps to the forward weapon deck. The crewman who was taking Teldin's watch duty was squatting on the deck, his back against the ballista's swivel mount, gazing around him with undisguised fascination. He heard Teldin's approaching steps and nodded a greeting before returning to his observations.

Teldin searched his memory for the man's name. After a moment, it came: Shandess. Older than most other members of the crew, he reminded Teldin of an ancient bit of chewed leather: very much the worse for wear, but still tough and resilient. 'You've done this before?' Teldin asked him. He'd meant to speak in a normal voice-a way to prove to himself that he'd shaken off his earlier shock-but the words still came out in a whisper.

'The flow?' Shandess nodded. 'Oh, aye, three score times, more maybe.' He grinned, showing crooked and broken teeth. 'It always gets you, don't it?' The old man pointed upward and astern, over the forecastle. 'That's your home behind us, ye know.'

Teldin turned. The black plane was visible again, but this time astern of the Probe. The sense of infinity was missing, simply because the flow itself wasn't perfectly transparent, and attenuated his vision over distance. Still, the sheer immensity of what he could see was quite impressive enough.

The stern of the vessel was just passing through the portal. From this perspective, it was easier to appreciate the shape and size of the air bubble that surrounded the ship. It looked like a smooth ovoid, about three times as long as the ship, and about three times as wide as the Probe's beam. As far as he could tell, the bubble's 'walls' were totally insubstantial; the light of the flow didn't reflect or refract from anything. He knew that his initial image of the bubble as a glass bottle was wrong, but still it was very descriptive. As the ship moved forward, the intertwined rivulets of color parted for it, eddying slightly as they flowed backward along the bubble's periphery.

He looked astern once more. The portal was gone, closed. The black plane of the crystal sphere was unbroken and unmarked. Krynnspace-his entire life up to this point-was on the other side of that colossal barrier, and he was sundered from it, perhaps forever.

Chapter Five

The corridor was dark as Teldin made his way back toward the cabin he shared with the gnomes. Normally corridors and companionways were lit by small oil lamps mounted in brackets on the bulkheads, but now the brackets were empty. The only light came through open doors, and that was the shifting, colored light of the flow flooding in through portholes. Teldin wasn't sure if it was this dim but constantly changing illumination or his own weakness that made him sway almost drunkenly as he walked.

He could hear the conversation before he reached the cabin and found himself grinning. Although he couldn't distinguish the words, he recognized the tune. Dana's voice dominated, and from her tone he could tell she was voicing her displeasure about something aboard the Probe. Maybe it was the food again, or the way the ship's weapons master wouldn't let her adjust the action of the heavy ballista, or maybe it was something new. He had to give Dana credit: she had a gods-given ability to find something wrong with everything.

Rather surprisingly, the conversation cut off as he opened the door. The two hammocks were occupied by Miggins and Dana, while Horvath sat cross-legged on a cushion of folded canvas. Teldin stifled a sigh. The way his body felt right now, he needed a rest, and sacking out on the floor just wasn't comfortable, but what could he do?

Before he could lower himself to the deck, however, Dana had swung herself out of her hammock… anticipating by an instant Miggins's attempt to do the same thing. The younger gnome shrugged and resettled himself comfortably.

Dana flopped down on a bundle of sails in the corner. 'Take it,' she said gruffly, indicating the hammock. Not once did she look up or meet his eyes.

Wordlessly, Teldin clambered into the hammock and relaxed with a sigh. He didn't know what to make of Dana's actions, but as a farmer he knew the inadvisability of looking a gift horse in the mouth. He glanced surreptitiously over to Miggins, hoping the boy would give him some clue, but the youth's smug smile didn't tell him anything-or, at least, anything he wanted to know, part of his mind admitted. He shook his head as if to clear it.

The chaotic light of the flow poured into the cabin, washing the bulkheads with ever-changing veneers of color. Under other circumstances, Teldin might have found it beautiful, even somewhat hypnotic. Now, however, it made him feel edgy and a little claustrophobic. Looking around, he saw that the cabin's single oil lamp wasn't burning-why should it be?- but at least it hadn't been removed like the ones in the corridor. 'Can't we cover the portholes?' he said a little peevishly. 'Here, I'll light the lamp.' He reached for the steel and flint he always kept in his belt pouch….

He didn't even see the gnome move, but suddenly Horvath's hand was like a steel band around his wrist. 'No!' Horvath said sharply. 'No fire.'

Teldin looked at the other gnomes. They were all staring at him in horror. 'All right,' he said reasonably, 'no fire, but why?'

Horvath still held his wrist, but the grip had loosened from its initial viselike tightness. 'We're in the flow,' he explained in a tone he'd reserve for a child or a congenital idiot. 'We're in the phlogiston. Don't you know what that means?'

'Obviously not,' Teldin replied. The gnome's manner irritated him somewhat, but he was sensible enough to realize that he'd been about to make some major mistake. 'What's-' he stumbled over the word '- flegisten?'

'Phlogiston' Horvath repeated. He finally released his grip, leaving Teldin to rub his bruised wrist. 'The flow is phlogiston.'

'Which is… ?' Teldin prompted.

'Merely the most flammable substance in existence,' Horvath said heavily, 'flammable and explosive. Why do you think there isn't a light burning in the entire ship?'

Teldin didn't answer. Instead, he remembered Aelfred's actions on the bridge when the Probe had been preparing to move through the open portal. The first mate had said something about 'flow stations'… then he'd extinguished the lantern over the chart table. At the time, Teldin hadn't attached any significance to it.

Horvath wasn't finished. 'Do you know what would have happened if you'd struck a spark just now?'

Teldin felt a cold stirring in the pit of his stomach'. 'What?' 'You might well have blown your hand off,' the gnome told him flatly. 'At the very least, you'd have suffered a nasty burn, at the worst killed yourself, depending on how good your steel and flint are. That's why, when a ship's about to enter the flow, an officer always goes around to make sure everything's at 'flow stations'-no lights, nothing burning. Spacefarers are full of tales about ships being destroyed because the cook didn't know the ship was leaving wildspace and hadn't quenched his stove.'

'I've got an idea for a flow-stove….' Miggins piped up, but immediately fell silent again under Horvath's harsh glare. Dana snorted. 'That oversized lout of a first mate didn't believe we understood about flow stations.'

Horvath's hard expression softened slightly. 'Nobody told you that?'

'No,' Teldin said, shaking his head vigorously. 'I suppose they assumed I already knew it.'

Horvath frowned. 'Sloppy, that was,' he said. 'Never assume anything with dirtkickers.' He patted Teldin's wrist reassuringly. 'My apologies for my anger, Teldin. The fault was theirs-and, I suppose, ours-not yours.'

Teldin shook his head. So close… 'The phlogiston is really that flammable?' he asked.

'All that and more,' Horvath assured him. 'Why, my father was trying to invent a phlogiston bomb, a sealed flask of phlogiston with a fuse attached. Never managed it, may his soul rest in caverns of gold.' The gnome placed a respectful hand on his chest.