Into the Void

His own attention was focused pretty much in the same place, Teldin had to admit. He also had to admit that it was warranted.

The newcomer sat at the table, her back to the large port that looked out to the star-studded blackness of wildspace. She'd removed the heavy cloak she'd been wrapped in, and Teldin thought that was a great improvement. She was tail-almost as tall as Teldin himself-and slender, but her movements seemed to imply there was considerable strength in her supple body. She wore a jerkin and tights of forest green, not too different from the clothes worn by most aboard the Probe, but her garb was well-tailored to show off the curves of her figure. On her feet were boots of soft mahogany-brown leather that came halfway up shapely calves. Her face was slender, but her features were more rounded than sharply chiseled, and her small nose was slightly upturned. When she smiled-which was often-the tanned skin around her green eyes crinkled in what Teldin thought of as 'laugh-lines,' and she became even more beautiful than when her face was at rest. When she spoke, her warm voice seemed to have an undercurrent of laughter.

She was speaking now, brushing shoulder-length curls of honey-blond hair back from her face. 'My name is Rianna Wyvernsbane,' she said, 'and, first thing, I want to thank you all for saving me. I thought I was dead.'

Aelfred gave a half-smile and shook his head as though to dismiss the thanks. 'What happened to your ship?' he asked.

'I was inward bound from Garden,' Rianna answered.

'For Toril?' Sylvie put in.

'For Dragon Rock, in the Tears of Selune. I live on Tori], but I keep my ship-the Ghost- on the Rock.'

'Toril to Garden's a long flight in a mosquito,' Sylvie remarked.

'Not really,' Rianna replied with a throaty chuckle, 'not if you don't mind your own company. I make my living as a message-runner. If you need a message delivered to any planet in Realmspace-fast, with no complications-I'm your girl.'

'You were telling us what happened,' Aelfred reminded her.

Rianna favored him with a smile. 'That's right, I was.' She sat back in her chair. She seemed completely relaxed, Teldin thought, totally unconcerned that she was aboard a strange ship surrounded by potential enemies. Was she so brave that the thought didn't bother her, or so stupid that the danger hadn't even occurred to her? Or was her apparent relaxation just a facade?

'I'd delivered my message to the party in question,' Rianna went on, 'and I was climbing away from Garden when I saw another vessel coming up ahead. A deathspider.'

Aelfred cursed. 'Neogi again.'

Rianna shot him a curious look, but he waved her on with her story. 'The Ghost isn't much to look at,' she continued, 'and she's not much in combat, but I've stripped her for maneuverability, and she's fast….' She grinned wryly. 'The long and the short of it is, I ran, down toward Garden again. If you know Garden at all, you know it's a cluster of large rocks in one atmosphere envelope. I ducked in among the rocks to lose the deathspider. It worked. Just.' She grimaced. 'Those neogi are nothing if not persistent. They got a few shots away, and the poor old Ghost took a bad hit….'

'I didn't notice any damage,' Sylvie pointed out.

'Take a look at the starboard wing root,' Rianna suggested, 'you'll see it's held on by rope, a little wire, and a whole lot of good intentions. The keel is cracked, too, ready to give way, I think.'

'Go on,' Aelfred prompted.

'They followed me down,' the woman continued, 'right on my tail, until they had to break off or slam full into one of the rocks. I went on through. They had to reverse course, then take the long way around, so I had a good head start, enough to get away.'

'What were the neogi doing there?' The question slipped out before Teldin could stop it.

Rianna's green-eyed gaze settled on Teldin for the first time. I wish I'd made myself more handsome, he caught himself thinking. Now where did that thought come from?

'I don't know,' she replied with a smile, 'I didn't stop to ask them.'

'And then?' Aelfred prompted.

'Then I headed for Toril. I pushed the Ghost as hard as I could, for as long as I could keep my mind clear. I was well away from Garden, and I couldn't see the neogi anymore. That's when my helm died. No warning. One moment I'm tearing along at full spelljamming speed, the next, I'm moving at a crawl with no control over the ship at all.'

Teldin felt a current of sympathy around the table. He could understand why. Vallus Leafbower's comments about distance in wildspace were still with him. The idea of being stranded in that vastness was terrifying.

'Bad,' Sylvie commiserated, echoing the feelings of everyone else in the saloon. 'What was wrong with the helm?'

Rianna shook her head, and her blond tresses swung. 'I'm not an arcane,' she chuckled. 'I can run a helm. I can't troubleshoot one. It was just dead.'

'And then?' Aelfred prompted again.

'Then I drifted. What else could I do? I was too far from Garden for its gravity to affect me, but I did still have some speed-though not much-and I was heading toward the sun. I figured the best thing-the only thing-was to conserve the air I had. No work, no movement that I could avoid. Just hope that some ship would find me before I suffocated.' She bathed everyone at the table with a warm smile. 'I slept a lot, but I didn't enjoy the dreams.'

'The air was foul aboard your ship,' Julia noted. 'How long were you adrift?'

'Twenty-three days.'

The female officer looked at her uncertainly. 'You had food and water for twenty-three days? On a mosquito?'

'Water, yes,' Rianna replied. 'I don't do cargo runs, so I load the Ghost's cargo space with as much water as I can. You never know, do you? But food, no. I've been on very thin rations, and for the last couple of days nothing at all. So maybe when we're finished here… ?' She patted her stomach.

'We're almost finished,' Aelfred said briskly, 'then you can get something to eat. Your destination is Toril?'

'Dragon Rock,' Rianna corrected him, 'if you're going near there…'

'Our destination is Toril,' the first mate told her.

She shrugged. 'Close enough.'

'About your ship,' Aelfred pressed on. 'We can't take her aboard.'

'Tow her?' Rianna suggested.

The first mate shook his head. 'Not practical. If the keel is cracked, she'll break up. Plus, we can't land with a ship in tow.'

Rianna digested this in silence, eyes lowered. 'Ah, well,' she sighed eventually, 'I suppose I knew the Ghost and I had taken our last voyage together. Cut her loose if you have to.'

Sylvie reacted to the woman's sadness. 'We'll post a salvage claim on the hull,' she said reassuringly. 'That way maybe you'll recover something from her.'

The newcomer nodded her thanks, then she turned back co Aelfred. 'What port on Toril?' she asked.

'Rauthaven. Naturally, we'll give you passage to there.'

'Nimbral?' She looked somber for a moment, then brightened. 'Well, it could be worse. I should be able to get passage to Dragon Rock from Rauthaven, then maybe another ship, and I'm back in business.' She smiled at Aelfred. 'If we're through here, maybe we could do something about that meal… ?'

*****

As the Probe drew closer to Toril, Teldin came to realize that Rianna Wyvernsbane's status aboard ship was almost as ambiguous as his, though for quite different reasons. Almost immediately after she'd eaten, Rianna had sought out Aelfred and insisted that he assign her duties in return for passage to Toril. She'd offered to take shifts on the hammership's helm- after all, she was mage enough to run the Ghost- but the Probe already had enough helmsmen. Instead he assigned her to assist Sylvie with plotting the approach to Rauthaven.