The Maelstrom Eye

were going to work on, either. We can't do anything about it here, since all they have available are gnome women- unless you like that type-but we'll work on it.' With a crooked, bowing grin, the blond warrior waved and headed for the door, letting himself out.

'You old dog, you,' Teldin said, staring at the door. I can't believe you still want to travel with me, he thought. I just can't believe it. For the first time in ages, he felt a sense of lightness inside him.

'Hey!' came Gaye's voice from under the bed. 'What kind of problem are you having? And why did he say you couldn't do anything about it here because of the gnome women?'

Teldin closed his eyes for a moment. 'Gaye,' he said wearily, 'it's none of your business.'

The kender, now covered in dust balls from her black hair to her tanned legs, scrambled to her feet. 'They don't sweep very well in here,' she said conversationally, brushing herself off beside Teldin's bed and scattering dust clouds everywhere. 'Well, if you don't want to talk about your deep, dark problem, then maybe you'll talk about it later when we get to the fal. Aelfred told the navigator that a fal was like a snail, only a zillion times bigger. Is that true? Why are we supposed to go see a snail, anyway?'

'You know,' Teldin said irritably, 'I don't recall that any invitation was extended to you or to anyone else for a chance to go on this expedition.'

'Really?' Gaye said, unfazed. 'We were all going there anyway until we crashed here. What's the difference?' She wiped her hands off on Teldin's sheets again. 'Anyway, I've already been talking with the gnomes. I told them you were looking for the Spelljammer, and they were quite excited about helping us out. So get some rest.' Gaye patted Teldin's shoulder. 'You've been a big hero, but you need a little more nap time. Then we'll visit the big snail and find the Spelljammer and tell all our friends about it.'

The kender padded over to the window and hoisted herself onto the ledge with youthful grace. Turned so that she faced out, she leaned back and gave Teldin a last wave.

'I'll ask Aelfred if I can help with your problem, whatever it is,' she called, then swung herself off the ledge, disappearing from view.

'No!' Teldin cried, half sitting up. He waited with terror for the awful crash that he knew would follow as the crazy kender hit the ground.

No crash came. Wind stirred the tree leaves outside the window. Some very loud machine could be heard in the distance, probably a fan boat rumbling across the lake.

Teldin swung his feet off the bed, wadded up the now-filthy sheets, and carefully made his way over to the window. Thanks to the gnomes' healing magic, his legs had outwardly recovered from their injuries on the Probe, but they ached abominably with every step. Limping to the window, he peered down to find a trace of the kender.

There was nothing on the ground but grass, running right up to the infirmary walls. Gaye was nowhere in sight.

Stunned, Teldin looked down at the wall itself. There were no handholds, no pipes, nothing at all that she possibly could have used to climb up the wall to his window. He looked up, and it was then that he saw the last bit of a piece of rope flick over the roofs gutter, pulled up by unseen hands, Gaye's. Teldin felt a stab of admiration with his relief.

He was heading back to his bed when he heard short footsteps outside, marching up to his door. As he swung his feet under the sheets again, shaking the dust off as well as he could, Teldin heard a rapid, continuous knocking sound from a spot low on the door.

'I'm busy,' he said, too worn out to see anyone else. He figured the knocker had to be a gnome, and his legs were still aching from moving around. He fell back on the pillow and stared at the ceiling.

Haifa minute passed before the knocking resumed, Maybe if I tried real hard, Teldin thought, I could choke myself with this cloak and save the neogi and everyone else the trouble. Maybe then I could get some rest.

The knocking went on and on.

'Come in!' Teldin shouted in surrender. 'Just come in!'

'I'm not bothering you, am I?' came a voice outside his door. It was Dyffed. 'I wouldn't do this, you understand, but some matters have come up since we landed here, and I felt that I should probably discuss them with you when you had a free moment, and I didn't think you'd be doing anything right now, so I thought I'd come by and-'

'Come in, come in, come in, come in, come in!' Teldin shouted, too tired to throw something at the door.

'Ah, then I'm glad I'm not bothering you,' said Dyffed cheerily, letting himself in. Sporting a thick bandage on top of his bald head, tied down with a strip of white cloth, the little gnome also wore a new set of gold-rimmed spectacles, probably having lost his previous pair in the ship crash. He was dressed in maroon pants, a white shirt with a round, stiff front made of white paper, and a gaudy green-and-gold jacket with at least eight pockets visible on the front. His short beard was neatly trimmed, and Teldin could tell that the gnome had probably had a bath, his first in a while.

'You're looking splendid, if a bit pale,' said the gnome, beaming up at Teldin from the side of the bed. 'They've gone and put you in the humans' ward, too, so the doorknobs are all at your height and the water closets don't bump your ankles and you can sleep without feeling you've been stuck in a bookshelf. Simply splendid. I must tell you, your joke about One Six Nine is quite the rage around the yacht club, and even First Commodore Smedlookinblakburdincan was quite beside himself, laughed until he nearly vomited and had to be taken outside and given water. Marvelous sense of humor, but that's not why I'm here. Just sign these.' The gnome pulled a stained sheaf of papers from an inside pocket of his jacket and spread them out on Teldin's chest. He then produced a short, black stick with a coppery point on one end. 'You can use my portable hydraulic transcription device if you like,' he added, 'but mind the ink. Refilling it takes four hours.'

Teldin made no move to take the black stick. He valiantly resisted the urge to punch the gnome in the nose. 'What are you talking about? What are these?'

'Ah,' said the gnome, pointing a stubby finger at various sections of the papers as he spoke. 'This is a legal statement giving me permission to accompany your expedition to the Spelljammer-not just any spelljammer, of course, but the one-and-only Spelljammer- purely for scientific purposes. This is a release form that absolves you from any responsibility for all accidents, illnesses, or injuries, to include death and/or dismemberment, that I might suffer while in your company. This is a release form that absolves me from any responsibility for all accidents, illnesses, or injuries, to include death and/or dismemberment, that you might suffer as a result of anything that I do for research purposes. This is a waver that grants-' Teldin snatched the papers out of Dyffed's hands and almost wadded them into a ball. Instead, with the greatest single effort of willpower he ever recalled using, he carefully handed them back to the gnome. 'I am not signing anything,' Teldin said with finality, 'and it doesn't matter if you want to go or not. We have no ship. We're stuck here.'

'Oh, but we do have a ship,' Dyffed corrected him. 'The Board of Admirals has given us an excellent ship from the naval ya-um, um, yacht docks, silly of me-an excellent ship from the yacht docks, ready for its trial run. Within a few days, we shall be off to see One Six Nine.'

The charade about the 'yacht club,' on top of everything else, managed to push Teldin's temper to its limits. 'Why do you persist in calling this a yacht dub?' he demanded. He half sat up in bed again, feeling his face flush with anger. 'This is a naval base for spelljammers, isn't it? Gnome spelljammers?'

'Shhh!' Panicked, Dyffed waved his hands in front of Teldin's face. 'Careless vocalizations produce maritime disasters!' he hissed, glancing fearfully at the open window.

'Damn it, everyone knows this is a naval base!' Teldin protested. 'I knew that when Gomja brought me ashore on his boat! All the gnomes wear uniforms, you have huge catapult and ballista towers surrounding this valley, you have a military dry dock, and even your security commander told me it was a naval base!' As he uttered those last words, Teldin instantly wished he could take them back. He had undoubtedly just sunk Gomja's whole career.

'First Colonel-Commander Herphan Gomja has a security clearance that allows him to say it's a naval base, but you don't!' Dyffed retorted, unfazed. 'As Colonel-Commander Gomja says, the void holds many foes, even if that's not logically correct because a void should be empty and hold nothing. Regardless, we ask that you please not refer to this base, the lake, or the airspace above it, out to a fifty-mile altitude, as anything other than a yacht club. If our enemies knew that we were working on a coherent-beam, synergized thaumamplifer here, they'd-' The gnome froze, his face filled with horror at his words. 'No! I meant, if they only knew we were working on a secret birthday party for the admirals here, they'd be all over us. It's the nature of space monsters, always crashing birthday parties.' Dyffed drew a shuddering sigh, his face pale. 'I've been working on this weapons project for so long, I