Turn 69

[skipping back a few months to finish this up]

    As the giff line up to leave, ibn Fadil inquires of the leader, without mockery, "So how does the pirate's life suit you? Overall, I mean."
    He may have meant it without mockery, but it is received with flattened ears and no audible reply.
    The pearly light of the phlogiston surrounds them; the Flow catches the ship's sails and bears them away from Bral's sphere, toward new adventures.
    Emmett lets out a loud Whoop of joy, snatches up Inez and twirls her. "Waaaaa-Hoooooo!" Afterwards, his face buried in her hair, still caught in the adrenaline surge of an unalloyed victory of chutzpah, he murmurs, "I just love being alive. It's so damn much fun."

* * *

Passing Time....

    Emmett, his leatherwork finally complete, borrows several sheets of smudged, scratched out and otherwise abandoned Giffish poetry. With the weapons shield raised and the opalescent phlogiston as a backdrop, he starts tossing out quarter sheets of paper and endeavoring, with some success, to cut them in half with his bullwhip before they float away.
    Emmett also spends a sizable amount of his off time in his chambers, looking over the griffin egg salvaged from the 'booger' on Maija's Tear. "It seems like you aren't going to hatch on your own, my friend. So what's keeping you cooped up in there?"
    The half man makes a thorough examination of the egg, calling to mind his own not-inconsiderable experience with these creatures and their life-cycle. There's nothing obviously abnormal about it. But given how long he's had the thing, and with no way of knowing how long it was in Blade's possession, a normal egg should be either hatched or dead. Hefting it thoughtfully, it doesn't *feel* dead, but he's not sure what it does feel like. That brings to mind Alais' judgment that some sort of spell is involved....
    About a week into the Flow, with a definite air of having nerved himself up to this, ibn Fadil asks Hiro if he would be willing to spar with him.
    Hiro's smile acknowledges ibn Fadil's chutzpah. It may even contain a hint of pride as well. He pulls two bokken from the wall of his cabin. "Follow me."
    A bit nervously, the half-elf does so; he is already carrying his sword - and less obviously, his knives.
    Hiro leads the Zakharan to where the kensai trains daily. The light from the Flow is pleasantly distracting. Hiro hands one of the wooden swords to the thief....
    ... who hefts it experimentally, first in one hand and then the other, while unobtrusively contemplating the utilities of the deck-space around them. When he feels comfortable with it, he looks expectantly at Hiro.
    Who looks back at him; always, it's next to impossible to tell what is going on behind those dark eyes.
    Ibn Fadil tries an experimental thrust, just to get the feel of the weapon; Hiro sort of leans aside and it doesn't come anywhere near him; a moment later the bokken is twisted out of his hand and hits the wooden floor with a clatter. The kensai gives him a moment to recover his weapon.
    The half-elf's second attempt comes much closer; Hiro actually has to parry it. Small solace as the wooden blade gives him a solid thump on the side. After a couple more of these exchanges ibn Fadil manages to connect--and Hiro misses! The two fence a couple more passes, neither touching the other, before both connect bruisingly.

* * *

    After months of quiet travel, the _Distraction_ changes heading to follow a narrow band of Flow that will, if their information is correct, lead them to Rigol's sphere. It is slow and disheartening going for a long time, enough to explain why few venture in this direction.
    At long last and thanks to Alais' navigational abilities the _Distraction_ reaches her destination--or so the crew hopes. There is a sphere where they hoped to find it, at any rate. Of the _Magnus_ or other pursuit there has been no sign; the phlogiston is now almost eerily empty of life.
    Passing through the crystal shell, they find an ordinary-looking sphere, peppered within by brilliant stars that cling to the inner shell. Almost lost in the immense distances is the system's sun.
    The first world they reach is flat, a vast disk tumbling slowly through space -- too far out to be Rigol, but an encouraging sign, since Ginevra's homeworld is also flat, though it is supposed to lie farther in-system.
    Emmett looks down at the flat world with some interest, but turns to Val and says, "Captain, I think we should press on for Rigol. If Victor's people have been coming through here, they've likely mapped the sphere already, and we have a two in three chance of getting that map when we reach our destination. I don't want to duplicate effort..."
    Alais disagrees. "While the ruffian may have put together some bare degree of rutter, I would be altogether shocked if the work had met even the barest standards of science or scholarship. Surely we have a duty to start the task of mapping according to the highest intersphere cartographic standards."
    No one else seems to be any particular opinion on the matter. [We haven't heard from Pham, I believe?] Emmett allows himself to be persuaded by Alais' argument, and adds the suggestion that the crew set down and look around on each of them; you never know what you might find. As this is in line with Val's own inclinations, so the _Distraction_ prepares to do just that.
    Spending only several days per world, they will not be able to do more than make a brief survey of the system. The next two worlds they find are not suitable for human life - a burning sphere like a second, smaller sun; a vast airless rock.
    The world nearest the sun is a water planet; the _Distraction_ cannot land there, and scouting under the waves will require considerable preparation. Next out lies a thin disk of dying fire thousands of miles in diameter, turning slowly like a huge and darkly glowing eye that now looks ahead, now behind. The third is one of the most impressive things any of them have seen in space; an airy world or series of worlds that circles the star like a strand of perfect pearls, echoed on its outer orbit by icy rings.
    The next out is rather startlingly a cube, and as the ship passes over it the surface of the many islands that dot its surface appear densely jungled; if there is civilization there, it is hidden beyond their quick survey's ability to detect. Then a simple sphere of air like Bral's Haven, and then another flat planet: Rigol.
    

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