Teldin grinned and shook his head. "I can't deny that, Colonel-Commander. It seems as if I'm going to have company with me, whether I want it or not." His smile faded. "To be frank, after the fight just before we crashed here, I'd almost decided to go on to the Spelljammer alone. Anyone who goes with me is in danger. I don't even think I can trust the elves on this one. They're as eager to get their little hands on this cloak as everyone else."

Gomja said nothing, but still stared at the floor. Teldin leaned forward and slapped the giff on the shoulder. "It will be good having you with me again," he said with feeling. "I need someone I can trust. I don't have many these days, and you, Aelfred, and Sylvie are about it."

The giff looked up into Teldin's face for a moment with an unreadable expression. "Thank you, sir," he finally said. The floorboards groaned as he eased himself to his broad, round feet. "I'll get my things then."

"Do that," Teldin said. "I'm getting the hell out of here right now myself." He waved as the giff left, then went back to collecting the few things that his rescuers had managed to bring to him from the wreck. The worst loss was the sheaf of papers about the Spelljammer that Cirathorn had given him. The scroll tube must have come loose during the crash, meaning that it was undoubtedly resting on the bottom of Lake Crashsplash this very moment. He gritted his teeth at the thought, but there was no help for it. Maybe this slug, One Six Nine or whatever it was, would know more.

Teldin slung his small bag of personal belongings over his shoulder, then looked the room over before he left. Seeing that it was fairly clean, he closed the door behind him and set off down the hall in search of real food.

At least, he reflected as he started down the stairs, he would be traveling with people he knew he could trust.

Chapter Nine

"It should be right in this next berth… no, wrong one, just ignore the mess. There! Here it is! This one right here, this beautiful ship, this is the Perilous Halibut, my labor of love for many years. Glorious, isn't she?" Dressed in a brown tweed suit with a lime-green shirt and a yellow tie that could blind onlookers within ten feet of it, Dyffed stood before the long black ship he had named and beamed up at its bow. His face was wreathed in beatific happiness. "I feel ninety years old all over again," he sighed.

There was a long silence as Teldin, Aelfred, and Sylvie stared at the ship with thoughtful expressions.

"It's very"-Teldin struggled for a word, glancing at Aelfred for help but finding none-"interesting," he finished. It looks like a black banana with fins, he thought.

"I absolutely agree," said Dyffed, reaching up to pat the bottom of the ship's metal-plated hull. "The Perilous Halibut was called such because, first, it is sort of like a fish, and the Office of Yachting Names, Designations, Codes, and Other Completely Nonmilitary Appellations had run out of all the other fish-type names, and all the paperwork with our previous suggestions had already been filed and lost. Secondly, it is perilous because it's a dangerous ship-I mean, dangerous to our enemies, of course. We built it, so it can't be dangerous to us. We were originally going to paint it blue to go with Vice Rear Admiral Blekinmangrars's new uniform, but we had already ran out of that particular shade and Midnight Ebony was all the supply office had left, which was a very fortunate error for all concerned, because now the ship is perfectly camouflaged against the blackness of space, though we might someday have to paint stars on it here and there to make the camouflage more authen-ouch!"

The gnome hastily stuck a finger in his mouth. "Dratted riveting," he muttered, popping his finger out for a second to speak, then putting it back in.

Teldin stepped around to the side to gauge the ship's size. The Perilous Halibut rested on a massive and complex framework of wooden supports inside the gigantic hangar on Port Walkaway. The ship appeared to be about the same length as the Probe, two hundred feet or so, and was about twenty-five feet thick and prism-shaped, octagonal in cross section. A rectangular black tower stuck out from the upper deck of the ship, almost like a shark's fin, and smaller fins stuck out from several places along its sides. The ship's tail retained the fishlike imagery, with the lower end of the tail falling well below the bottom of the ship itself. The ship would lose its tail if it landed on solid ground, but Teldin guessed it had been meant to land on water.

Teldin's eyes scanned the upper deck of the Perilous Halibut, noting a simple gold railing running around the edge. The railing was, of course, at the height of a typical gnome's waist-in other words, just about the height of a human's knees. It wouldn't do to get close to it and trip over the side of the ship.

"I can't believe we're lucky enough to have this whole ship to ourselves," Aelfred said. Teldin and Sylvie turned to stare at him in amazement. Aelfred glanced aside at them, putting a finger momentarily to his lips.

"Ah, nothing lucky about it at all," said Dyffed, pleased. He dismissed the idea with a wave of his hand. "Nothing at all. Experimental ships are sent out all the time from here, and most have come back. Or some of them have, at least. I last heard the return figure was closer to twelve point eight percent, including all ships bearing the expected casualties but not counting fragmental returns if they couldn't tell which

'iip the fragments belonged to. But that's neither here nor shi there, of course, for though this is its first flight test, the Perilous Halibut is of a proven theoretical model, the first of its kind to be built, and we have nothing whatsoever to fear, nothing at all, unless the tail falls off." Dyffed chuckled, glancing at the tall threesome behind him. "An old gnomish joke, you understand."

No one else so much as smiled.

Dyffed coughed and went back to admiring the Perilous Halibut. "Yes, this lovely ship will be ready to fly at any time, right after a few last adjustments are made. Then she'll be fit for space."

"Ah, adjustments," said Aelfred with interest, "by which you mean…" He waited and looked at the gnome.

"Oh, the usual things, of course," said the gnome. "Check a few fittings, tighten a few bolts, install the lavatories, order the weapons, unpack the helm and install that, then run the usual experiments to find out if it can float. It should float, or at least it does on paper. By that, I mean that the ship doesn't float on paper, but rather it floats on water, as the expression-"

"Do you mean the ship has no weapons or helm right now?" Teldin asked, barely beating Aelfred to the question. Dyffed cleared his throat and managed to look everywhere but directly at Teldin. "Well, deck weapons were accidentally left off the design prints at first-careless of me-but we did manage to find places to put one, a ballista, right there on the front-the bow, as I believe it's called. Perhaps someday we'll have our, um, ah, birthday party mounted there instead."

"Birthday party?" Sylvie asked, an eyebrow raised. "Are you serious?"

Dyffed quickly eyed Teldin, then grinned and waved his arms elaborately. "Yes, oh, yes, we're going to have a birthday party-right, Teldin?-to celebrate her first birthday. I mean, to celebrate the admiral's birthday. We should have the helm installed within the hour, give or take a bit, if we can get the paperwork filled out. All we can do in the meanwhile is sit back with our fingers in our ears and hope everything works properly. Ah, which reminds me, I need to bring out a piece of old equipment and run some tests on it before we leave for One Six Nine. It's a locating device, something One Six Nine called a 'thingfinder,' which he made for us. We, of course, have improved upon it-just a tiny bit, mind you-and if it hasn't decayed or been sat upon, it should lead us right to old Thirteen Squared's address without fail. Remarkable device-operates completely on thought power. Not as efficient as hydrodynamics, I know, but-ah, I see someone signaling me, so I shall have to leave you here to marvel at the marvel, as it were. Don't touch the riveting or the tail." Dyffed was off at once, striding purposefully toward a group of other gnomes standing near a maze of scaffolding at the ship's stern.