“Hmm, I see,” the commodore mused as he stroked his long white eyebrows. “All that and riddle-solving too. A most unusual Life Quest. You could prove useful, for we never know when “the time” might come. And as luck would have it, the ship is designed for twenty and we have only nineteen. You seem more than qualified to fill that empty seat. Welcome aboard, Ensign Conundrum! You will be chief officer in charge of, hmmm… let’s see. How about seating? Chief Officer in Charge of Seating.”

Everyone gathered around to give Conundrum many a congratulatory smack on the back or tug of the beard, while the commodore strode about beaming with pride and trying to hitch his thumbs behind the suspenders he wasn’t wearing. He also checked his watch, then remembered he hadn’t invented one yet. When everyone had finished pummeling the newest member of the crew, the commodore turned to Chief Portlost. “Is everything ready? How soon can we launch?”

“Not until all my instruments are aboard,” a voice answered him from the ship. Waddling down the gangplank came the owner of the voice-a short, enormously fat gnome wearing a tight blue jumpsuit stretched over his rolls and bulges. The gangplank creaked under his mass, bending dangerously in the middle. “This ship doesn’t sail-or dive or whatever it does-until I, as medical officer, say so.”

“Doctor Bothy,” the commodore explained, introducing him with a gesture. There were nods and handshakes all around. “His Life Quest is to discover a foolproof cure for hiccups.”

“Hiccoughs, sir! Hiccoughs! Hiccups are child’s play. Why, I could cure your hiccups with a snap of my fingers,” the portly doctor said, demonstrating beneath the commodore’s nose. “Hiccups are commonplace, while hiccoughs have been a mystery to the medical sciences for generations. Why, if one could cure hiccoughs, one could cure any number of involuntary spasms of the primary musculature. Take yawns, for example. Or blinking. I estimate that approximately thirteen hundred gnome hours are wasted every year with blinking. Imagine the savings, the increase in productivity, if we could but do away with blinking!”

“But what about the drying of the orbital surfaces?” the professor asked with the avidity of a fellow scientist.

“A simple device could be invented, not unlike your spectacles, which periodically squirts soothing fluids into the eyes. I should know. I’ve already invented it,” Doctor Bothy declared humbly.

“Sounds fascinating,” the professor agreed.

“A squirting device?” Razmous asked. “Actually, I think I have something here in pouches that is quite similar, if only…”he muttered as he began to rummage through his pouches.

“Another time,” the doctor said with a sharp glance.

“What medical equipment have you still to load?” the commodore asked with rising impatience.

“Just my Peerupitscope. It is on its way from Mount Nevermind, but they are having some trouble with the mule train transportation system,” Doctor Bothy said.

“Mules? How quaint! Why don’t they use our newer, mechanical transportation systems?” Commodore Brigg asked.

“The Coastandroll is still down for repairs. They are having trouble with the braking system, which, if not resolved, may reclassify the steam-powered rail cars as a system for launching heavy projectiles. The Weapons Guild seems most interested in its applications. Besides, the Peerupitscope is too long to make the corners.”

“Can’t we get along without it?” the commodore asked. “I am anxious to set sail.”

“Why take the risk? The Peerupitscope is an invaluable tool of the medical sciences. With it, we can look into matters previously hidden from our knowledge.”

“Oh, very well,” Commodore Brigg said as he turned and stalked up the gangplank. “Only remember, we have a schedule to keep. We sail in three days!”

The morning of the launch of the MNS Indestructible dawned as bright and clear as anyone who dares the perils of the briny deeps could desire. Not a cloud marred the brilliant blue dome of the sky, and it seemed a fine day for putting out to sea.

Hundreds of gnomes gathered along the bluff overlooking the shipyard where the Indestructible waited in the quays. In their midst stood a smallish catapult, newly built for the occasion out of Sancrist yew wood and gnome-forged iron, gilt with silver images of gnomes in flight. The purpose of the machine remained something of a mystery even to those busily examining and commenting on its newest safety features and design improvements. Papers fluttered in the stiffening land breeze as several dozen gnomes attempted to sketch the catapult’s more interesting safety devices.

The event had the party atmosphere of a technology fair, the gnomish national pastime. There were banners, flags, and standards of the various representative guilds snapping in the land breeze. The largest contingent was from the Maritime Sciences Guild, naturally enough, but almost as prevalent were the members of the Boilermakers Guild. Important personages from this guild had been wheeled out from the hospital for the occasion, their bandages decorated with ribbons and buttons of every color of the rainbow. The Caterers Guild drove their steam-powered serving trays through the crowd, proffering a variety of savories, prepared by automatic stoves towed behind them and shot out of dispenser tubes at random into the crowd, most of which were nabbed by the hundreds of seagulls swarming overhead.

There was, of course, a wagon of beer parked beneath a nearby tree. In the wagon’s traces stood Bright Dancer, Sir Grumdish’s doughty steed, who seemed happy enough in his new occupation, if fence posts can be happy. The beer, being the product of a gnomish brewery, packed quite a wallop, enough to satisfy gnomish sensibilities-despite the early hour, many having sensibly already begun-though dwarves might have found the recipe a bit lacking. Luckily, there were no dwarves around to complain.

Indeed there were dwarves watching, but from a safe distance across the bay, and they had their own beer, which they weren’t inclined to share. They sat behind a row of tower shields, somewhat apart from the other citizens of the city who had gathered to witness the promised event.

The city of Pax treated the event as something of a spectacle. The citizens thronged the docks-at a respectful distance of course-to watch and wonder at the preposterousness of gnomes. “The ship is supposed to sink on purpose, which means that it won’t,” was the consensus among the onlookers. Still, the occasion promised to be fun, and wagers were being taken as to how fast the strange-looking vessel would sink, and when it did, how many of the twenty crew members would survive.

A great cheer went up from the gnomish side of the harbor as Commodore Brigg and his crew took their places on the narrow aft deck of the Indestructible. Out from the top of the mast rippled the red banner of the Maritime Sciences Guild, crackling in the wind. The crew saluted it, while a band on shore hooted, honked, oom-pahed, and bellowed in a weird cacophony of sound that purported to be an anthem of some sort. It frightened away most of the gulls. The crew remained rigidly at attention throughout the song’s ten-and-a-half-minute duration, while the band members, nearly invisible in a jungle of brass, tooted and blew until their faces were quite flushed. When the song wandered off to its broken and disjointed conclusion, it was discovered that three band members had succumbed to asphyxiation, still propped up inside their instruments, some of which required a team of horses to move.

Afterward, Commodore Brigg made a speech, little of which could be heard or even understood by those in the city across the bay-the common gnomish dialect being too compressed and rapidly-spoken for the human ear to comprehend. With much heroic gesturing, the commodore extolled the virtues of the Indestructible, from its sleek, shark-like body to its innovations in propulsion and weaponry. He promised that, before they put out to sea, everyone would witness a demonstration of the ship’s most remarkable features. To that end, a decommissioned garbage scow had been towed into the center of the bay. They would circle the scow once, then submerge and sink her.