Captain Stone agreed with the proposal, of course. What else could he do?
The wizards took the needle to one of the airlocks, therefore, and carefully placed it over the side. They'd tried to leave it hanging stationary in space, but they couldn't help leaving it with a little residual angular momentum and the needle turned slowly end over end as it drifted away.
"That doesn't matter," said Braddle, who was with the other bridge officers, watching it in the large scrying mirror. "In fact it's good. If it keeps on turning, we'll know it isn't working."
Saturn looked to the side, to where Haskar was watching from his smaller chair at the side of the room. The felisian was looking uncomfortable and apprehensive, which gave Saturn a much welcome feeling of cheer. Well might you be uncomfortable, he thought. If we find the portal after your clear and unmistakable attempts to obstruct us, your people will be made to pay, and you know it.
The felisian glanced in his direction and Saturn treated him to a smile of confident satisfaction. He was rewarded by a fearful widening of the other man's eyes as he turned to face the mirror again with a hurried snap of the neck. Saturn kept the smile on his face while trying not to think what a long shot this Needle of Stone Detection really was. If they failed now, it would be the felisian feeling the relieved sarisfaction and Saturn truly didn't know how that would make him react.
Knowing that the Needle would take a long time to work, assuming it did, Saturn left the bridge to spend some time in his quarters. When he returned, though, he was encouraged to see that the Needle did seem to be turning more slowly.
"It won't tell us where the portal is until it actually stops, though, will it?" asked Prup Chull. "How long will that take?"
The wizard could only shrug, but inside he was trembling with excitement. It was working! It was working!"
It was still turning a further six hours later, when the exhausted bridge crew left to make way for the night shift, and Thomas spent hours staring at it, willing it to slow down, to point the way. Ship's midnight came and went, and now it seemed that the needle was swinging faster on one half of its circuit than the other. In fact, there was one point in every rotation where the artifact almost came to a halt. The white end would be pointing their way, moving slower and slower, coming almost to a complete stop, then it would speed up again, although speed hardly seemed the right word when it took a full five minutes to complete one rotation. Then, as Thomas watched, rapt with fascination on the edge of his seat, the needle failed to complete a rotation. The needle slowed and slowed, came to a halt, then began turning in the opposite direction. It was now turning back and forth, like the pendulum of a clock, and Thomas breathlessly activated the Farspeaking link to summon Captain Strong.
Saturn arrived hot on the Captain's heels, even though nobody had specifically told him of the development. "Can we now tell where the portal is?" the Captain asked.
"Yes," replied Saturn. "It lies in the direction in which the needle is pointing when it's moving the fastest. Or at least there's something made of rock in that direction. Maybe Braddle's found a new planet."
"That's not funny," said the Captain flatly. "Not at this stage. Okay, get the moon trogs up here. I want the vector identified as quickly as possible."
Saturn acknowledged the order, and the Captain left to resume his interrupted sleep. As soon as he'd gone and the door closed behind him, though, Saturn stepped close to Thomas and glared angrily down at him. "In future," he said, "When you summon Strong to the bridge, you will inform me as well. I don't want to be left out of something important. Is that understood?"
"Y-Yes, sir," stammered Thomas, cringing in his seat in fear. "Sorry."
Saturn glared at him one last time, then swept out of the room, leaving Thomas to breathe a sigh of relief behind him.
By the next morning, the needle had been reduced to a very small, very slow swing of about ten degrees and there was no longer any doubt as to where it was pointing. "The unicorn," said Prup Chull, staring out at the indicated constellation. "It's in the unicorn."
"But how far away in that direction?" asked Tana Antallan.
"We can easily work it out," replied Karog, scribbling on his notepad. "We have two lines now. From Tharsol to Derro, the line the felisians gave us, and from here to the unicorn. The portal is where those lines intersect."
Saturn had a simpler idea, though. "Just take us in that direction," he said, pointing at the unicorn. "When we've gone a couple of million miles we'll stop and deploy the needle again. Every time we do so we'll creep nearer the portal, and eventually we'll be close enough to see it."
Karog nodded, conceding that the wizard's idea was a more practical one, and Haskar sulked unhappily in the corner, ignored and forgotten by everyone. Saturn beamed triumphantly at the Captain..
"Very good," Strong said, pointing at the mirror. "Let's go."
The orbmaster turned the ship until the unicorn was directly overhead, then applied acceleration.
☆☆☆
It took three legs, three deployments of the Needle, but then Ihvon Presska, out on the railed walkway, gave a start when he saw something floating among the stars in front of him. He pulled his way along the railing to the other side of the ship, where Matthew was on duty. "Flight, there's something out there. It's not a flashing light, though. I don't know what it is."
"Let's have a look then," said Matthew, following him back around the curve of the ship.
Five minutes later, Commander Callan, to whom Matthew had reported the sighting, took the news to the bridge. He knocked on the door and waited for the command to enter. "Sir," he said to the Captain, "The observers report a sighting, ship's bearing two two five, elevated by thirty degrees. It's not what they were told to look for but it might be significant nevertheless."
"Let's have a look," said Strong, and he gave a command to the mirror. The starfield flickered and changed, showing the view in another direction, and they all leaned forward, studying it intently.
"I can't see anything," said Karog, squinting. In darkness his heat vision was superb but, like all trogs, his vision in normal light was poor.
"No wait," said Tana Antallan, however. "What is that?"
He indicated a part of the sky that seemed empty to the others, but when Strong had magnified it a faint, round patch of redness was visible. He magnified it again until it filled the mirror. It was transparent. Stars could be seen through it, but they weren't the normal, familiar stars of their own sky. They were looking at the stars of another universe. They stared at it in wonder and relief, none of them having any doubt that they'd finally found what they'd been looking for. Haskar slumped in despair.
"Interesting," said Tana Antallan, the only one of them still wearing his Helm of Farsensing. "According to the Helm, there is nothing out there. Nothing but empty space."
"No felisian ship?" asked Saturn.
"No, my good friend. Nothing at all."
The wizard shot a fierce look at Haskar, who managed to look even more miserable. Their damned magic, Saturn imagined him thinking. Was there nothing it couldn't do for them? Saturn's smile widened even as his eyes narrowed.
"Please allow me to communicate with my people," the Felisian begged. "I can promise you our complete co-operation from now on. I swear it."
"That's what you said the last time," growled Karog.
"This time I mean it! We've learned our lesson! I merely wanted to protect my people. You can understand that, can't you? In my place, you would have done the same thing."
Strong nodded. "You're probably right," he admitted. "I can't condemn you for withdrawing your support, but I wish I could convince you that it's in your own interests to help us. The civilisation we're looking for as is big a potential threat to you as it is to us."
"As you keep saying," the felisian replied. "And yet all we want is to be left alone. Now that you've found the portal, you don't need us any more. We have documented records of what we've found in the other universes of the Sheaf. We can turn those records over to you. Everything we know. Everything we've learned. Let us go home, please. It's nearly ten years since I last saw my wife..."
"You'll be seeing her again very soon," promised the Captain, "because the first world we're visiting is Veglia. Your homeworld. We need to be sure that these Masters who enslaved you are not the Shipbuilders we're looking for."
Haskar nodded his helpless acceptance, but then he said "We will judge you by how you conduct yourselves on Veglia. By your actions on our homeworld, we will know whether you really are the friendly allies you claim to be."