Relations between Saturn and Thomas were strained during the two weeks it took to repair the silver ship, but the two wizards kept out of each others' way as much as possible and things remained fairly peaceful, much to the relief of the others.
Drenn and the soldiers spent most of the daylight hours exploring the surrounding cityscape, hunting for food and keeping an eye on the southerners. On one occasion, happening upon a caravan of traders, Matthew and the priest joined up with them for a couple of hours, pretending to be fellow travellers from a distant city ("You can probably tell we're not locals from our accents"). Some careful questioning revealed that the area surrounding the spaceport was indeed shunned by the locals because it was inhabited by monsters, who captured anyone who strayed too close and put them to work in their settlement.
The Tharians were relieved to learn that no monsters had been seen for nearly fifty years, following a tremendous battle in the sky between 'fiery dragons', but they remembered the Felisians' account of the Masters being driven off Veglia several times by their enemies, only to return some years later. The silver ships of the almost indestructible giants could return to planet eighty one stroke five at any time. The sooner they got the ship fixed and left, the better.
The trickiest part of the repair operation took place towards the end when the felisians said they were ready to fuel the ship. "Fuel?" asked Matthew in confusion. "What's that?"
"Like food," replied Tager Yee. "Ships are like horses. They'll carry you wherever you want to go, but only if you feed them. We have fuel making machines back on Veglia, but we haven't found any here, so we're going to have to take fuel from the other ships."
"Like taking food from the stomach of a dead horse," said Thomas with a grimace of disgust.
"Exactly, but the fuel these ships use is very dangerous. If it's not handled right it'll blow up like a hundred of your fireball spells. You humans had better get well away, just in case. We'll tell you when it's safe to come back."
"How far away?" asked Saturn.
"Two of three miles, to be safe."
"By the Gods!" cried Matthew in astonishment. "That's some explosion!"
"How much danger will you be in?" asked Timothy anxiously.
"Well, the fuel's normally pretty safe, but it gets a little unstable if left unused for too many years. Don't worry, we're experienced at using this stuff. We'll be careful."
"See that you are," said the cleric seriously. "I'll be praying for you."
"I also," agreed Drenn Pietar.
The felisian commander nodded gratefully and began giving orders to his men.
The Tharians filed out of the spaceport and made their way to a fallen skyscraper in whose ruins they could shelter. They crouched there for a couple of hours, but they didn't like not knowing what was going on and so Saturn crept out, back to a neighbouring building which he climbed until he was high enough to see the silver ships, looking like toys in the distance. A few moments later he was joined by Drenn, and a moment later by the rest of the Tharians, none of whom wanted to be left behind.
"Get back to cover," snapped the elderly wizard. "If the ship blows up and the explosion is as violent as they say, it's likely this building will be destroyed and you'll all be killed."
"If the ship blows up we'll be stranded here for the rest of our lives," replied Matthew. "I'm not sure I'd want to live."
Thomas was inclined to agree, thinking of Lirenna and Derrin. Could he bear the thought of never seeing them again? He didn't think so.
Saturn stared at the soldier, then nodded and turned his attention back to the spaceport.
The felisians were barely visible, looking like tiny black ants. They were wearing some kind of dark garment that covered them from head to foot and which had curved sheets of glass covering their faces.
"They look like plague gowns," said Timothy with some concern. "Could this fuel be poisonous? Harmful in some way even if it doesn't explode?" The others could only shrug in bafflement.
They had opened a hatch in the side of one of the other silver ships and wheeled some kind of trolley up beside it. One of the felisians then removed something from the ship, sliding it out on rails until it was sitting on the trolley. Thomas stared in fascination. The object was about the size of a beehive, and like a beehive it was alive in some way. Its surface seemed to shimmer, like a sheet of calm water, but the felisians handled it as though it were solid. The Tharians became aware of something emanating from it. A harsh rasping like the sound of a thousand grasshoppers but felt in their bones rather than heard. Thomas found himself terrified of the object for no reason he could identify, and he felt the others responding in the same way. They all wanted to slip quietly away, hide in some dark hole where the fuel container, if that's what it was, couldn't see them. Thomas, Saturn and Drenn remained where they were, though, fascinated despite themselves, and the others stayed as well, not wanting to appear afraid.
The felisians pushed the trolley towards the silver ship they were repairing, which still had several openings in its hull where work was going on. Another hatch was opened, the trolley pushed up against it, and then the fuel container was pushed in. Thomas felt a powerful sense of relief as it disappeared out of sight, but the unease returned when he remembered that he would have to travel aboard that ship, probably only a few yards way from the unsettling 'fuel'. What was it? he wondered. He'd thought the silver ships were composed of entirely natural components, by which he meant non-magical, but that 'fuel', whatever it was, could by no stretch of the imagination be called natural. Could it be some kind of magic after all? He resolved to pay close attention to his magic sense the moment he was close enough. If the Masters used a form of magic, then that was something they seriously needed to know.
Since the fuelling of the silver ship was clearly over, the Tharians made their way back to the spaceport and as a man went straight to the now closed hatch to stare at it and contemplate the object they knew was inside.
"What was it?" Matthew asked the felisian who came to wheel the trolley away.
"We don't really know," the felisian replied, shrugging apologetically. "The Masters taught us to operate and repair their machines, but we still don't really understand the principles upon which they operate. We've been studying them, of course, but we lack the knowledge of the most basic elements. Things the children of the Masters would have learned during infancy. It's a bit like trying to figure out how to make steel when you don't even know what iron is, let alone that it has to be dug out of the ground. Still, we try. We study, and maybe one day we'll come to understand it properly." He turned back to the trolley and continued pushing it away.
"That's a little worrying, if this fuel is as dangerous as they say it is," commented Timothy. "Rather like a toddler playing with his father's loaded crossbow. They could make a mistake at any time and blow the ship to bits, with us inside it."
"We have no choice," replied Saturn as he turned to walk away. "We take the ship or stay here. I know what I choose."
The others nodded soberly, but continued to worry just the same.
☆☆☆
It was three days later that the felisians announced that the ship was finally ready to lift.
"This is where we find out just how well we know our jobs," said Tager Yee with a grim smile. "If we've made a mistake and put a component in the wrong way round, our trip home could be short but dramatic. It would be best if the rest of you retreat to a safe distance while Murrla and I perform the power up procedure."
"No, this time I think I'll hang around," said Matthew, however. "If you blow the ship up, I might as well blow up with it. I wouldn't want to live with no hope of ever going home."
"Sentimental rubbish!" snorted Saturn contemptuously. "I shall certainly accept their offer to wait a couple of miles away. A life here is better than no life at all."
"You wouldn't say that if you were married," said Thomas. "I'll stay with Matt. I trust the skill of our felisian friends." The felisians glowed with pleasure at this and several began purring contentedly.
Everyone else said they would go with Saturn, though, and so at around midday, after the felisians had completed their last series of checks, they set off for the building in which the Tharians had watched the fuelling of the ship. Tager Yee and his chief engineer allowed them an hour to get there, during which they continued to perform more checks and chatted with the Tharians. The commander showed them the basics of piloting and navigating the ship. Not enough to allow them to actually fly it, which would have required weeks of tuition, but enough so that they would have some idea of what the felisians were doing during the flight back.
Everything involved touching sensitive parts of the bare inner wall and reading patterns of changing colour that were words in the language of the Masters describing various aspects of the ship's status. Once again, Thomas found it hard to grasp the complete absence of solid controls. Tillers, brake levers, ropes. The visible, tangible means by which human action controlled a ship or a wagon. Once again he worried that the Masters might have some knowledge of magic, but there was still nothing he could sense. But then, most wizards couldn't sense Rossemian magic. Could the Masters use a third kind of magic that not even he could sense?
"Okay," said Tager Yee. "I think an hour must have passed by now. What do you say, my human friend?"
Thomas, who had a very accurate time sense, thought it was still a few minutes short, but also didn't think it mattered much. The others had had plenty of time to reach safety. He agreed with the commander, therefore, who beckoned the engineer across. "Let's do it."
Murrla nodded and opened a hatch in the inner wall of the cabin; a hatch that Thomas would have sworn hadn't been there a moment before. The metal had been smooth and unmarked, he was sure of it! Nevertheless there was a hatch there now, with a small empty space behind it into which the engineer placed a small object looking like a glass spider.
"Energy distribution node," explained the commander with a friendly smile. "Hard to believe that all the energy in the ship passes through this little thing, isn't it?"
"Is it?" asked Thomas in bafflement.
The felisian laughed in delight, giving him a fond pat on the shoulder. "We're going to power up now," he said. "Are you sure you don't want to join your friends?"
Matthew and Thomas shared a glance. "We'll stay here," said the soldier for both of them. Tager Yee nodded his understanding and gave Murrla the command to begin.
The engineer made an adjustment in the alcove and the glass spider began to flicker intermittently with light. Murrla muttered under his breath and fiddled with something, with the result that the spider went dark again and several minutes of effort failed to bring it back to life. "I think it's blown," he said apologetically, removing it and staring at it suspiciously. "The power streams were too far out of phase. I'll make an adjustment and try again with a spare." He moved to the other end of the ship where he opened another panel and did something to the components inside. "That should do it," he said, returning, and he inserted another glass spider into the first alcove.