"I was wondering when we'd see these," said Matthew, holding up the glittering suit of glass ceramic plate mail armour and gazing at it admiringly. "We first saw these things more than twenty years ago, and once the treaty of Kronos was signed I thought we'd be buying them for everybody in the army. I thought, a year or two from now, everyone in the Beltharan army will be wearing these."

     "The moon trogs make these?" asked Bobby Fell, dubiously eyeing the suit he'd been issued.

     "Yep," replied Matthew. "They're superior to any other kind of armour I've ever heard of, and the moon trogs need water and plant seeds to replenish their crops. It's a perfect arrangement, so I can't understand what took them so long."

     "But it's just glass," protested Fell. "How's this going to stop an arrow, or a sword?"

     Matthew grinned and draped his suit over the back of a chair. Then he drew Bobby's sword from its scabbard and handed it to him. "See for yourself," he said. He gestured invitingly at the suit. "Go on!"

     Fell stared at the glittering suit, then stared at Matthew, who grinned wider and repeated the gesture. Fell shrugged and stabbed the suit with the point of his sword, hard enough to pierce the heart of an unarmoured man. The chair screeched across the floor, tipping up onto its two front legs, but the suit was undamaged.

     The Able Wingman frowned, then chopped at it with the edge of the blade, hard enough to sever a man's arm. The chair was knocked over onto its side but again the suit was unharmed. Fell scowled suspiciously and swung the sword with all his strength. The chair was smashed to pieces, the back splintering with a loud crunch, a leg breaking off with a snap, but when Matthew removed the suit from the wreckage it showed only a minor scratch on one of the ceramic scales, while the chair looked as though it had been smashed with a hammer rather than a razor sharp sword.

     "By the Gods," breathed the Able Wingman in astonishment.

     "Good, aren't they?" said Matthew, still gazing admiringly at the suit. "Of course, it's little protection against a battle hammer or a mace, but against arrows and small swords they're the thing! I wonder if everyone's getting these, or just us?"

     "Are you going to stand there all day staring at it, or are you going to put it on?" laughed Private George Stone, the only army man among the four Beltharan military men. He and Able Seaman Borlin Bakklan, the naval man, were already wearing their suits and were putting their uniforms back on top of them, including the now largely superfluous steel breastplates. The Beltharan top brass, although impressed by the moon trog glass ceramic, were not convinced that any kind of plate mail could provide the same level of protection as a good layer of steel, and of course they were right, and so the four Beltharans would wear two layers of armour over their upper bodies, making them probably the most indestructible two legged living creatures on the planet. It worried Matthew a little, making him wonder what their superiors expected them to meet, that they would need that level of protection.

     He and Fell stripped off, remembering the advice of the moon trogs that the softly padded plate mail be worn next to the skin, and then they were pulling the snug fitting suits onto their arms and legs and buttoning each other up the back. They had almost finished putting their uniforms back on and were fastening the last few buckles of their breastplates when one of the junior shipwrights entered, delivering a message that Saturn was ready for them aboard the Ship of Space. The four soldiers glanced at each other and hurried off.

     The shipwright guided them through the tunnel-streets of Kronosia, through one of the newly restored park caverns and through the newly replaced airlock doors of the outer residential circle. Matthew stared around in wonder as they went, hardly able to believe the change that had come over the moon city since his nightmarish first visit during the Fourth Shadowwar, and he pointed out features of the city to the others, thrilling them with the tales of his adventures here during the dark days of the house wars. He carefully glossed over the fact that he'd spent most of his time in a Konnen dungeon with his brother while his sister and their three wizard companions sought for a way to free them. The memories of that bare stone cell and the cruelty of the guards came back to him nonetheless, and he felt his old hatred for the Konnens come flooding back, surprising him with its power after so many years of dormancy. He wondered where the Konnens were now, and wished he could find them someday so he could pay them back properly.

     The others stared at him curiously as he fell into a sullen silence, but they said nothing to interrupt his thoughts. Good men, thought Matthew. They've very likely got their own bad experiences they don't like to talk about. Each of them would talk about it when they were good and ready, or perhaps they wouldn't, but if they did the others would listen and would offer whatever advice they could. Until then, though, they would respect each other's wishes to leave the past buried. They just chatted amongst themselves, therefore, as they reached the new tunnel that led out of the gravity sphere and towards the cavern containing the Ship of Space.

     Swimming along the tunnel, from one iron ring hammered into the stone wall to the next, Matthew was surprised at how quickly his low gravity skills came back to him, learned during their time as guests of the moon trogs after their escape from the Konnens. It's just like riding a horse, he thought in wonder. Once you learn, you never forget. He tried to teach the rudiments to the others, as soon as they'd gotten over the nausea of near weightlessness and the terrifying sensation of falling, but they reached the airlock at the other end of the tunnel before learning anything worthwhile and then they had to pause while a pair of guards, one wearing a Helm of Telepathy, made sure they were who they said they were. Fell seemed to tense up as his mind was read, a common reaction among many people, but then the guards waved them through and they all relaxed.

     "Worried they'd find out about that crate of Lilda?" joked Matthew with a grin.

     The Able Wingman grinned back. "Guard duty in Lexandria Valley!" he snorted. "Just who were we supposed to be guarding against? A horde of bloodthirsty apprentice wizards?"

     "I don't think Hort would have seen it that way," grinned back Matthew, "but it was sssh!" They shushed up as they passed a pair of workmen swimming past them, on their way back to the moon city, and then they were through the airlock and gasping in amazement as the hanger cavern opened out before them.

     The scene was just as Pondar Walton had seen it the day before, except that a flexible translucent tube about eight feet in diameter now ran from one of the cavern's other entrances to one of the ship's airlocks. The agile, monkeylike forms of a pair of moon trogs could be seen within it, moving slowly along its length, testing various fittings and fastenings.

     "What in the name of the Gods..." began Bakklan apprehensively.

     "That must be the access tube," said Matthew. "A wizard friend of mine told me about it. When they open the main doors to let the ship out..." He indicated the giant cat flap in the ceiling, "all the air in here will be lost. Rather than lose a whole cavernful of air and moisture every time the ship comes and goes, the moon trogs have decided to leave the cavern in vacuum, and everyone will come and go through that tunnel. It's apparently stronger than it looks."

     "It had better be," said Stone doubtfully. "Looks like a child could tear his way out with his bare hands. What's it made of?"

     "No idea," confessed Matthew. "Some moon trog material, I expect. Remember that they also made the glass ceramic armour. Some of the things they create are quite incredible!"

     "What happens to all these plants and birds when the door opens?" asked Bakklan, indicating the greenery that clung to the cavern's walls, floor and ceiling, clustering thickest around the sunlamps where the optical fibres carrying sunlight from the tiny moon's surface terminated. Insects buzzed around them, and the cavern was full of the chorus of birdsong.

     "Dunno," replied Matthew. "They all die, I suppose. They can't live in vacuum."

     "Seems a bit hard," the navy man said regretfully. "Can't they be saved somehow?"

     "How?" asked the Wing Leader sympathetically. "Run around with butterfly nets?"

     "Yeah, okay," agreed the seaman sorrowfully. "Just seems a bit hard, that's all. When you spend months at a time out of sight of land, with nothing but salty sea all the way to the horizon, you begin to appreciate the sight and sounds of land life."

      Matthew was about to agree with him when one of the ship's airlocks opened and Thomas appeared in the doorway, beckoning them on. "Come on!" he yelled. "Saturn's waiting for you!"

     The soldiers glanced at each other apprehensively, then swam hastily across to the centre of the cavern, guiding themselves by grabbing hold of the leafy branches of the cavern shrubs as they went. When they drew close to the ship's launching cradle they climbed up it and Thomas reached a hand down to help them up to the railed walkway.

     "I was testing out the ship's scrying mirror when I saw you arrive," he explained, "and then you just sat there, admiring the view. Saturn sent me to give you a kick up the backside. He likes to see people gainfully employed, not loitering uselessly like shop dummies. His words, not mine."

     "So we're to be gainfully employed, are we?" said Matthew, grinning.

     "'Fraid so," agreed the wizard with a sympathetic smile. "You're here to guard us, in case danger threatens, but so long as danger doesn't threaten he wants you helping the workmen. This ship is still only half finished. First, though, I'm to show you to your rooms."

     He led them through the airlock doors, and the soldiers were surprised to find gravity inside the ship, equal to that on the surface of Tharia. "They finally got the gravity sorted out only this morning," smirked the wizard. "Lucky for us, or we'd have been floating all the way out to this ring they've found."

     "Pity they can't do the same thing all over Kronos," said Stone, who was still feeling a little spacesick.

     "I think the moon trogs might have something to say about that," pointed out Thomas with a faint grin. "There are a couple of them with us, or so I hear. Perhaps you can discuss it with them."

     Considering that the spherical ship was only twenty five yards in diameter, it seemed remarkably roomy as the five men made their way along the shiny steel corridor. As they turned a corner they saw a man in overalls painting the bare metal with a layer of dull grey paint that Thomas warned them not to touch. The man looked up curiously as they passed, then got on with his work. Another two men were hanging airlock style doors on their hinges, one holding the door in place and no doubt wishing the gravity was still off, while the other knocked pins through the hinges with a large hammer.

     Thomas took the soldiers to a stretch of corridor in which all the doors were already in place, each one leading to a small room just a couple of yards square containing a small cot and a small desk and chair. "Make the most of these," the wizard advised them. "These'll be the officers' quarters when we set off with a full crew, and you'll be booted down to steerage." He hooked a thumb at the deck.

     "Nice," said Matthew flatly. "It's good for a man to know his place."

     "I suppose you'll be getting a room of your own," said Fell with a frown.

     "It's a case of necessity," said Thomas, looking guilty. "We need peace and privacy to study our spells. We can't do that in a crowd of other people."

     "Of course not," said the Able Wingman with just the trace of a sneer.

     Matthew stared at him in surprise. That hadn't sounded like the Bobby Fell he knew. The Able Wingman immediately smiled, though, and put a hand on the wizard's shoulder. "Sorry," he said. "I know how it is."

     Thomas smiled and Matthew relaxed. Just stress, he told himself. That's all it is.

     "The galley's down there," said Thomas, pointing. "and there's a common room next door. Rather basic, I'm afraid, but there's no room for more. The Pantries work the same way as the old Kronosian ones. Matt'll show you how, and the disposal chutes are clearly labeled."

     "Is there anywhere we're not allowed to go?" asked Fell.

     "The bridge, and deck one, where the shae folk live. They like their privacy, and also the Orb of Propulsion's up there. They won't let any human near it in case we steal all their magical secrets. You can visit the moon trogs if you want, so long as you remember that the outer shell's in zero gravity. Then again, having seen the pigs ear you made of swimming over here, maybe you could do with the practice."

     He grinned to show he meant it as a light hearted joke and Bobby Fell grinned back, but there was something in the quality of the grin that caught Matthew's attention. Some forced quality, as if the Able Wingman was only pretending to get the joke and was secretly promising himself that the wizard would lose a hand for that remark one day. What's got into him? he wondered.

     At that moment the door opened and in stepped a powerfully muscled giant of a man with a blonde moustache and wearing paint stained overalls. "Are these my new helpers?" he demanded, eyeing the soldiers critically.

     "Yours to do thy bidding," replied Thomas.

    The soldiers stared up at the newcomer in dismay. They could only imagine how hard he'd worked to get muscles like that, and had no doubt that he would expect an equal effort from his assistants.

     "Right lads," said the works foreman, stepping fully inside and gesturing towards the door, "Let's go. We've got a ship to build."

     The soldiers filed miserably out and Matthew gave Thomas a last, pleading look before he left.

     "See you later," the wizard called after him, "and I'll give you a proper guided tour." Then he himself left and made his way back to the bridge.