Matthew needed someone to talk to. A friend. He went in search of Thomas, but the wizard was nowhere to be found. For a ship of such small size, it was surprising how easy it was to lose someone in it. He wasn't in his cabin, and when he went to the common room he wasn't there either, although a good looking girl, one of the wizards he thought, told him he'd been there and had just left. "Any idea where he went?" Matthew asked, but the woman just shrugged and went back to her drink so he left to continue his search.

     Eventually there was only the wizards' workroom left to look, but he hesitated outside the door, worried that Saturn might be inside and that he might be angry at the intrusion of a mundane into a place where he had no business. In the end, he pushed the door open a crack and peeped in. He was pleased and relieved to see Thomas, talking to an elderly nome.

     He looked like an incredibly old man, his skin crinkled and leathery, and half his face was covered with a huge white beard that hung down to his knees. He was dressed in a wizard's robes and was surrounded by the threatening aura of of a magic user, something that Thomas also had but which Matthew had never noticed because of his friendship with him. Had Matthew come upon the nome alone he would have crept quietly away, a little intimidated by the sense of power he carried, but since Thomas was obviously good friends with him he found the nerve to enter fully, closing the door behind him. "Hi," he said.

     Thomas greeted him warmly and introduced Braddle Bandock. The nomish wizard and one of the best diviners in the University. "His speciality is learning things, finding things out," Thomas explained, "and that's what we need right now. Knowledge as to the location of the portal."

     "Been having any luck?" asked Matthew hopefully. If he was able to solve the problem, it would mean no-one having to go outside the ship any more. The condition of some of the men was leading him to worry that Bobby Fell might only have been the first victim.

     "Well, it's not the sort of thing I normally deal with," the nome replied. His voice was high pitched and had a bit of a whistle in it somewhere but it still somehow managed to sound powerful and full of authority, reminding the soldier that, for all his frail, elderly appearance, this was a wizard. Powerful and knowledgeable in ways he couldn't begin to imagine.

     "Give me something I can hold in my hand and I'll tell you what it is," the nome continued. "Where it came from. Who possessed it. What they used it for. Who made it and why, and how much they were paid for it. I can even discover a lot about a thing without ever seeing it, although the spells required are rather more complicated and difficult to cast. But finding this portal... I just don't know where to begin! Saturn's already sought my aid in this matter and I had to give him the same answer. I've never been faced with a situation like this before and, frankly, I'm lost. I don't think I'm going to be of any use to you here."

     "None of us have ever been in a situation like this before," pointed out Thomas. "Nevertheless, you're a diviner. Your job aboard this ship is to find things out. I can't believe there's nothing you can do."

     "Can't you summon, er, things from other dimensions?" asked Matthew. "I remember Tom telling me once that you wizards can summon spirits and things to answer questions for you. Can't you just ask a spirit where the portal is?"

     The nome gazed at him with some sympathy through bloodshot, rheumy eyes. "Summoning a Power is no small undertaking. It takes days, weeks of preparation, and it's certainly not something I could do here. This whole ship's full of magic that could interfere with the spells. The Gods alone know what would happen."

     "Couldn't you go back to Tharia to cast the spells?" ventured Matthew cautiously. "Summon the spirit in the valley. You can do that, can't you?"

     "Yes, I could do that, but it wouldn't do any good. The being I summoned would only give the same information as the felisians, that it's a certain distance over that way. They couldn't be any more precise because there are no landmarks out here to relate to."

     Thomas had had a thought, though. "Maybe the priests could ask their Gods," he said. "They don't need special labs for that. They can pray anywhere. They could ask their Gods for directions to the portal."

     "Saturn's already thought of that," replied Braddle, twining his long beard between his knobbly fingers. "Samnos never gives His priests that kind of help these days, He expects His worshippers to be self reliant. Caratheodory never answers prayers at all. Well, almost never and when He does, it's only on mathematical matters, and Caroli and Ramthara only answer queries that deal with Their own specialist domains. Life and healing. Besides, no priest is going to be very happy asking his God for directions out of His jurisdiction. It's verging on the sinful."

     "They'd be spreading word of His power and glory to new worlds. New people to worship Them..."

     "That's not the way it works. It doesn't matter how many people worship Them in some other universe, They can only have power in this universe. Other dimensions have their own Gods. Most of them anyway. It's a bit like voting for a counsellor. You can only vote for one of the ones running for power in your town. Voting for a counsellor of another town is a wasted vote. He can't be a counsellor of your town. He's already a counsellor of another town. Do you see? Frankly, I don't see the point of having priests aboard at all. What good are they going to be?"

     "It's the principle of the thing," said Thomas, but he was no longer really paying attention to the conversation. There was an idea lurking at the back of his mind. Something they might be able to use...

     "Haskar said that it's only in our universe that the portal's so far away from the nearest planet," he said. "In other universes, the nearest planets are only a few million miles away. As near as Sereena is to Tharia."

     "Who's Haskar?" asked Matthew.

     "One of the captured felisians," said Thomas, suddenly remembering that his friend didn't know he was aboard the ship. "Saturn was questioning him and he said some things about what's on the other side."

     "So what?" asked Braddle, sensing that the other wizard was onto something.

     "Well, suppose you cast a divination spell to find the nearest planet? It would point to one of the worlds across the portal, because they're closer than any of the worlds in our universe. The spell would point to the portal!"

     The nome looked thoughtful. "It might work," he mused. "I'll have to think about it. Go away and let me think."

     He shooed the others away with his hands, and Thomas and Matthew left, suddenly hopeful that they might be about to make some progress after all.

     "So, how's life as a Flight Leader?" the wizard asked as soon as they were back out in the corridor.

     Matthew groaned out loud. "Can we go back to your cabin?" he asked. "I've got a lot I need to get off my chest. I really need a friend now, more than ever before."

     "You've got one," replied Thomas as they walked off.

☆☆☆

     Bobby Fell's replacement arrived four days later. He was another navy man, bringing the total to five. This meant that there were now only two infantrymen aboard the ship, George Stern and Roj Villa. All alone aboard a ship full of strangers. Matthew immediately split them up, making sure they were never on duty together so that they'd be forced to make friends among the men of the other services. In a way, though, that only made the situation worse because now the enlisted men were divided into two camps. Navy versus cavalry.

     The rivalry between them took every form possible, from verbal bantering in the dormitory to practical jokes and some mild instances of bullying. It was all pretty light hearted for now, but Matthew was terrified that it might not stay that way and racked his brain for ways to build bridges between the two groups. Bridges of camaraderie and comradeship. All he could think of for the moment, though, was to put a member of one group on duty with a member of the other. Force them into situations where they had to work together. Communicate. Co-operate.

     Then there was the boredom that was suffusing the ship as they continued to drift to and fro across the region of space containing the portal. Floating above the walkway, staring out into space looking for a flashing beacon, was no way to pass the time, and nerves were getting increasingly frayed. The men needed something to do. Some real work to occupy them. If they were going to be stuck out here for much longer, he was seriously thinking about recommending the rotation of his crew with men back home. A few days aboard the ship followed by a few days back on Tharia. Under the open sky with different people to talk to.

     It wouldn't be popular with the men, of course. They saw their berths aboard the Jules Verne as prizes, won in their competition with their fellows during their months of training. If they suddenly had to give up those berths for days at a time, they might very well see it as a betrayal. Their superiors dashing away their trophy cups even as they raised them to their lips. They would worry that the second crew would replace them permanently, that they would be left on the ground while usurpers went off to have great adventures and win glory and renown in their place.

     If it did come to rotating the crew, therefore, he would have to take great care to reassure them that they were still the chosen men for the mission. That it would be they and no-one else who would be aboard when they found the portal and went through it. They would all be thinking of Bobby Fell, though. If he could be replaced, why not others? Matthew cursed Callan for the hundredth time. Damn him! Why couldn't he have let him serve guard duty inside the ship? Okay, so it might not have been fair on the other men, but sending him home had set a serious and dangerous precedent.

     He sighed. All in all, it would be best if they found the bloody portal as quickly as possible. Every day, every hour they spent out here was causing more and worse problems, and it could only be a matter of time before it blew up in their faces.

     Still, it could have been worse. At least the new man seemed to be a fairly sharp blade. His name was Brullion Marshtone. A serious looking man in his middle years with experience in all shapes and sizes of navy ships from the smallest corvettes to the mighty Prince class ships themselves, of which only four had ever been built. Each named after one of the sons of the last Emperor of Belthar.

     "Good to have you aboard, Brullion," he said, reaching out to shake the new man's hand. "As a navy man, you'll be used to being confined aboard a small ship surrounded by the same old faces for months on end, but I think we can offer you an adventure you'll be able to tell your grandchildren about."

     "I hope I'll be an asset, Sir," replied Brullion soberly. "I'll do the best I can."

     "I'm sure you will," assured Matthew, while inside he wondered what the new man was thinking. His excitement at having this unexpected chance to prove himself had to be mingled with, what? Resentment at having been passed over first time? Perhaps a nagging suspicion that he wasn't considered equal to the others? Would he take unnecessary risks in an attempt to prove himself? He pushed the thought away in annoyance. You've got enough real problems right now without inventing new ones, he told himself.

     "I'm afraid it's in at the deep end here," he told him. "As soon as you've dropped your gear off in the dorm, report to airlock two. It's lookout duty for the next eight hours. How good at you at handling vast, empty spaces?"

      Brullion smiled faintly. "When the Dauntless sank, I spent three weeks aboard a twenty foot lifeboat with ten other men. No sail, no oars, and the currents swept us far out to sea, out of sight of land. I learned all about wide open spaces back then. I can handle it, Sir."

     Matthew smiled back. "Glad to hear it. Off you go then, and once again, welcome aboard."

☆☆☆

     Braddle Bandock spent two days back in Lexandria Valley, thumbing busily through ancient, dusty books and furiously jotting notes on scraps of paper in his crabby, spidery handwriting. Searching for an obscure reference he's stumbled upon in the long gone years of his youth and then forgotten about until this crisis had arisen. He begged a couple of assistants from Janos Barrass, another senior diviner, and together they tracked down the memoirs of a long forgotten wizard who'd lived a thousand years before. Memoirs that contained a clue to a magical procedure he'd invented but which no-one had ever found a practical use for.

     Panting with excitement, he hurried to Pondar Walton's laboratory, where he explained what he wanted and begged his help in making it. Pondar Walton was enjoying his freedom from the Rossem Project, however, and refused to be dragged away from his long neglected researches until the tiny diviner used the words he knew would get his attention. "The felisians are laughing at us! They're laughing that we can't even find the portal, that their people will never be brought to account for their crimes."

     He felt a little ashamed at saying this, feeling that he was exploiting the other wizard's misfortunes and grudges. It was like hitting him below the belt, and indeed the other wizard was staring at him in irritation, knowing the elderly nome was trying to manipulate him.

     His words struck home, though, and he nodded. "Alright, but I'm not wasting more than a day on this foolishness. As if these magics will work over the distances you intend..."

     "It's all we've got," Braddle said, however. "If it doesn't work, we're out of options. The Rossem Project is a failure. All the work you've put into it will be wasted and the felisians..."

     "Alright, alright," sighed the human wizard. "What exactly do you want from me?"

     It took two days to recreate the long dead wizard's achievement, if achievement was the right word for something so completely useless. Up until then, at least. Then the nome took the newly created artifact back to the Jules Verne in excitement.

     "I think I may have the solution to our problem," he said when he found Saturn in the wizard's workroom.

     The human wizard was beginning to look his age now as the burden of repeated failure took its toll on him. They'd been looking for the portal for two weeks now, the ship circling and spiraling through the same volume of space while the soldiers peered out at the stars from the railed walkway and the bridge crew concentrated on the images fed into their heads by the Helmets of Farsensing. Even Saturn was beginning to contemplate the possibility of failure. He looked up wearily at the nome, therefore, and for a moment thought about telling him to just buzz off. To stop bothering him.

     The nomish wizard's excitement piqued his curiosity, however. "What is it?" he demanded.

     "Something invented by Kumhold Krell a thousand years ago. He was looking for a way to find underground reserves of iron, but this is all he could come up with. He wrote it up, in case anyone in future years could find a use for it, then chucked it into his storeroom, where it was lost. Pondar Walton helped be make this duplicate."

     "What is it?" demanded Saturn again, a tiny flicker of hope kindled inside him. He didn't think much of diviners. He had trouble thinking of them as 'real' wizards, but if Pondar had been involved maybe it was something to be taken seriously.

     "It's a Needle of Stone Detection," Braddle replied, enjoying his moment of glory. "It was supposed to point towards the nearest iron ore, but all poor Kumhold could come up with was something that pointed towards the nearest stone. Not very useful back home, as you can imagine. It always points downwards."

     "Not very useful out here either," snapped Saturn, his momentary hope crashing to the ground. "The portal's not made of stone." The expression on his face said 'Idiot' as clearly as if it was tattooed across his forehead.

     "No," replied Braddle, unperturbed, "but planets are."

     "What?" said the other wizard in annoyance and confusion. "What are you prattling on about?"

     "Drop this thing floating in space and it'll point towards the nearest planet, and the nearest planets are on the other side of the portal. Do you see?"

     Saturn did, but he was sceptical. "It would never work over that kind of range. We're talking million of miles."

     "We've made the magics impregnating it as strong as possible, and there's nothing else out here to interfere with it. The sage Boswell of Bluevale believes that magic has infinite range, that it gets weaker and weaker with distance but never dies away completely. If that's true..."

     "Yes, yes, I see that," interrupted Saturn. He took the artifact from the nome and peered at it critically. It looked a little like a compass needle. Twelve inches long and pointed at both ends. One end coloured red, the other white. He could sense the magic in it and it was indeed powerful. So powerful in fact that he was a little uncertain about having it aboard the ship. There were so many delicate magics aboard, all carefully calibrated so as not to interfere with each other, and now this. Who knew what effect it was having on the Orb of Propulsion, the Lifegiver, the Pantrys, even now? If it could indeed find the portal, though, then perhaps a little risk was justified.

     "I suppose it's worth a try," he said therefore. "We'll have to back the ship well away from it, though, in case the ship's magics interfere with its workings. We can watch it using the bridge scrying mirror."

     "My thoughts exactly," agreed the nome.

     "I suppose we ought to tell the Captain. Go through the pretence of asking his permission." Saturn looked as though he was chewing wasps. "Oh well, get it over with."

     He left the room, heading for the bridge, and Braddle hobbled eagerly after him.