The chamber took up most of the interior of the ship. There was perhaps a couple of yards between the outer hull and the inner skin that formed the walls. In places the inner skin had been cut away to reveal a labyrinthine network of pipes and tubes, and here and there little red and yellow lights flashed at him.

     He wondered what this ship had been like back in its heyday. Where it had been, what marvels it had witnessed. He wondered what the Masters had been like and what had driven them to cross the gulfs of space. Was it just conquest? Were they really little more than space shologs? Or did they have another side? A peaceful, maybe even a noble side? He reminded himself that human soldiers were rarely the finest specimens of their race, and contemplated what an impartial observer might make of the human race if they only had soldiers to observe.

     There might even be several races or nations of Masters, some of which might be nicer to know than the ones that had enslaved the felisians. Maybe they were still around somewhere. Maybe they would come across them at some point during the course of their mission. Captain Strong might even seek them out deliberately. After all, there could be little doubt that they'd been exploring the Worlds of the Sheaf a lot longer than the felisians. They would be much more likely to know where the Shipbuilders came from.

     He completed his circuit of the room and returned to the older wizard, who'd moved to stand beside the felisians and had his head cocked to one side, as if listening. He's reading their minds, Thomas realised. The older wizard lacked any consideration for the mental privacy of others and read their minds as a matter of routine, simply taking whatever knowledge he wanted without bothering to ask. Thomas knew, he'd had it done to him plenty of times. It was just as well he didn't have any deep, dark secrets to be ashamed of. He waited patiently for the older wizard to finish and step away from the felisians, back to the control console, where they could talk in whispers without being overheard.

     Saturn started touching the glass surface in various places, watching as symbols appeared and changed in response, accompanied by the occasional flash of colour from one or other of the geometric shapes. Apart from that, though, nothing else happened. The board had been disconnected from whatever it had once controlled.

     "You knew Elmias Pastin, didn't you?" asked Saturn, glancing around at the younger wizard.

     "Yes, indeed," replied Thomas. "He was my favourite teacher."

     "He used to bring things back from other universes," Saturn said, looking down at the console thoughtfully. "Things that operated on principles other than magic. Mental energy, for example, or natural philosophy. Some of the natural philosophy artefacts he brought back were similar in some respects to this tabletop. They had tiny levers and rotating knobs and gave the impression of being cruder than this device. At an earlier stage of sophistication perhaps. There was the same sense of function, though. The sense that they were devices that controlled other devices."

     "You think the masters used natural philosophy?" asked Thomas in fascination.

     "It certainly seems that way. Did you sense any magic in here?"

     "No, master. Not even the slightest trace."

     Saturn nodded. "Not unexpected. It was sheerest wishful thinking that our search would be over so quickly. Natural philosophy uses the power of lightning channeled through wires of copper or gold. There was no trace of wire in any of the reconstructions of the Rossem ship our divination spells conjured up. It was definitely powered by magic, not natural philosophy. I think we can be quite certain now that the Masters were not our Shipbuilders."

     "That still leaves the original inhabitants of this world. The City Builders."

     Saturn nodded. "We need to find a city that's still relatively undisturbed. Uncontaminated by Master activity. We'll use the scrying mirrors back on the ship." He took Thomas's hand and they teleported back.

☆☆☆

     After sending Thomas back to the scout ship's chart room to begin the search, Saturn paid a quick visit to the bridge to see how the Captain was getting on. He learned that Strong had used a combination of threats and diplomacy to persuade the elders to stop playing for time, forcing them to grant them immediate permission to land, and that the Jules Verne was, therefore, entering the planet's atmosphere in preparation for the departure of the scout ships.

     "You'll be going with them," he told the wizard. "I expect you'll want to inspect the Master artifacts yourself."

     "I don't think there's much point in that," said Saturn, however. He indicated the felisian ship still showing in the scrying mirror. "I think it's pretty obvious that that wasn't made by the same people who built the Rossem ship. There are ruins down on the planet surface that were left by a far older civilisation, though. They definitely merit a closer look."

     Strong stared at him suspiciously. "You've changed your mind very quickly," he said. Saturn just looked at him. The Captain sighed. "Very well," he said, "but I want to be kept fully informed of everything you do."

     "Of course," said Saturn, turning his head as he left so the Captain wouldn't see his amused, secretive smile.

☆☆☆

     The Jules Verne shuddered and vibrated as it entered Veglia's atmosphere, making Thomas clutch at the scout ship's railing nervously while Matthew watched with amusement. "The mighty wizard," he said, grinning. "With the awesome magical powers at his command there is nothing in the world that can scare him."

      "Shut up, Matt," said Thomas without amusement. Around them, the Jules Verne gave an extra-violent shudder as it passed through a layer of turbulence before steadying.
"Is it going to be like this every time we approach a planet?" muttered the wizard, clutching the railing tighter."

     "You tell me," Matthew replied. "You people built this thing. I just work here."

     The ship descended to an altitude of ten thousand feet, several miles south of Place-of-Toil. The airlock doors opened and men emerged to man the ballistae, loading them with the spell-charged bolts that would explode with fireball spells when hitting their targets. The scout ships weren't airtight, so if danger threatened the Jules Verne couldn't retreat back to the safety of space while the hanger doors were open. Not without condemning everyone aboard the smaller ships to death by exposure to vacuum.

    Thomas imagined the lookouts scanning the horizon and the ground below for any sign of danger, ready to shoot the spell-charged ballista bolts at anything that threatened. The Captain, up in the bridge, would probably give it ten minutes or so, listening to one negative report after another, before relaxing. Only when he was satisfied that the felisians weren't going to launch an attack while they were vulnerable would he give the order to proceed with the launch.

     Down in the hanger deck, Matthew heard the Captain's Farspoken command in his head and passed on the command to the men manning the door winch. Cold air began to blow around the cramped chamber as the great door inched open, juddering as the oiled hinges took the strain.
When the door was fully open Matthew, on the deck of the Galtalista, then gave the order for the scout ship to depart. Under the impetus of power provided by its Orb of Propulsion, the scout ship scraped along the greased railings while, beside them, Borlin Bakklan supervised the departure of the Trill-Dal. Launching both ships at once had been a controversial decision, as it had originally been assumed that one would remain in the hanger deck at all times, ready to mount a rescue mission if the first got into trouble, but with both ships carrying wizards capable of teleporting there was really no need for such trepidation. If disaster struck, the wizard could simply teleport the whole crew back to the Jules Verne, and they would worry about recovering the scout ship later. Thomas would not be accompanying Saturn to the ancient city he'd spotted in the jungles to the south, therefore. Instead, he would accompany Matthew in the other ship to Place-of-Toil, to supervise the collection of the maps and charts they'd been promised.

     The faint squeal as the hull slid along the lubricated metal deck set Thomas's teeth on edge, but a few moments later they were floating free and then the Trill-Dal began to emerge. Once it was also out, the hanger door closed again, the Ship of Space already gaining altitude as it returned to the safety of free space. Matthew watched the brilliant white globe shrinking above them for a few moments, then gave orders for the masts and sails to be deployed.

     Memories of the Hummingbird and their voyage to the Southern Continent came flooding back to Thomas as he gazed out over the railing at the land passing by below. It was a different ship, and they were flying over a different planet, but many of the old Hummingbird crew were here with him. Matthew, Ihvon Presska, a couple of the other men and Tana Antallan in the orb room. The rest were new to him, though, except for the occasional glimpse he'd had of them back on the mothership.