Hmm, pulling strings, or strings tied to things, or... something else?
Strings I helped Stef pull back another of the heavy rubber mats, which exposed the edges of the design on the floor. The thing was weird; it had lots of perpendicular lines that wove around each other without crossing, a little like railway lines or tramlines I supposed. They were slightly mesmerising to look at, too, like an optical illusion that pulled your vision this way and that. I had to shake my head once or twice to clear my vision and my mind, and I wondered how Stef coped with it. "Don't look at it too closely," he said when I asked him. "You either want to be so close to it that you're tracing an individual line, or far enough away to see the bigger picture." I thought about that, and decided against asking him how he knew.
After that I stood back and watched while he crawled about the design very carefully, never crawling onto something he hadn't already studied, with his nose maybe five centimetres above the floor. Once he reached out and poked very gently at something, but nothing moved and after a moment he moved on. He was about half-way across the design when Kraulik came back in. "Strings," he said, without preamble, and I just stared at him. "The sea is bubbling," he said. "Well, there is probably a better word for it, but I don't know it. The bubbles are like a boil only bigger and they pop and burst and water swirls around with agitation, and there are strings in the water. Long, brassy strings like the tentacles of the Kraken." I noticed Stef crawling backwards off the design and onto the safety of the rubber mat, not taking his eyes off some patch of the floor. "Churning?" I said, wondering what the hell was going on abovedecks. "How come we're not feeling the ship move?" "Not that close," said Kraulik. "Yet." "I'm sure that's good news," I said inanely. "Like a Kraken? Not a squid then?" Out of the corner of my eye Stef had picked up the pole and was poking at part of the design. "Too big for squid," said Kraulik. "Each string is the thickness of my wrist, I think. Hard to tell when it's not close." "Sounds more like ropes than strings," I said, distracted. "Where could they be coming from?" "What could they be coming from," corrected Kraulik. "We're literally in the middle of nowhere. This isn't some shipping accident, or collected mass of plastics from abandoned rubbish. This is something that's always been here." "You're a laugh a minute," I said, feeling shivers run down my spine. "I gue--"
There was a click as Stef dislodged something from the design, and then another flash of light and the pole he'd been holding flew across the engine room and clanged against a large, inoperative piece of machinery. "The fu--" said Kraulik, his words drowned out by a grating sound as the place where we thought there should be a doorway swivelled around, part of the wall moving out on a central pivot so that there were two channels through the wall now. "Sorted," said Stef, looking at what he'd achieved.
Progress! But also likely an approaching sea monster of some sort! So, you know, some good and some bad and maybe they should get moving with the good sooner than later?
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Hmm, pulling strings, or strings tied to things, or... something else?
Strings
I helped Stef pull back another of the heavy rubber mats, which exposed the edges of the design on the floor. The thing was weird; it had lots of perpendicular lines that wove around each other without crossing, a little like railway lines or tramlines I supposed. They were slightly mesmerising to look at, too, like an optical illusion that pulled your vision this way and that. I had to shake my head once or twice to clear my vision and my mind, and I wondered how Stef coped with it.
"Don't look at it too closely," he said when I asked him. "You either want to be so close to it that you're tracing an individual line, or far enough away to see the bigger picture." I thought about that, and decided against asking him how he knew.
After that I stood back and watched while he crawled about the design very carefully, never crawling onto something he hadn't already studied, with his nose maybe five centimetres above the floor. Once he reached out and poked very gently at something, but nothing moved and after a moment he moved on. He was about half-way across the design when Kraulik came back in.
"Strings," he said, without preamble, and I just stared at him. "The sea is bubbling," he said. "Well, there is probably a better word for it, but I don't know it. The bubbles are like a boil only bigger and they pop and burst and water swirls around with agitation, and there are strings in the water. Long, brassy strings like the tentacles of the Kraken."
I noticed Stef crawling backwards off the design and onto the safety of the rubber mat, not taking his eyes off some patch of the floor.
"Churning?" I said, wondering what the hell was going on abovedecks. "How come we're not feeling the ship move?"
"Not that close," said Kraulik. "Yet."
"I'm sure that's good news," I said inanely. "Like a Kraken? Not a squid then?" Out of the corner of my eye Stef had picked up the pole and was poking at part of the design.
"Too big for squid," said Kraulik. "Each string is the thickness of my wrist, I think. Hard to tell when it's not close."
"Sounds more like ropes than strings," I said, distracted. "Where could they be coming from?"
"What could they be coming from," corrected Kraulik. "We're literally in the middle of nowhere. This isn't some shipping accident, or collected mass of plastics from abandoned rubbish. This is something that's always been here."
"You're a laugh a minute," I said, feeling shivers run down my spine. "I gue--"
There was a click as Stef dislodged something from the design, and then another flash of light and the pole he'd been holding flew across the engine room and clanged against a large, inoperative piece of machinery.
"The fu--" said Kraulik, his words drowned out by a grating sound as the place where we thought there should be a doorway swivelled around, part of the wall moving out on a central pivot so that there were two channels through the wall now.
"Sorted," said Stef, looking at what he'd achieved.
Greg - whatever you want, man. Whatever works. :)
Progress! But also likely an approaching sea monster of some sort! So, you know, some good and some bad and maybe they should get moving with the good sooner than later?
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