Open Mettle: Indiscipline

[Cryle]

"Five would allow for thirty-one, but accounting for punctuation and a number signifier, it would fall short. So six is rather ideal. That would allow for sixty-three."

"That's almost double!"

"It's one just over double, actually. How-ever... If we're to add dashes, it would be nine. A three-by-three grid, dots in the corners and center, dashes at the cardinals."

"There's birds?"

"The directions. North, south, east, west. I like this, but then..."

"...then...?"

"Well, for maths, if the dashes represent degrees, then the dots can only go up to thirty-one. But there's eighty-nine between every cardinal degree, so to fit an entire angle within a single symbol would still be impossible with only nine. Unless the dashes represent multiplication of the whole number... hm, but that would require..."

"Is that important... I mean, it's not going to come up is it? Who is going to write to me about degrees? Unless you're going off to a university after you leave the ship?"

"If you're to be the code-breaker in my absence, the things that would need to be coded would involve degrees. Augh. Fine, if there's a symbol that represents the idea that the following symbol is a measure of degrees, that will work. With nine, we have five hundred and eleven combinations."

"Cryle... I'm not going to memorize five hundred things."

"Why not? You've learned over five hundred words."

"Words are sounds! You're talking about tiny dots on paper. I can't just swipe my paw over dots and know how many there are, and then remember all the... con... conflagurations - "

"Configurations."

"See, I don't know five hundred words! That's the five hundredth word, that's too many words."

"Alright. I'll keep it simple for you. It's just proof of concept, it doesn't mean we have to fill out five hundred symbols. The dots will be letters. Four dashes means the symbol is a whole number, and the dot arrangement can be in decimal. Four dots in the corners for a zero, one dot in the center for one, one dot on the top left for two, top right for three... something like that work for you?"

"Urff... I guess."

Silence settled over the pair for a while as Cryle scritched out ideas in her notebook. Korya's tail hung over her hammock, twitching idly, but the feline remained otherwise still, a sure sign that her thoughts were deep as the ocean.

It had been only a few days since they'd left Vulpinsula, and routine was starting to settle in somewhat, in a hazy, uncoordinated way, despite Frogears' best efforts. Korya's mood swings were nothing very new to Cryle, who had siblings, but it was obvious even to the socially oblivious rat that things were bothering her bunk mate. Yesterday, not even Griblo's most horrid puns could crack a smile. In an attempt to make the little leopard cat feel useful again, Cryle had opened up with her idea of a coded alphabet, not made of ink, but of indented shapes.

Now, in their off-shift hours not specifically allocated to sleep, the two schemed. Cryle had requested a few things from the ship's carpenter, to see what was even possible - her schematics for Korya's telescopic walking stick had been completed, but required hollow tubing with threaded ends, springs, and other such seemingly frivolous desires.

And for one glorious moment, nobeast was bothering them, allowing Cryle to work in relative peace. Although she had one of those portentous feelings that this was about to change. Rumors of a potato thief were already circulating and drawing unwanted attention to the skittish, curious crimson-hatted ratmaid who kept poking around muttering about hidden compartments everywhere - Cryle's other pastime. But she was definitely no potato thief!

"What if," said Cryle, "Some of them were words. Common ones, like 'the', 'and', 'it', 'there', 'why'... or names of things? Save on paper space, reading time, and be even more confusing to anybeast trying to decode it!"

"Crrryyyyyyleeeeeee..."

 

[Griblo Jankweed]

The hammock gave a faint creak as Griblo shifted, one gold hoop catching the lantern glow and scattering a wavering star of light above him. He stared daggers at the planks overhead. Those damn missing potatoes. Two dozen tubers short by his count now, and every time he so much as breathed near the stores he could feel the specter of suspicion creeping up his spine. Assistant Purser. Right. Hard to look assistant anything when a thief kept making him seem like he couldn’t keep track of a simple sack of spuds.

If he found the culprit… forget reporting them to the bosun. He’d string them up from the rigging himself just to prove a point.

He was mid-fantasy about which knots he’d use when Cryle’s voice drifted over as a relentless tirade of complicated jargon that made his muzzle scrunch.

Then came Korya’s thin, wilted plea:
“Crrryyleeeee…”

That was the classic sound of someone’s spirit folding in on itself in desperation.

With a long exhale through his nose, Griblo rolled sideways and slunk off his hammock like a poured out liquid. He snagged a wrapped cloth bundle from his effect, which were definitely not part of the official rations, and padded across the narrow berth. Reaching the talkative, gently swaying mass of their closely hung hammocks, he lifted a paw and gave the undersides a light poke.

"Pssst… oi, lit’le terrors."
Another poke.
"It’s yer fairy ferret purser, wit’ some extra vittles. D’ cookie on board ’taint feedin’ us’ns near enough t’think like ye is! Time fer a break an’ a snack."

He held up the offering: a few sugared nut clusters wrapped in the cloth, smelling faintly of cinnamon, alongside several glossy chunks of preserved pineapple.

Rocking back on his heels, he popped one of the crystallized pieces into his own mouth, smacking his lips like a naughty dibbun who’d pinched sweets straight from the kitchen.

"T'aint always gonna be free, so ye best shove it down yer maws ’fore I change m’ mind, now."

 

[Cryle]

Cryle had smelled him coming long before the whisper, the poke, or the horrible sight of his face peering over the edge of her hammock. Korya, too, had smelled him, but ignored it, because Korya smelled pretty much everything, whereas Cryle's pointed nose was fine-tuned specifically for the scent of pineapple; the combination of crisp fresh parchment, binding glue, and pressed ink; and the delightful aroma of gently-applied machine lubricant.

She sat up and stared at the pineapple chunks as if they were both a glowing offering from some celestial being, and like they were about to sprout black gooey tentacles and strangle her. Then she snatched them up anyway, stuffing not her maw, but the pocket of her coat that she was using as a blanket. The clusters were passed along to Korya, who didn't even sniff them before stuffing her cheeks like a hamster.

Cryle scowled at the memory of Mr. Pawminton.

"You told him?" she hissed at Korya.

"Maurnf," said Korya, and after several long crunches followed by a swallow: "H'only that you're a Pineratple. And that you smell like pineapple, and were sad because you weren't sure you'd have pineapple enough to last... Hi, Griblo! These are great, so crunchy. Thanks!"

Cryle grumbled and scrunched herself up inside her hammock. She gave a small nod and muttered a tiny "'ank 'oo" to Griblo, then sat up, a wild look flashing behind her large spectacles.

Purser!

"Mr. Jankweed," she said slowly, as if that wasn't his real name, "Is it possible that the pursuary has in its possession any number of metal rods thicker than one millimeter but thinner than six, preferably in the two-point-five range, ten small springs, a rolling pin, two sheets of loose paper, scrap wood measuring at least one by eight by twenty centimeters, and various small, malleable sheets of metal which could be bent with minimal effort and cut to size with basic engineering tools?"

The look in the ratmaid's eyes was the kind of look that saw lightning and chased after it into the skies themselves; or a wildcat who had spotted a little red firefly in the distance and had already done the rump-wiggle and couldn't simply un-wriggle the harnessed energy without catastrophic physical harm to itself.

Korya crunched away at her nut clusters and rolled back and forth in her hammock, until she simply rolled out of it and thumped to the deck below, landing on all fours. She stood up and began to rummage for her clothes.

"Yeah, Griblo! You got anything like... all that? Let's go get it. Rolling pin! Centipedes. Mandible metal. C'mon, c'mon."

Korya sidled over to the ferret and gently patted his arm, holding onto it for guidance - while also tugging at it impatiently.