Open Mettle: Indiscipline

[Cryle]

Oh. Griblo's lantern, that was helpful. Cryle found herself flustering a little, wiping her paws on her coat and fidgeting awkwardly. And there was the box of metal bits... at a simple glance, it would have made her widdle herself with excitement a few days ago. Now she knew the importance of keeping track of things meant for the only thing between nine hundred souls and the bottom of the ocean, it almost felt like stealing.

Which, in itself, was a thrill that rustled up her spine and almost broke a smile across her pointy rat-shaped face.

It was almost a shame they were going to do it all by the books.

She nestled herself inside, rummaging about in the crate Griblo had brought down, and measured.

"Ten small springs... rods no thicker than six millimetres but larger than one, length... as of yet undecided... Two-point-five is the desired thickness, for weight's sake. Strong enough to make an impression without bending. The finger is the pressure-point, pressing downward. The springs return the pressure plates into position. The rods are levers, but with good wood, the levers could be wood as well. The springs are most important... But this!"

She selected one particularly thick rod.

"Inserted into the main wooden cylinder, this would help it rotate much better. And these, and these..." She picked out a selection of nuts and washes. She nibbled her bottom lip with her frustrating large incisors. Her paws raised up in front of her, poking and prodding the air, fingers twisting. Her eyes had shut tight.

The machine rotated around in her mind, complete and incomplete, somewhere between a ghost of a memory and a thought not yet thought. It was simple, but complex. She grappled with the finished idea, replacing parts, re-calculating sizes and weights, trying desperately to hold onto the image of a sketch in her mind that kept dissolving into ratmaids. Her tail thrashed, smacking Korya across the knees, and she snapped awake, frowning.

"There are variables," she said slowly. "For the moment, I think we should put these back. It is enough to know they are here, and who I must speak to when I wish to access them."

Hopefully, whatever use they had on the ship would both not come up during the voyage, and especially not before she came to collect.

"I, um... thank you both, Mr. Jankweed, Mr. Lasichin. I require more time to make sure the design is finished before I requisition anything. The design at the moment is only the work of a few minutes, and I'd like to speak to Korya properly about the design and usage of the machine, and get her input, as well as make sure that the dimensions are within the capabilities of what we have available here, with these pieces, and the wood, and the tin..."

She began putting the pieces away.

Korya, meanwhile, had a little bit of drool oozing out the side of her mouth.

"I knew it," she whispered back to Griblo. "I had a... a feeling about Cryle! I bet I can convince her to be my girlfriend before we return to Bully, after all! A hundred gilders, even. And four pints."

And that was all the little cat had to say about that, at the moment. But her purring filled the awkward silence, nearly drowning out the muffled noises of the night-shift crew that scrambled about above-decks.

 

[Herman Lasichin]

Herman followed Cryle's words closely. He only now realized he barely heard her speak before but since she was careful to pronounce each word slowly and carefully he could follow her word spree about what she needs. Herman wasn't good at the whole mechanics thing. He could solve a basic and not so basic physics problem, but really only because he knew how to translate it into mathematics which he actually knew. As a boy he could put back simple toys and tools he would disassemble. But something more complex was hard without somebody else guiding his paw, that somebody nearly always being his brother Mariner. He was the kit that helped assemble all the stuff, who went around fixing people's carts and putting things on their roofs, while Herman had to be pulled by the ears and tail from his books to help him out. It was at least somewhat fun with Mari, he remembered how they spent a whole afternoon building Mister Fizzidorf's new shack for about two weeks' worth of lunch money each, which might as well have been a million Varangpfennigs to the 9-year-old Herman. What was Mari doing now? Did he try to write him a letter, or was he too busy hammering nails to write one?

He had to blink away the thoughts of Mari however, since the rodent continued on listing dimensions. He could recognise the different sizes and shapes she was interested in and helped her pull out more, and held a preliminary inventory of the number taken. He didn't need to, he was going to notice the missing bits later and write it down in his reports as if he didn't know about this project and put it all on the maintenance crew, but it never hurt to keep count.

Oh, the ratmaids again. Herman had a terrible feeling that he was never going to hear the end of it, which annoyed him since he wasn't at all interested in ratmaids, especially not in the positions Cryle liked to draw them in. But that cat, Korya, and his new friend Griblo, they couldn't stop wiggling their tongues on the subjects. He hoped that they weren't going to spread the news of the sketch around on the ship. The last thing he needs right now is all the crewbeasts yapping his ears off on that subject.