Chapter 49: Smooooooth

…

Once the Obeetans had gone to sleep, Leynne and Link tried to give each other two hours of rest before sending the deck crew out. Link, taking the first shift, found it unbearable to sleep knowing that he was about to chance losing a crewman based on said crewman's tendency to fall into holes. He tried to reason to himself that, should he fall, it would be where The Night was not since The Night acted like a solid mass. But then, he reminded himself that The Night could still move itself out of the way, potentially leaving Cale and whoever was with him to fall right into it. He went back and forth in determining to tell Leynne that he was going to throw the idea out only to find himself lacking other, safer options. He smacked his head on one of the bedposts trying to clear his mind and give himself a chance to sleep. This only succeeded in giving him a headache. Then Leynne came in a few minutes later to wake him. He had to resist the urge to hit his head against something again.

For what seemed like the first time in a long while, Link felt genuinely sleep-deprived. He had had nights where he had not gotten much sleep, and he was trying his best to keep Dholit from seeing him; the last time his crew had realized that he had spent too much time avoiding his bed, she had ordered Layna to drug him. He had a quick breakfast, but he still found that he was willing to put up with the taste of coffee if it would keep him from dropping to sleep in the middle of the deck. If only they had coffee.

In the end, he muscled through his sleep deprivation long enough to wake up Leynne two hours later. They gathered the deck crew, and they even had an extra volunteer: Randy, who had gotten himself a touch of sleep just before The Night woke up. That gave them a shore party composed of Cale (only slightly less drowsy than Link), Line, Brandon, Gillam, Dholit, Randy, Biluf, and Ray. Link and Leynne explained to them that they were under the simple order of looking for the entrance to the last technoworks, which was nothing new. However, Link added that they were going to have to venture further toward the tower than before. The best he could offer his leery crew was acknowledgement that he was basing the decision on Janni's comments from before. Brandon was the only one who pointed out how crazy the idea was, which a few others were quick to agree with, if silently. As they left in the Conductor, Link could only think about how much they did not know about their task.

The party had been given two hours to look around; at noon, they were supposed to return. Link's anxiety over sending a quarter of his crew to search for access to an underground maze where a vicious creature lived overpowered his drowsiness. Not that this made him any more alert; he tripped on the steps twice going up to the forecastle to check the instrumentation that The Night was still toying with. The first hour felt like the entire day, which only made Link growl with frustration when he asked Leynne about the time.

After spending a little longer walking circles around the wheel in a half-hearted attempt to act like a lookout, he saw the Conductor approaching. He immediately jumped the rail behind the helm and dashed to the opposite side of the ship. Leynne was only on the quarterdeck when Link reached the rear end of the main deck and pulled out a pair of poles from the rack under the port staircase. They met just as Link was starting up the stairs. Without a word, Leynne took one pole and led Link onto the quarterdeck. They continued up to the poop deck and took up position on either side of the opening in the deck.

At first, it appeared as if the Conductor was going to dock backwards as it approached between the masts. Then the sound of the engine's whine picked up, and the boat steered out over the island and made a circle so that it could approach the Island Symphony from behind. The Conductor lowered, and Leynne had to nudge it to one side to make sure it settled onto its supports straight.

Link was eager for news, so he threw his pole to the side and hustled back down to the quarterdeck. Leynne quickly followed. "Link, wait!" he hollered just before jumping the last few steps.

"What?" Link asked, one hand on the door into the boat deck.

"Just give them a moment," Leynne said, one hand raised as he approached Link. "I can see that you've been a little… impatient. Let us allow them a moment to compose themselves befoh the questioning begins."

Link sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. "All right, all right…" he groaned. "I'll take it slow."

They opened the doors. And the first thing they heard was, "Hey, Captain! We've got news!"

Link opened his mouth to ask, but Leynne placed a hand on his shoulder and hollered up at Brandon, "It can wait until the Conductoh is secuhed."

"Aye aye."

Leynne and Link took a moment to throw the mooring ropes up to the Conductor's deck and then secured them to the boat deck on the other side. Leynne then headed off Link in placing the ladder at the transom so that the crew could step off.

The first one to the deck was Dholit. "Oh, My Captain~," she said with the kind of tone that Link could only associate with her usual teasing. "Is theah a suitable rewahd foh finding anotheh technowohks?"

"You might have to live with the satisfaction of getting off this island fasteh," Leynne told her.

"Oh?"

"C'mon, Dholit, what'd you find?" Link asked.

"I could hahdly take all of the credit," Dholit said as she stepped aside. She turned and indicated as she said, "It was Chief Twig and his penchant foh falling which allowed us to complete the task."

"Dholit!" Link hissed at her.

"It's too late, Link," Cale spoke up. "I already know." Link looked over to see a weary face exuding the last remnants of rage. "Foh futuah reference, should my 'penchant' foh succumbing to gravity be invoked again, I shall promptly hand ovah my resignation and take mattahs up with the company."

Link leveled an annoyed look at Dholit. "You told him, didn't you."

"Actually, I believe that Line had made the comment of him falling through things which gave him the vital clue," Dholit replied. Then she shrugged and added, "Not that I was in the mind to deny it."

"Thanks a lot…" Link told her.

"Cale," Leynne spoke up. "As much as we might have been relying on youh unfohtunate luck, I would expect that you, as an educated man, can see that we ah not exactly in the best of positions to be propeh with ouh plans. And you do, of couhse, have ouh apologies."

"It wasn't easy to send you out there," Link added. "That's… kinda why we sent the rest of the crew with you."

"To covah up youh guilt?" Cale asked.

"To lessen the chances that you would have to suffeh," Leynne quickly replied. "If what you have found is truly the last of the technowohks, we ah that much closeh to leaving this island. I would hope that would make youh accident wohth the pain."

Cale stared between Link and Leynne for a moment. Then he heaved a sigh. "Pahhaps I have been provoked by my inability to sleep," he suggested. "With some appropriate rest, I might come to appreciate the gravity of the situation." Line, standing right behind him, snorted and was promptly flicked on the back of the head by Randy. "With youh pahmission, Captain."

Link jerked a thumb over his shoulder. "Go get some rest; you deserve it," he said. Cale's response was another sigh as he stepped between Link and Leynne and crossed the deck.

Once he was out of earshot, Line said, "Man, you would not believe how pissed he was."

"An unpleasant consequence of ouh decisions," Leynne said.

"How bad was it?" Link asked as the rest of the shore party slowly stepped out onto the open deck.

"Well, I'm pretty sure he was cussing at everyone for a while," Line said. "I'm… not really sure what half those words were."

"It kinda felt like even his cussing was smarter than us," Brandon said.

"I have to admit my own suhprise," Dholit spoke up. "I was not awaah those types of wohds weh in his vocabulary."

"Okay, okay, I get it," Link said with an exhausted tone. "We pissed Cale off, and we're all surprised about it. What about the technoworks?"

"The technowohks ah not too fah from wheah we thought," Dholit reported. "Among the grove of tree stumps, theah is a small troupe of vending cahts."

"Vending cahts?" Leynne asked.

"Cahts… tables…" Dholit said, swaying left and right. "I cannot say foh cehtain; I wasn't paying attention. Howevah, like the library, the path to the last technowohks was buried undah a brick path."

"Any signs of The Night?" Link asked.

"Pehhaps ten… twelve paces inside. We fiahed a flaah at it to be cehtain."

Link nodded. "Okay. You guys can go ahead and start lunch. The night shift should be up soon."

"Sounds good, Captain," Brandon said.

"Thanks, Captain," Gillam said at the same time.

"Arr," Randy grunted in agreement.

Link and Leynne moved aside as the shore party started walking toward the door. Leynne noticed Brandon rubbing a dark spot on his forearm and asked, "Brandon, ah you all right?"

"I was following Chief Twig," Brandon replied.

"Ah," Leynne uttered with a nod. "Enough said." He waited a moment as the shore party started leaving through the doors. Then he turned to Link. "So. I gatheh that you will want to take Sello to this new technowohks."

Link grimaced and said, "Well, I actually thought I was gonna go into the dream tonight. But that sounds like a better idea."

"I've a feeling that The Night will not want to accommodate a visit soon afteh being discovered," Leynne explained. "You might allow foh a bit of time befoh venturing out with Sello. And I would advise that you change youh method. Even if The Night reads youh mind, it would still have to find an answeh to youh activities."

Link nodded. "I just hope we can pull this off again."

…

~~10/7, Expedition Day 52.

~~If there was ever a need to measure our success, we could use one. Three out of four feels like three out of a million. And I've put my crew at serious risk again. It doesn't feel right. As much as we may justify it—As much as we tell ourselves we're doing what we have to do, I don't think I can do this for much longer. I want to stop. I want to tell my crew "I'll take care of it" again. Cale and Brandon could've been taken today just because we wanted to find that last technoworks fast. Well, we found it. And now, I'm planning to go into it with Sello once again. That's probably about the most I can hope for, just a reason to walk into The Night itself and make it choke trying to take me.

…

Link had a ration packet in his cabin so that he could work out on a scrap piece of paper how they would anchor Sello and himself. According to Dholit, the entrance was in a clearing full of stumps and vending carts. The carts would be useless, but Link had figured that they might use the stumps anyway. The question was how. The Night had had no trouble picking up a tree and throwing it at them. However, if the stumps were secure enough, they could tie the rope that would hold Link and Sello together to one stump and then tie that stump to multiple stumps to anchor it down in case The Night decided it wanted to grab them up again. He also reasoned that their rope would have to be tied together before they went inside, as he was certain that The Night would not pass up the opportunity to grab them in the middle of tying extensions.

Once the crew was done with lunch, he took Gold and Hunter down to the orlop to prepare. The first task was to put bends in some of the ropes to make a single, long rope that would be tied to Link and Sello. This took a substantial supply of their rope, deprived as they were of all the rope they had used to get into the mines. Link made sure to set aside five bundles that would be used to anchor their stump into place. It was less than he had planned on, but he was more concerned with the main rope coming up short, preventing them from reaching the chest he was certain would be in the technoworks. Link set aside a spare pair of lines just in case they needed them for the rigging; the rest of their supply was loaded onto the Conductor. Link also assigned Gold and Hunter to the task and added Lawrence to help handle Sello and provide extra pulling power should The Night decide it had had enough.

Gold directed them to a location which Link admitted to himself was uncomfortably close to the tower. There was still quite a bit of distance between them, but that did not lessen the sense of dread four of them felt. Link lowered the Conductor to a clear area on the opposite side of the vending carts and tables from the tower. They unloaded (supposing that throwing everything, almost including Sello, over the side of the boat counted as "unloading") the rope and set off to work.

Once they had the hole in the brick road in sight, they realized they had a problem. "Captain… is that…?" Hunter tried to ask.

Much of the brick road was missing, revealing a slope down into the ground. The Night was waiting at the entrance to the underground, its surface rippling as it had done before. Link was not sure what to think about this. On one hand, it would be easier to get inside and, should things take a turn, retreat. But if The Night had set that up, what could it be planning this time? Link shook his head and said, "We've got a job to do. Let's get to it." He indicated a stump nearby and said, "Hunter, tie that main rope to this stump. Gold, Lawrence, start tying the other ropes to some of these stumps behind us; we'll use them to keep this stump in place." For emphasis, he turned and indicated the stumps behind his shore party. "I'll get ready. Sello?"

"Fer beerzz!" Sello, being supported by Lawrence, replied with a salute.

"Yeah, no surprise…" Link commented under his breath. "Just… stand there. Can you do that?"

"Four beerzz!" Sello replied.

"Prob'ly the bes' ya'll ge' ou' of 'im, Cap'n," Lawrence said with a grin.

"I know," Link said with an irritable nod. "Get to work; we're running out of daylight."

Link tied himself to Sello as he had done before, with Sello on the end of the rope while he set himself a little closer to Sello. While this meant that he could not help smelling alcohol and burnt matches, it was a minor tradeoff if it meant that he could grab Sello and not just dangle by the rope and get kicked in the face should Sello suddenly decide to start running again. He supervised Hunter as he tied the other end of their rope to the stump. Link then told him to wait until Gold and Lawrence tied the other ropes to the stump. The stump was too short to tie all five ropes around it, so Link told them to loop three of the ropes to the rope he and Sello were tied to, which they achieved by fitting the ends between the grooves in the stump. Link then instructed Hunter to wrap the main rope around the top of the stump so that he could provide some means of control in case The Night was the one tugging.

"I don't know about this, Captain," Hunter said as he let loose a few loops so that Link and Sello could approach the hole. "I heard what happened to the chief."

"I know," Link replied. He pointed as he said, "That's why I'm glad we're just using stumps."

"No kiddin', Cap'n," Gold said, "This feels like a bad idea."

Link nodded. "I know. But… we don't have a choice. If I can get the chest down there, I should be able to get The Night out of there faster."

"Just sayin," Gold said. "Be careful, Cap'n."

Link nodded again. "Be ready to pull if it seems like we're in trouble."

"Aye aye," both Hunter and Gold replied.

Link tugged at one of Sello's sleeves. "You ready, Sello?"

"Ah eat da eat of champions," Sello said, showing Link a goofy grin.

"I… don't know what that means," Link said. He grabbed onto the sleeve again and dragged Sello across the ground.

Link noticed that the ground was vibrating as he approached The Night. He slowed his pace to make sure, and he could feel the tremble through the soles of his boots. So, he asked, "Okay, Sello. Is the booze with you?"

"Ah am one wif da booze," Sello said with a nod.

Link glanced at him to see a grim look on his face. "You know, it really worries me when you get serious…"

"Don' worry, Red. Ah godda fish."

Link sighed and said, "One of these days, I'm gonna get you to call me by name."

They descended the ramp into the tunnel. Link brought Sello to a halt just out of arm's reach of The Night's convulsing form. He stared at it, wondering if, somewhere in the turmoil it used for a body, it might or might not be trying to say something. As it appeared now, Link took its reactions to mean that it was strongly against having Sello invade its body again.

"Okay, Sello," Link said after exhaling the breath he had been holding. "Let's go."

"Ah am da—" Sello started to say as he stepped forward.

He stopped when he was suddenly engulfed by The Night. Link cried out and stumbled backwards, causing him to fall onto his rear end. He quickly glanced down to see that the short length of rope between him and Sello had been cut clean.

The rope yanked him from behind, dragging him up the dirt ramp. "No no no no no no no…" he chanted as he grabbed the rope to keep from flailing about as well as taking the bite of the rope from his wounded side. Then he shouted, "Stop! Stop!"

Gold and Lawrence dropped the rope. They jogged to where he had stopped, a significant distance from the ramp, as Link stood up, tugging at the knot cinched tight around his stomach. "Cap'n!" Gold hollered.

"Are ya all righ'?" Lawrence said.

"Yeah," Link said as he finally undid the knot. He let the loop fall loose, but he held the snapped end of the rope to examine it. Then he looked at The Night's still writhing form in the distance. "It took him!" he cried out, his voice cracked.

"The chief?" Lawrence asked. "'Ow?"

"It just reached out and grabbed him," Link replied, dropping the rope. He took a moment to get his breathing under control. "Just like that. Suddenly."

"I though' tha' thin' couldn' stand the chief," Lawrence said.

"What do we do now?" Gold asked.

"I-I don't know…" Link said as he doubled over, placing his hands on his knees. "I-I didn't know it would…"

"Maybe we should get back tae the ship," Gold said.

Lawrence, having stepped up to Link's left, planted a hand on Link's shoulder while pointing at The Night. "Wha' is i' doin'?" he asked.

Link looked up to see that The Night had grown out of the hole. Its whole form squirmed, not just rippling in place but moving about like it could not relax. Link felt the wave of alarm wash across all three of them. He stood up straight. "We might want to back off…" he told them. Just as each of the three took a single step back, The Night's body stiffened into a straight form pointed over their heads.

PKGH! "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!" With a sound akin to a massive spurt of flatulence, Sello was spat out of The Night and sailed through the air, the sound of his scream hailing his return to the light. All four members of the shore party watched in stunned awe as Sello flew an arc over their heads and into the mess of vending carts and tables. Whumph! Wherever it was that Sello had landed, it had provided very little sound but kicked up a lot of dust.

Gold, Hunter, and Link looked on in shock while Lawrence slapped a hand over his mouth, keenly aware that now would be a bad time to crack up laughing at Sello's latest misfortune. Link glanced back over his shoulder to see The Night retreat back into the hole. "C'mon, guys!" he called out as he started jogging toward the dust cloud. "Let's go get him!"

With Link jogging, all three older men quickly overtook him. Not wanting to run the risk of crashing into a table himself was only one of the reasons he had been so slow. This was one of the things he had feared would happen: The Night had taken one of his men. Link could only pray that Sello's inebriated defense would continue to serve as a shield for whatever kind of mind manipulation he was certain Janni had been hinting at.

"Captain!" Hunter called just as Link reached the first table. He picked up his pace to join them at a cart near the middle of the group.

Gold had reached in and hauled Sello out of a vending cart full of hats. By some miracle, a knitted cap had slipped onto Sello's head at some point, pressing down his hair and covering his eyes. Gold and Lawrence exchanged looks, and Lawrence lifted the hat so he could see Sello's eyes. "Ya okay, chief?" he asked.

"Eyes on da moose," Sello said as he wobbled slightly in Gold's hold.

"Chief?" Lawrence said louder, snapping his fingers in Sello's face. "Ya all there?"

Sello glanced at Lawrence and looked him up and down. Then he turned to Gold as if now realizing that Gold was holding him. "Turpentine turdle, and a wet wedgie to da dird bean," he told Lawrence.

Lawrence turned and said to Link, "Sorry, Cap'n, bu' tha's 'bou' as clear as he gets."

"Get him out of that thing," Link said. "We'll take him back to the ship."

"Is that a good idea, Captain?" Hunter asked.

Link paused to back away a couple of steps so that Gold could haul Sello out of the cart. "I know what you're thinking," Link said. "But we can at least see if he's all right. We'll find out if The Night affected him in some way later."

Gold had pulled Sello out of the cart and was trying to make him stand still. Then he grabbed the hat on Sello's head. In response, Sello grabbed the bottom edge of the hat and tugged it down over his ears. Gold pulled on the hat twice. When Sello refused to let it go, he waited to see if Sello would comply if he left it alone for a moment. Sello's grip showed signs of release, but the moment Gold made to try again, his hands tightened on the hat. Gold growled and released the hat, telling him, "Fine. 'Ave it yehr way, yeh tavern reprobate. Keep the dumb 'at."

"Shake mah tillies!" Sello declared, holding his hands up in victory.