NOTICE: The following story is canon. Everyone has memories of it, although no one really wants to remember it.
…
Tale #12: Do Alcoholics Dream of Miscalibrated Moose?
"Good mohning, Captain."
Link had to blink the last bit of bleariness out of his eyes in order to distinguish Leynne from the rest of the deck. "Oh, yeah," he replied. He gave a cough and then said, "Good morning."
Leynne pocketed his watch and observed, "Ratheh late in the mohning than usual, ahn't you? Not that I'm complaining."
"Yeah, I had a little trouble," Link answered. He pulled back his left sleeve to show a fresh bruise on the inside of his forearm. "I couldn't see in my cabin, and I hit the partition to the head. Then I accidentally kicked one of the tool bins on the map table and had to pick things up before I got dressed." He continued as he straightened the sleeve again. "The bulb in my cabin is out."
"I see…" Leynne said as he glanced out at the rising sun to port. "I would think that the sun would've filtehed light into youh cabin."
"That glass in there makes it a little tricky," Link replied.
"Ah."
"Report."
Leynne indicated the bow with a hand. "On-couhse foh Black Island south-southwest, still about a day away. It's been a quiet night, although the deck crew noted that the deck lights weh behaving strangely."
"Strangely?" Link asked. "How?"
"Well," he started, indicating the port bulwark. "It seems that, a few houhs ago at most, the lights shone a little brighteh than usual. Howeveh, I've failed to notice this. Instead, it seems that we ah having some problems with ouh generatoh."
"Was it recently inspected?" Link asked.
"Last we weh at the Poht a month and a half ago," Leynne said with a nod. Then he gave a sigh. "But, I suppose we should remind ouhselves that that generatoh was built on the suhface. I've already decided to inspect the generatoh myself while off-duty. I believe I know enough about its operation to at least troubleshoot it."
Link nodded. "We'll divert to Forge Island after we drop off our cargo. We can put in a work order there."
"Should it come to that," Leynne said, "I should like to ovehsee the maintenance."
"Agreed."
"I imagine it isn't too serious, but if you lost youh light, then we might have suffehed from some soht of poweh suhge. I cannot detehmine why, though."
"It'll be all right as long as we don't have anything important connected to it. Right? We don't have anything important connected to it?"
Leynne shook his head. "No, we do not."
"How much longer until the shift change?"
"It should be soon."
"I'll relieve you now. Get a look at that generator as soon as you can."
"I will," Leynne said with a nod. Then he indicated the stairs he was standing in front of. "I'd like to inspect the suhrounding skies fihst. Twali thinks she might've spotted a vessel on the horizon last night; I'd like to see if it's still theh."
"There're a lot of small islands in this area," Link reminded him. "Sometimes it's easy to mistake light from one of them for a nearby ship."
"I had the same thoughts," Leynne told him. "But I'd like to be cehtain."
Link nodded. "Carry on."
They parted, Leynne walking up the steps to the quarterdeck while Link started across the main weather deck. He intended to step onto the forecastle. But he came to a stop just as he was passing the port staircase. He heard heavy footsteps ascending to the deck, and he turned to watch the members of his day crew emerge.
Line sported a red mark on his forehead and held one hand pressed to a temple. Dholit, amazingly, looked to have not had time to straighten herself out; stray strands stood out from her pulled-back hair, and she was wearing a blue tunic over a white body suit instead of her usually inappropriate clothing. Biluf had a black eye and was cradling her left arm with her right. Layna appeared to be unscathed, one hand sympathetically rubbing Biluf's back. And Link first thought that Flower was covered in blood.
"What th—" Link began to ask.
"Chili," Line and Flower answered in unison as the crew stopped in front of Link.
"Ah—… wha?" Link asked.
"It is Lilly's chili," Dholit said, her voice devoid of its usual lilt.
"It's all over the berth deck," Line said.
"And me," Flower added, tugging on his chili-stained work tunic.
"The flooh in front of the doahway down theah is equally covahed," Dholit said, raising an arm to show a red stain on her sleeve.
"How come?" Link asked.
"We don't know," Flower said. He held his arms open as he added, "I mean, this sure as hell wasn't my idea."
"Line?" Link asked.
"Wasn't me," Line replied in an exhausted tone. "If it was, do you think I'd slip in it and hit my head on the partition?"
"Yeah," Link said, his tone pointed.
"Layna repohted someone in the behthing deck this mohning," Dholit said. "Howevah… she could not tell who it was. She could not sense any malicious intent."
"Maybe someone was sleepwalking," Link suggested.
"She said that that was one possible way not to alahm haah," Dholit said. "And, by that same token, she could not tell who it was."
Link sighed and rubbed his eyes for a moment. "Relieve the night shift and… maybe, Flower, have Gold retrieve a new tunic for you."
"Aye, sir," Flower said as the crew dispersed.
"Wait, wait," Link said, reaching out a hand as if to stop Flower as he glanced around. "Where's Cale?"
"We haven't seen him, Captain," Flower said. "You want me to go find him?"
"No, I'll take care of it," Link replied, waving him away. "Go relieve Twali. And… maybe ditch your tunic for now. That's probably gonna start smelling."
"Aye," Flower agreed as he walked toward the stern.
Link watched him walk away, confessing to himself that he could actually already smell Lilly's chili going rancid. Or that may have just been the way the chili smelled in the open air. He shook the appraisal out of his head and stepped into the stairwell.
He had to descend on one side of the stairs due to the spilled chili spattered all over the steps. Once he was past the first two flights and through the cargo hold, the rest of the stairs looked cleaner. He could still see a line of chili that had been made by the culprit. It ended at the foot of the stairs on the fourth landing in the galley, leaving Link to wonder if this had been a prank set up by one of his chiefs. But then, which one could it possibly be? Sello did not use the quarters that were assigned to him, so they had designated it a closet for cleaning supplies to be used on this deck and the orlop. Leynne and Dubbl had been on duty all night. So that only left Cale.
And Cale hardly seemed to be in the position to do it. Once Link had a look at the short hallway between the officers' quarters, he found that someone had tied all of the doors together with a single strand of twine. Cale, billeted at the far end, was peeking out a narrow slit in his open door.
"Oh," he said, realizing that Link was looking at him from the other side. "Good mohning, Captain."
"Good morning," Link replied. He pointed at the twine. "What's going on?"
"Ah, well… I-I can't be suah. It was like this when I awoke."
"Good mornin', Captain." Link jumped in surprise as Lilly strode past him. "Don't worry, Cale. I'll get ya out."
She grabbed and tugged on the nearest length of twine. "Ouch!" Cale shouted before his door pulled closed.
Lilly then cut the twine with a steak knife. The twine fell from her hands, and she called to Cale, "Can you open it now?"
Cale opened the door, pulling the twine off two of the doorknobs near Lilly. "Thank you," he said as he stepped outside. He tugged the twine off the other nearby doorknobs as he asked, "Do you think anyone else has had a bad mohning?"
"Yeah, the entire day shift," Link answered.
"Huh?" Cale asked, rubbing at a line of red that the door had drawn across his knuckles.
"There's chili all over the men's side of the berth deck," Lilly told him. "It got smeared all over Mister Flower."
Cale put on a disgusted look. "No offense; youh chili is quite excellent," he quickly told Lilly, "but I would rathah think that being slathahed in it would feel repulsive."
"I feel it's more than that," Lilly said as she turned to Link. "Someone ransacked the cabinets. I hadda pick up bottles scattered all over. One was even in the chili pot."
"Whoever grabbed the chili must've been the same one who went through your cabinet," Link reasoned. "I don't think it was anyone on-deck. I don't think it was anyone on the day shift either. It might've been someone in the engine room, but who?"
"I don't think that eithah of the Gorons did this," Cale said. "They'h much too polite. That would leave Mistah Lawrence, Mistah Hahley, and Chief Sello."
Wump. The sound was barely audible, and the deck under their feet gave a slight shudder. Link, Lilly, and Cale exchanged glances with each other. Then Link moved toward the port staircase. He heard clinking sounds and groaning from the orlop.
He looked over his shoulder and told Lilly and Cale, "You two carry on. And I don't mean in the closet again."
"Aye aye, Captain," Lilly replied with a casual giggle while Cale gave an embarrassed blush.
Link hustled down the stairs and into the orlop. He heard grinding and pounding, so he hurried astern toward the sound. Once he was around the storage cabinet in the middle of the deck, he found the source. Helo was sitting in the space at the back of the deck that he had set up as his own room. Around him were various stones, most of them quite large. Helo stood up once he noticed Link, one hand rubbing the mop of orange hair on his head.
"Is everything all right?" Link asked.
"I can't be sure, Captain," Helo said, his voice tinged with curiosity as he looked at the rocks around him. "I had a dream that I was sitting in a dead kiln, and, when I woke up, all these rocks were on top of me. I just shifted to unroll myself, and it all fell apart."
Link gave the rocks an annoyed look. "Well, at least we know it wasn't you who smeared chili all over the day shift," he said.
"Smeared chili?" Helo asked.
Link sighed and told him, "Yeah, someone… smeared chili all over the berth deck last night. And then he tied the doorknobs to all the officers' quarters together."
"A midnight prankster?" Helo asked. "And you think it might've been someone on the engine crew's night shift?"
"Well, it might've been someone on the deck, too," Link defended with a shrug. "I just don't know." He pointed at the rocks. "I'm gonna go check on the engine room. Uh… at least move these rocks out of the way before someone trips over them."
"Yes, sir."
Link moved along past the partition behind which the Gorons kept their supply of rocks. He opened the door at the back and stepped into the engine room.
"G'mornin', Cap'n," Harley greeted. Lidago glanced over his shoulder and, upon seeing Link, gave a small wave.
"Harley, Lidago," Link greeted them as he stepped further into the room.
"Wha' 'bou' me, Cap'n?" Link heard from above. He looked up and across the room to see Lawrence paused on the ladder.
"Yes, Mister Lawrence," Link replied. "Good morning." Lawrence grinned and resumed his descent. Link turned his attention back to Lidago and Harley. "You guys have a quiet night?"
Harley exchanged a look with Lidago. "'Bou' as quie' as ya can expec'," he told Link.
"And you two have been down here this whole time?"
"Yessir. Why?"
"Someone go' chili all over the berth deck," Lawrence said as he touched the floor. "I 'ad t' change me trousers twice. Tha' stuff is slick."
"Well… i' wasn' us," Harley said with a measure of uncertainty in his voice. "We been doin' tha' efficiency thin' tha' Leynne asked us t' watch."
"Wha' 'bou' da chief?" Lawrence asked as Link turned his head to find Sello.
"I think we have our culprit," Link said, leveling an annoyed look in their direction.
Sello was asleep on one of the crates next to Link. His blond hair was standing up more than usual, appearing voluminous and scraggily. His left hand up to his elbow was covered in dried chili. Lawrence and Harley covered their mouths so Link would not see them laughing. Lidago just gave a curious head-tilt.
Link sighed and shook his head. "As soon as he's awake, I want him on-deck so I can talk to him." He started forward, and then he paused at the bottom of the starboard ladder and uttered, "For all the good it'll do…"
"I relieve ya," Lawrence told Harley.
"Ya ge' any breakfas'?" Harley asked.
"I's wearin' i' earlier," Lawrence said. "I ain' 'ungry."
Harley followed Link up the ladder and through the single door into the galley. Lilly gave a small start as they entered, and then she returned to stirring the pot on the counter. Link saw that the rest of the night shift deck crew were already seated at the dining table, each with a bowl of chili in front of them.
"Captain," Lilly spoke up as Link and Harley picked up empty bowls from the opposite side of the galley, "Cale says someone moved all the cargo'a both sides of the hold. They're wedged between the large doors."
"More o' Chief Din'-Don's antics?" Harley asked Link with a grin.
"I'd almost say I don't believe it," Link replied as Lilly stepped aside for them to access the pot. "But then… it'd be like I didn't even know this crew."
Harley chuckled as he ladled some chili for himself. "I think we been insulted," he told Lilly. She only gave him an indifferent shrug.
"Well," Link said, "I can only hope that we caught everything that Sello did last night." Harley took a spoon from the countertop and moved aside for Link.
"Do ya think you did?" Lilly asked.
"Mmm!" Harley exclaimed with the spoon in his mouth. He took in out and said, "This is some chili."
"Ain't it?" Gold asked from the nearby table. Link glanced over and noticed that he, along with Twali and Lwamm, were beginning to sweat.
Twali then dropped her spoon and exclaimed, "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!" The screech caused Harley and Lilly to flinch while Link jumped in surprise. Twali rose from the bench, nearly causing Lwamm to take a spill, and rushed to the water barrel next to the counter on the other side of the galley. She dunked her head in the top for a moment, and then she quickly pulled out and fell backwards onto the floor coughing.
Lwamm rose next and, with a more subdued approach, thrust her head into the barrel as well. When she pulled out, she let out a breath of relief and dropped onto the deck next to Twali. It was just enough time that Dubbl had to run to the barrel next and immediately shove her head into the water. Like Twali, she pulled her head out and started coughing. She carefully pulled herself along the counter to get away.
"Women," Harley said with a chuckle.
Then he paled as Gold jumped to his feet and rushed to the barrel to dunk his head. Then Harley dropped his bowl on the floor. Gold pulled his head out just in time for Harley to rush over and shove his own head into the barrel. He had to plunge himself a little deeper because the water level in the barrel had dropped.
Link carefully set aside his bowl of chili and turned to Lilly. Lilly immediately raised her hands in surrender. "I don't make my chili like that!" she declared.
Link took a moment to rub the sleep and exasperation from his eyes. "Is there anything else Sello did last night?" he asked the deckhead.
Pop.
The whole galley was suddenly plunged into darkness. Someone nearby chuckled, an action barely audible over Dubbl and Twali coughing.
"No offense, Cap'n," Gold said with a wheeze, "but yeh were askin' fer that one."
Link gave a sigh. "Thank you, Mister Gold."
…
Five hours ago…
Even in the engine room, the night shift could be eerily quiet. With the Island Symphony's engine appropriately stoked, the gauges reading the proper levels (even if the rest of the staff had had to draw on them to be sure since their chief never got around to labeling them), and the rest of the ship feeling like it was running sound, free time easily left the other two members of the engine room crew a little bored. Chief Sello never seemed to help things; lately, it seemed like he only got up to feed the engine himself, kick it for some purpose no one ever understood, or lick something in the room. His couch sat where it always had been (when it was not missing) against the forward bulkhead in between the doors leading into the orlop. Boxes empty and full of bottles of various forms of alcohol surrounded the couch so much that the only way to get to the couch was a narrow slit between the boxes. It was here that Sello slept off one alcohol or another. Or dodged duty, but this was very hard to tell with how well the engine seemed to manage itself.
Lidago was monitoring the gauges on the display panel on the engine's port side, the floor beneath him littered with gravel from the chunk of granite he was snacking on. Harley was recording the levels of the ship's large water tanks on a clipboard as part of Leynne's attempt to track the ship's "fuel efficiency". Whatever that was. None of the engine crew pretended to understand what Leynne's idea was; between the Goron potter, the Goron miner, the two Hylian miners, and their drunk supervisor, Captain Link was lucky there were enough minds in the engine room to do simple arithmetic. The reason Leynne had them doing such tedious things with numbers had roots in the time they had spent sailing between islands, running after Cunimincus' crew and fleeing the Skyriders. They had had to stretch their coal and water stores to the limit. This week, they were in between islands because they could not risk the cargo, a number of expensive ceramic works, succumbing to the Sky Lines' turbulence while they were on the way to Black Island from Sand Island.
With both of their backs turned, neither one noticed Sello slowly sitting up, his head barely visible above the crates. He had a blank look on his face as he carefully glanced around the room. Then he pulled a bottle from under a couch cushion. First, he placed his ear to the mouth of the bottle. Then he attempted to drink from the bottle's bottom. This only succeeded in jarring his front teeth, causing his head to jerk backwards. He dropped the bottle onto the couch and carefully rose to his feet. Despite the number of empty bottles at his feet, he walked through the mess without a sound. Once outside the crates, he made an immediate left turn to round the crates, and then he turned left again. His opening the door would have looked mechanical to anyone actually watching him. Lidago and Harley did not notice anything happening until Sello slammed the door.
Both of them turned in response, their reactions slowed by the lack of enthusiasm for the recent levels of tedium. They did not see anything, so they did not know which door had been opened or shut.
Lidago gave Harley an inquisitive, "Doh?" Harley's best response was an unconcerned shrug.
Directly forward of the engine room was the small partition that the Gorons used to store their rocks. Just beyond that were the orlop and the spaces at the rear of the ship where Helo and Lidago slept. Past the partition, Sello stopped and turned to look at the corner on the starboard side. Helo had rolled into a ball, the safest shape to sleep in considering the curve of the ship's lowest deck. But this did not appear safe to Sello. He glanced back behind the partition to the rocks. Then he got to work picking up the larger rocks in the pile and laying them around Helo. At first, he had planned to just build a short wall around Helo to keep him from rolling out of place. By the time he was done, though, the "wall" had curved up and on top of Helo, actually using Helo as the foundation for a dome-like shape that rested on the corner. Sello then decided to walk away, not particularly caring whether he had done good or showing concern that those rocks might clobber Helo if he tried to stand.
Something rattled as he approached the front of the orlop. He stepped past the stairs and opened the door to a small cabin at the very front of the deck. He squeezed into the cabin, careful not to touch the beautiful machine on the inside due to how shy he was around small machines. He found the cause on the front of the machine: a thick, light-weight fan that was catching the wind entering through the vents in the hull. It was turning slow enough that Sello reached a hand out and caught one blade to stop it. Then he shook the blade until the fan snapped free of the machine. The machine stopped rattling. Sello decided to leave the room, dropping the fan onto the deck. But, just as he got into the doorway, he tried going for a little flirting and swung his hand to slap one of the capacitor drums on the backside of the machine.
PVvVT! The electricity contained in the dozens of high-capacity, poorly-insulated capacitors discharged against the metal casing of the drum after Sello's smack jarred the capacitors and caused the fragile barriers between them to break. The release mostly traveled along the electrical lines running throughout the ship, causing lights to brighten (and even some lights to turn on from the discharge arcing past their switches) for a moment. The discharge also found its way up Sello's arm and into the metal frame he was touching as he slid through the doorway. This caused the hand contacting the generator to ball up and the muscles in that arm to contract violently, resulting in Sello punching his own face while also flinging himself backwards out into the orlop. The metal cap on the top of the drum blew off the top, throwing a short fountain of chemicals and copper pieces into the deckhead.
Sello's body twitched for the few moments he lay on the floor. Then he rolled onto his stomach and returned to his feet. He stumbled for a moment as his body recovered from the shock. Then he wandered up the starboard stairs. This brought him to the galley, which looked to be empty at the moment. Sello walked over to the nearest table and allowed himself to fall so that he could let the lingering effects of electrification wear off. WHUMP! He missed the table and slammed hard face-first onto the deck itself. After the planks beneath him stopped spinning, he pulled himself up using the table and attempted to line up on it. WHUMP! He missed again. Once Sello was back on his feet, he staggered as he tried to aim his fall again. He fell backwards instead. WHUMP!
By the time he got up from the floor, he had forgotten about being shocked. He staggered across the galley into the kitchen area. Because the only light on was above the tables, Sello could not see much in the kitchen. He found a pot sitting on the counter. After smelling something interesting, he plunged his hand into the pot and grabbed the contents. When he pulled his hand out, he found that he could not tell what was in the pot. Even after licking the sauce off his thumb (ignoring the fact that he was holding larger chunks of meat in his hand), he still could not identify the food, if that was what it truly was. (And it was.) He thought it tasted a little bland and reached his free hand up to the cabinet. He opened it intending to find salt. Then his hand gave a massive jolt as his arm muscles remembered the electric shock, and he swatted a bunch of glass bottles containing various spices. One landed in the pot, and another skipped off the counter and into the water barrel next to him. He forced his hand to grip a bottle, obscuring the label with his palm, and used his teeth to pull the cork out. He then up-ended the bottle into the pot. Once he realized that he was holding a glass bottle, he gave it a confused look and attempted to drink out of it. It was already empty, so he tossed it over his shoulder as he left the kitchen.
He climbed the stairs again and entered the cargo hold. He stared at the large assortment of crates, trying to figure out why they looked so strange sitting in the middle of the deck. He decided to come back to it later and wandered into the berth deck. The only light on here was at the end of one of the rows of cots straight ahead. Sello ignored this in favor of following the snorting sound from one side of the deck. He walked down the row, completely unable to see, while the contents of his hand began to drop onto the deck. At one point, he stopped and turned when he discovered that the noise was becoming softer. At the same point, he realized that there was something on his hand. He reached forward and grabbed what he took to be a towel and used it to wipe his hand off.
By the time he wandered back into the cargo hold, he realized what the problem was. So he started rearranging the cargo. This entailed a lot of scraping as he shoved the crates away from the middle of the deck. After he had moved all of the crates too large to lift, he used the smaller crates to fill in the gaps in between. This proved a little difficult because the ropes holding the outer doors closed were in the way, forcing him to jam some of the slender crates in between the large crates and the bulkhead framing the doors. Once he was finished, his sleepy eyes passed over the neatly-arranged piles of crates stacked against either bulkhead, blocking the cargo doors entirely. He was about to leave when he noticed that there was a wad of twine lying in the middle of the deck. So he picked it up and started untying the knots in it as he walked downstairs.
Once Sello was finished untangling, he glanced up to see that he had stopped in front of the crew quarters. He looked down at the long stretch of twine, and then he saw the six shining stars in the short hallway. He decided to make a shape out of them and used the twine to connect the stars together. Once finished, he wandered back down the stairs and through the orlop.
He opened the starboard door into the engine room and staggered inside as a wave of drowsiness finally hit him. He did not have the energy to return to his couch, so he slid onto one of the closed crates and let himself fall back to sleep.
…
Tale #12 of the Island Symphony – END
NOTICE: I repeat, this is canon. It is so canon that Sello would have memory of it if he had not actually been drunk sleepwalking the whole time. But that's all right; the crew remembers for him.