They seemed amenable to this—enthusiastic even. He left them and limped down the hallway. Too slow, too slow, he thought, both of his walk and the possibility of progress from the scientists. He couldn’t wait upon research, experimentation. He needed answers now. He had thought that on the train, they might find…

But no, of course not. An idle hope. He should never have left this project. Back in the hallway, he found no sign of the person who had called to him. Frustrated, he made it all the way back to the doorway before turning and searching down one of the side hallways. They should know better than to call for him! Could they not see the difficulty he had in traversing even a short distance?

He started back up the hallway, but hesitated as he noticed a small storage compartment that had popped open on the wall. There were hundreds of these scattered throughout the ship, containing ropes or weapons or other items. But this one had dropped something to the floor. A small, silvery cube.

His heart leaped in excitement. Another of the devices? Such luck! He had thought all these compartments searched by now. He struggled to pick it up, going down on his good knee and fishing for it, then lurched back to his feet.

A plan was already forming. He would tell Suit that it had been recovered by one of his spies in New Seran. His punishments would be lifted, and perhaps he would be allowed to move to the second site, perhaps join the expedition.

Excited, he sent a soldier to watch the scientists, then hobbled out of the ship, glad that something was finally going right for him.

Marasi cracked a closet door within the strange ship, then looked after the man called Irich, who limped through the gaping hole in the wall. MeLaan slipped out of a closet across the hallway from her and held up a warding hand to Marasi, then snuck to the opening to watch where Irich went.

Marasi waited, anxious. Though her duties as a constable usually related more to analysis and investigation, she’d gone on her share of raids in Elendel. She’d thought herself hardened, but Harmony, this mission was starting to rub her nerves raw. Too little sleep, and so much sneaking about, hiding, knowing that at any moment someone could turn a corner and find you there, looking guilty as sin.

MeLaan finally waved her forward, and she scrambled out of the closet and knelt beside the kandra at the entrance.

“He went into that room,” MeLaan said, pointing at a door along the wall. “Now what?”

“We wait just a bit longer,” Marasi said. “And see if he comes back out.”

Wax prowled along the wooden planks of the interior scaffolding. MeLaan’s spyglass let him get a good look at the ground floor, though he’d have much preferred binoculars. He scanned the whole area, noticing with interest as Marasi and MeLaan entered the ship.