“Do you think you could find out quickly?”
Urn looked upwards.
“Oh,” he said.
Clouds had massed over the Unnamed Boat. They were visibly spinning.
“You've got to know!” shouted Om. “I thought you had a perfect memory!”
“We used to splash around in the big cistern in the village,” whispered Brutha. “I don't know if that counts!”
Mist whipped off the surface of the sea. Brutha's ears popped. And still the Omnian ship came on, flying across the waves.
"What do you call it when you've got a dead calm surrounded by winds- Urn began.
“Hurricane?” said Didactylos.
Lightning crackled between sky and sea. Urn yanked at the lever that lowered the screw into the water. His eyes glowed almost as brightly as the lightning.
“Now there's a power,” he said. “Harnessing the lightning! The dream of mankind!”
The Unnamed Boat surged forward.
“Is it? It's not my dream,” said Didactylos. “I always dream of a giant carrot chasing me through a field of lobsters.”
“I mean metaphorical dream, master,” said Urn.
“What's a metaphor?” said Simony.
Brutha said, “What's a dream?”
A pillar of lightning laced the mist. Secondary lightnings sparked off the spinning globe.
“You can get it from cats,” said Urn, lost in a philosophical world, as the Boat left a white wake behind it. “You stroke them with a rod of amber, and you get tiny lightnings . . . if I could magnify that a million times, no man would ever be a slave again and we could catch it in jars and do away with the night . . .”
Lightning struck a few yards away.
“We're in a boat with a large copper ball in the middle of a body of salt water,” said Didactylos. “Thanks, Urn.”
“And the temples of the gods would be magnificently lit, of course,” said Urn quickly.
Didactylos tapped his stick on the hull. “It's a nice idea, but you'd never get enough cats,” he said. The sea surged up.
“Jump into the water!” Om shouted.
“Why?” said Brutha.
A wave almost overturned the boat. Rain hissed on the surface of the sphere, sent up a scalding spray.
“I haven't got time to explain! Jump overboard! It's for the best! Trust me!”
Brutha stood up, holding the sphere's framework to steady himself.
“Sit down!” said Urn.
“I'm just going out,” said Brutha. “I may be some time.”
The boat rocked under him as he half-jumped, half-fell into the boiling sea.