The navigator's cabin was dingy, cramped, and had a peculiar smell like stale urine, vomit - or both - mixed with sea water. It turned Drome's stomach. What with that and the constant swaying of the ship, he wasn't feeling well at all. He'd barely been able to eat any of the food a surly deckhand brought to his cabin twice a day.
It wasn't fair. Once again he had to suffer while Nev didn't seem to mind being at sea at all.
He sighed and tried to focus on the business at hand.
He was perched on the edge of his narrow bunk, his knees under the tiny table that folded down from the opposite wall. Nev stood squeezed in to the space next to the cabin door. Spread across the table was a tattered and yellowed map. It showed the outline of what Drome hoped was the nearest coastline and a large amount of empty water illustrated with a disconcerting number of sea monsters. The map was covered by a confusing pattern of lines which he supposed were meant for navigational purposes, but unlike lines of longitude and latitude, they radiated randomly from points dotted about the sea.
"Do you remember what I told you to say to Sak?" said Nev. "You're due to make your morning report in ten minutes. I still can't believe how lucky you are he didn't throw you overboard."
Drome chewed his lip. "You're lucky too." He pushed a piece of paper covered in his scribbled fake calculations over the top of a sea monster that was staring at him.
"I'm not the one pretending to be a navigator," said Nev. "I'm only a hostage. I don't have to do anything except abscond the moment we're in sight of land. You, on the other hand, have to keep up the pretence that you even know where land is."
"I know how to read a map," said Drome. "I did an orienteering course at school."
"Let me guess. This orienteering course consisted of reading a map of - ooh, let's say - a square mile of ground?"
"Yes, but-"
"Let me further guess that you had to work out where you were based on cross-referencing the surrounding landmarks with the map?"
"It's not as easy as you think."
"But probably a lot easier than being on an ocean where the nearest thing to a landmark is the slick from the contents of the ship's slop buckets."
Drome squirmed. The fact that the sky was overcast and the low base of the cloud reduced the surrounding view to a circle of a few miles radius had been making him uncomfortable for some time. His original strategy had been to stay within sight of land and sort of make things up as he went along as far as navigation was concerned.
It wasn't difficult to stay in sight of land in Hollow because there was no horizon to inconveniently cut off the view. In clear weather they could sail away from the coast for dozens of miles and still be able to see the land. That was why he had told the captain to follow their present course.
Losing sight of the land was not an option, especially since Nev had told him they would spot the odd coastal town here and there as they headed south and that New Bristol would be one of the bigger ones. He'd said he'd be able to recognise it and notify Drome, who would then confidently be able to announce they were approaching their destination.
The entire plan hinged on keeping the land in sight on the left of the ship (port... or was it starboard?). Unfortunately, the plan had collapsed when clouds got in the way of the view. He had awoken that morning to find that overnight the sky had clouded over. The base of the vast cloud was like the curve of a bowl - a sort of inverted horizon. The land had vanished.
"At least you've been taking bearings," said Nev. There was a tiny clonk from his skull as he nodded at the compass lying on the table.
"Um... Well..." said Drome.
YOU ARE READING
Flight of the Gazebo
幻想Drome isn't paranoid. The entire world really is out to get him. And that world isn't even Earth. It's a weird hollow world that his whole village ends up in through a thaumaturgic accident. And to make matters worse, as soon as they arrive he's tak...
