Titans of Chaos

First, Vanity found the laws of nature from what must have been an ancient Greek atomisttheory, something like what Lucretius or Democritus imagined. These laws did not have theproblems with Aristotelian natural motions pulling us toward the Earth, but the "atomies" weremade of essential airy bits, not something that broke down into oxygen-nitrogen. Vanity found shecould apply them to the interior of the cylinder and leave the outside Newtonian, so mass andacceleration and all those laws of motion acted normally.

Second, Quentin worked his astrology, using just the tables he carried in his head, which wasgood enough to tell us that Mars was in opposition, at its closest approach to Earth. He did notknow the distance of Mars at closest approach, but I did: 56 million kilometers. The equation fora Brachistochrone curve was simple to solve using calculus of variations.

(I always thought Leibniz's solution to Bernoulli's problem was more elegant than Newton's. But Iam British, so I say Newton invented the calculus, and we'll invade the damn foreigners who sayotherwise. Soon as we get another Wellington.)

Quentin and Colin, working together, managed to cast a whopper of a spell. Hours were spentdrawing pentagrams and circles, inscribed minutely with Latin, all across the curving inner wallsof our ship. Colin knelt down and handed me the gold ring of Gyges, making several rudesuggestions that earned him KP. During the experiment, I wore the ring with the collet turned in,so the manifestation would not see me, and I had to carry Vanity in my arms so that she wasinvisible, too. Victor scoffed at the notion that one of Quentin's "imaginary friends" could seehim-and he was right, and it did not.

A creature named Saburac, "a Marquis mighty, great and strong" (as Quentin called him),appeared in the midst of smoke and fumes that filled our cramped living space, and thisapparition took the form of an Elizabethan soldier in breastplate and helm, armed at all points,with the head of the lion, riding a horse as white as bone. He roared with scornful laughter whenQuentin commanded him to build a tower, filled and furnished with victuals, arms, and armor, inthe void of space, but Colin threatened him, and the monster called him "Prince Phobetor," andbowed. (Which surprised me, because Colin's paradigm was trumped by Quentin's. I guess notevery creature from Quentin's paradigm trumped Colin, though.)