Adam Reith looked aft in dismay, then ran to the control belvedere. Lifting the voluted bronze housing, he peered here and there among the scrolls, floral hatchings, grinning imp faces which almost mischievously camouflaged the engine.[ii] He was joined by the Dirdirman Ankhe at afram Anacho. Reith asked, “Do you know what’s wrong?” Anacho pinched up his pale nostrils, muttered something about an “antiquated Chasch farrago” and “insane expedition to begin with.” Reith, accustomed to the Dirdirman’s foibles, realized that he was too vain to admit ignorance, too disdainful to avow knowledge so crass. The raft shuddered again. Simultaneously from a four-pronged case of black wood to the side of the engine compartment came small rasping noises. Anacho gave it a lordly rap with his knuckles. The groaning and shuddering ceased. “Corrosion,” said Anacho. “Electromorphic action across a hundred years or longer. I believe this to be a copy of the unsuccessful Heizakim Bursa, which the Dirdir abandoned two hundred years ago.”
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