Arthur held the Atlas out and focused upon it, concentrating all his willpower upon the question. The book shivered under his hands, but didn't open or grow to its full size. Arthur tried again, mentally repeating his question. But the Atlas did not respond.
"It's not working," Arthur admitted. He tried to open it like a normal book, but just as when he'd first tried it in the hospital, it felt like all the pages were solidly glued together.
"You need to be Mother, or have a Key to use the Atlas," said Tom. "Many's the time I tried myself, an Atlas being in my line of work.-'
"I opened it before," Arthur insisted. "After I gave the First Key to the Will? Dame Primus. She said it would answer some of my questions even without the Key."
"That would be because the First Key's power lingered in you." Tom's piercing blue eyes fixed on Arthur. "There is some scant residue of that power left. But very little, a mere sip in the bottom of the glass. You must have used it without stint. Even a mortal vessel will hold a great deal of the Key's power."
"I guess I? I healed my leg? not very well," said Arthur, wincing as he looked down at his twisted, foreshortened leg. "And I opened your door, and I tried to remove the register. Before that I pushed one of the Grotesques? and I used the power to get to the Front Door. I didn't know I could use it up."
He had very mixed feelings about losing the power he had gained from the First Key. If he'd been back home and all was well, he would have been pleased to return to normal. Right now, in the House, with danger on every side, it would be comforting to have just a little magic.
"You might be the better for it," said Tom. He looked away from Arthur, towards his bottles, and spoke as much to them as to the two children. "The power of the Architect, in her person, or from her Keys, is perilous to mortals."
"Do you think I have enough power left for us to take the register?" asked Arthur.
Tom shrugged and started to say something. But his words were lost in a deep booming thud that echoed through the room and made the floor and walls vibrate with a dull buzz, and the bottles hum a high-pitched note.
"The pyramid," said Tom. "Grim Tuesday has lifted the western side to gain entry. He will come straight here. Let us try the register!"
Arthur didn't hesitate. He grabbed one side of the bronze-bound book with both hands as Tom grabbed the other side.
"One, two, three? heave!" Arthur called out.
The register groaned like a man in pain, then shrieked like a cat whose tail is trodden on, and came away from the table with a sound like a car screeching to an emergency stop.
The book was so heavy that Arthur's end dropped almost to the floor, even though Tom was taking most of the weight. Together he and Arthur staggered over to the sunship bottle.
"Arthur, touch the bottle with your nose and stare at the sunship!" Tom gasped as he leaned forward and planted his beaklike nose on the glass. "Miss Blue, your hand will do."
It was extremely difficult for Arthur to get his nose against the glass, but fortunately the bottle was quite big.
"I can't see past your head!" exclaimed Suzy. Arthur slid his nose back a bit and Suzy leaned over his shoulder.
"Look at the ship!" Tom commanded again. Then he roared out something that sounded like a poem, in a language that was nothing like any Arthur had ever heard. It was all roars and deep, husky noises, and it made him shiver all over.
His eyes slid away from the ship, drawn to a planet with many feathery rings, like Saturn but much brighter.
Desperately Arthur forced his dizzy eyes back to the sunship. It did look like a huge metal turtle, as Suzy had said. A metal turtle eighty feet long made of beaten gold, with hundred-foot-long front flippers of glowing red-tinged light. Its head had two big eyes that were obviously windows, made of a deep blue material the color of an old-fashioned glass fishing float.
Arthur stared at those windows. They seemed to get closer and closer, until he could see blurry figures moving behind them. When he was closer still, he could see the figures were Tom and Suzy and - even more strangely - Arthur himself.
Tom roared a final, deafening word and all of a sudden Arthur was looking out through the blue glass windows at a distant, feathery-ringed planet. Tom and Suzy were by his side, and the register was on the deck between them. A deck of golden metal planks, fixed with silver nails.
"Welcome aboard the Helios," Tom said, but his blue gaze looked past the two children, and he drew the silver saltshaker from his pocket.
Arthur looked around too. They were on the bridge of the Helios, an oval-shaped chamber about twenty feet in diameter. There was a wheel, lashed in position with a bright white rope. There were several strange-looking gauges around the wheel and a map box of mirrored metal that showed the planets and the sun in three dimensions, like shining fish in a deep, clear aquarium. There were the two huge blue glass windows at the front, and a gangway at the back going down, through an open hatch.
"Here," said Tom, handing the saltshaker to Arthur. "Go below and clear away any Fetchers or such-like that may be lurking. I'll get us under way."
"What about the register? And Grim Tuesday? Can he get us out of the bottle?"
"The register can stay where it is, but we'll need to watch it for any tricks. As for Grim Tuesday, we should return a scant minute after our embarkation. Time flows slowly here."
Tom began to unlash the wheel. Arthur hefted the saltshaker and looked at Suzy.
"Lead on," she said. "I want to see the rest of the ship."
Arthur climbed down the gangway, grimacing as his left leg lurched down the steps. Like the rest of the Helios, the gangway and the passage below were made of golden metal that shone with a soft light, so there was no need for lanterns. Or maybe, Arthur thought, it was a very bright light, lessened by his protective gear. He felt the faint presence of the star-hood over his face, but he didn't dare take it off to test his theory.
There were two decks below the bridge. Arthur and Suzy searched every cabin, space, and store methodically, but found no Fetchers. They did find a bronze bottle, sealed with a lead stopper, but as far as Arthur could see it was secure. If it held Nothing, none had leaked out.
They found many other things of interest, since the Helios was well stocked with equipment and food, for venturing on planets as well as deep in space or inside a sun. Many things baffled both of them, but others, like the cutlasses they discovered in the armory, they admired and immediately acquired. When they climbed back up to the bridge, both had broad-bladed but short cutlasses thrust through their belts, the edges of the blades shimmering with curdled moonlight. Suzy had also acquired a diamond-set gold earring, one much more resplendent than the indentured tag in Arthur's ear, and a bright red bandanna she'd tied around her head, over the top of the star-hood.
The view through the blue portholes had changed considerably. The two long flippers of the Helios were extended even farther out the front, so they now looked more like matching spinnakers of insubstantial red light.
There was no sign of the many-ringed planet; instead, the stars were moving with considerable speed past the portholes, and the sun had grown much larger, filling half the view.
"We didn't find any Nithlings," Arthur reported.
"Call me 'sir' or 'Captain' aboard ship," said Tom, but not unkindly.
"Yes, sir."
"And 'aye, aye' or 'aye' rather than 'yes,'" Tom continued. "I'll make sailors of the pair of ye before we're through."
"Is everything working properly, uh, Captain?" asked Arthur, with a glance at the rapidly enlarging sun.
"Indeed it is. We're set fair for the star's fiery heart, and the Helios dances light as she ever did."
"And we definitely won't burn up?" Suzy asked. "Captain, I mean, sir."