All Write, Already!

It could basically be assumed that the aggregate genious that went into the design was lost on the observers. Even the best engineers had yet to be able to solve the problem of longitudnal navigation, and had not yet mustered up enough knowledge of natural philosophy to answer the question 'why does sound become more intense when you stand below the center of a dome?'

This dome would simply blow their little minds. It was probably just as well the architect, navigator, mathematician who designed it was dead - he was something of an arrogant little twit and would probably cause them to hemmorage out the ears with his prattle and self-important bragging.

The actors sat in the private balcony that was reserved, by design, for the architect himself. The captain sat in seat 9, his partner, the doctor, sat in seat 10. They had inkwells and reams of blank paper in anticipation of the symphony's second piece for the night. It had been an impossibly long two years gathering first the nine fragments of the first page, and then the other seventeen pages of Hauser's sixth, final, and supposedly unfinished symphony. Their shock when it had been discovered, completed, and nearly entirely stolen by an unscrupulous man who knew far more about it's actual contents than they was nothing compared to their amazement at how well the 'iso-dome' worked during the first piece.

The dome was, in fact, not a true dome, but rather a dome-shaped collection of dishes, each aligned to a particular seat in the balcony levels. Every listener in these seats enjoyed a different concert, all arranged around the same theme. Every one of Hauser's pieces had been designed to be played in the original hall, without the isolative property of the dishes above, the music sounded like a jumble of background noise, but with each designated instrument isolated, the real weight of Hauser's work was revealed.

At last, the lamps were dimmed, candles lit behind and below the musicians so they could see their stands as they played. Their instructions called for them to rise and fall as they played various pieces, but it wasn't until the bodyguard recognized her own birth sign, 'The Archer' that the Captain knew what was going on.

"Where did you see him?" He asked. As she pointed he muttered under his breath, deriding himself for not seeing it sooner. "There, fourth quadrant, eleventh hour. It's a bloody star chart. Master at arms, write EXACTLY as I tell you. We'll have to catch the first bit of it again at tomorrow night's encore. Damn."

"There's a code in the music too," The Doctor noted with his usual, detached tone. "It's pretty complex. What instruments am I hearing?"

"Third viola, first flute, and... I think all four of the kettles," The stowaway was straining to make out and time the notes to the sundry instruments below.

"Good enough, Captain, I'll need to see the score when we're done here."

"In due time, Doctor - I'm a bit busy at the moment. The Lady, I think. She's inverted? No wait... that's the fox. The Fox, second quadrant, straddling the third/fourth hours." There was an excitement growing in the Captain's voice now, one that none had heard in the year since The Priestess departed for her monastery.

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"Okay, so it's a star chart. Big deal, there's plenty of those around." The Stowaway was pacing back and forth, obviously yearning to be picking pockets at the dockside or causing some other manner of mischeif.

"But Hauser's Method," the Doctor pointed out, perhaps trying to not come off as haughtily as he tended to when addressing the youth, "can turn this into a precise position, if we only knew when we'd need to be looking." He tapped the thick text on navigation principles, Hauser's final work before going into music.

"We have a time," the Fop stated with his usual smirk. He snuffed out the cigarette (how he could afford those things with no reliable source of income always flustered the captain a little) and pointed to the margin of the musical score's first page. "Right here, where monsieur Hauser suggested the best night of the year, and best time of that night to hear his music? Who better to listen to than the man who wrote the thing in the first place, non?"

"I'm finding myself compelled to agree with him," the captain muttered. "Damn it."

"If I'm right, mon capitan, I expect it will be well worth it. Whatever Le Duke is willing to kill to keep to himself, has got to be worth something to such a resourceful fellow as yourself!"

"How about it Doctor, think you can find this night sky at... five in the morning?"

"Five in the morning, eh?" The Doctor mused, flipping open the book and paging a little. "It's northwest... WELL northwest. And we've got three months to get there."

"Quartermaster!" The Captain called, waiting until the fellow was poking his head in the door, with an 'aye sir?' "Provision the ship for a year, extra powder and shot for the guns, and plenty of parts and supplies for repairs. We sail in two days time, with the tide."

"Good as done, skipper."

"Doctor I want this thing plotted on a real map by mid-day. Hauser went to a lot of trouble to keep this a puzzle. That bastard has had me running from one end of the world to the other to sort all this out, I don't care to have it remain a puzzle any longer. I just hope all this music and building and getting shot at was worth it."