When Bek asked Walker at one point what happened to them at night, the Druid told him it varied. Sometimes they flew right on through until daybreak, matching the slower pace that the airship set in darkness. Rocs were enormously strong and resilient, and they could fly without stopping for up to three days. Most of the time, however, the Wing Riders would take their Rocs ahead to an island or atoll and land long enough to feed, water, and rest the birds and their riders before continuing on. They worked mostly in shifts, with one Wing Rider always warding the ship, even at night, as a protective measure. With the Rocs on watch, nothing could approach without being detected.
They traveled without incident for ten days, the time sliding away for Bek Rowe in a slow, unchanging daily routine. Each morning he would rise and eat his breakfast with the Rovers, then follow Redden Alt Mer as he completed a thorough inspection of the airship and its crew. After that, he would stand with the Rover Captain in the pilot box, sometimes just the two of them, sometimes with another Rover at the controls, and Bek would first recite what he knew about a particular function of the ship’s operating system and then be instructed in some further area or nuance. Later, he would operate the controls and rudders, drawing down power from the light sheaths or unhooding the crystals or tightening the radian draws.
Sometimes, when Big Red was busy elsewhere, Bek would be placed in the care of Little Red or Furl Hawken or even the burly Spanner Frew. The shipbuilder mostly yelled at him, driving him from pillar to post with his sharp tongue and acid criticism, forcing him to think harder and act faster than normal. It helped steady him, in an odd sort of way. After an hour or two of surviving Spanner Frew, he felt he was ready for anything.
Between sessions with the Rovers, he would perform a cabin boy’s chores, which included running messages from Captain to crew and back again, cleaning the Captain’s and his sister’s quarters, inventorying supplies every third day, and helping serve the meals and clear the dishes. Most of it wasn’t very pleasant or exciting, but it did put him in close proximity to almost everyone several times a day and gave him a chance to listen in on conversations and observe behavior. Nothing of what he saw seemed of much use, but he did as Walker had asked and kept his eyes and ears open.
He saw little of Quentin during the day, for the Highlander was constantly training with the Elven Hunters and learning combat skills and technique from Ard Patrinell. He saw more of Ahren Elessedil, who never trained with the others and was often at loose ends. Bek took it upon himself to include the young Elf in most of what he did, teaching him what little he knew of airships and how they flew and sharing confidences and stories. He did not tell Ahren any more than he told Quentin, but he told him almost as much. As they spent more time together, he began to see what Walker had meant about Kylen Elessedil misjudging his brother. Ahren was young, but he had grown up in a family and political situation that did not foster or tolerate naïveté or weakness. Ahren was strong in ways that weren’t immediately apparent, and Bek gained a new measure of respect for him almost daily.
Now and again he visited with Panax and even Hunter Predd, when the Wing Rider came aboard to speak with Walker or Redden Alt Mer. Bek knew most of the Rovers by name, and they had accepted him into their group in a loose and easy sort of way that offered companionship if not necessarily trust. The Elves had little to do with him, mostly because they were always somewhere else. He did speak with the Healer, Joad Rish, a tall, stooped man with a kind face and reassuring manner. The Healer, like Bek, was not certain of his usefulness and felt more than a little out of place. But he was a good conversationalist, and he liked talking with the boy about cures and healings that transcended the standard forms of care and were the peculiar province of Elven Healers.