Tkevsa Flyer

The conduit system, connecting islands in the Cluster and the surrounding ocean and even across large Gaps, is as controversial today as it was when it was first installed 70 years ago. The benefits are indisputable: speedy travel to Galtern hospitals from anywhere in the islands has saved more than 10,000 lives, and conduit rescue boats have aided innumerable evacuations. But the costs, too, are real. Despite the recent addition of conduit sections that can separate to allow boats to cross, Tideriders are still cut off from most of their traditional sailing routes. Sabotage to unguarded track segments shows there are still many who want to see them disappear.   What if a solution exists to the conduit problem? What if there might be a way to cross these vast stretches of ocean without laying track that has to be maintained and defended? What if goods could be carried even faster than conduit freight?   Out in the Great Eastern Gap, the island of Tokled is inhabited by people called tkevsa. They look like animals, but they're as intelligent as we are. Maybe more so, because they have created machines that fly. Not mere toys, like the weighted bird dolls human children like to throw around, but vehicles large enough to carry several people at once. Propelled by an engine, a tkevsa flyer can jump into the air and soar across mountains. They're used frequently to travel between the islands in their chain.   Why not use them here? Although these are designed by tkevsa to fit their own species--as different from humans as I have ever seen!--several members of the Tokled outpost staff have learned to make them fly. The tkevsa are constantly working to improve the design, and if we get permission from them to bring a few flyers to the Cluster Islands, Mraydor's engineers can surely redesign them to suit ourselves.