Huh. Amaranthe hadn’t thought anything in the known world could put a dent in any of those relics. This new revelation comforted her an iota. “Anyway, the cubes started shooting holes into their own ship and did some damage to the engines or whatever’s behind the walls in the control room. As I said, Retta was trying to raise us up from the lake and take us to the South Pole, but smoke started coming out of the walls, and Ms. Worgavic’s shaman didn’t help either. She… burned Retta alive. There was no chance of controlling the Behemoth at that point, and we went down. Books, Akstyr, and I escaped on a lifeboat-that’s what Retta called them, though they fly instead of floating-and I didn’t realize where the craft had crashed until we were coming back on the train, and…” She swallowed. No need to explain. They’d seen too.
Starcrest nodded to his wife. “Do you know a Retta?”
“Retta Curlev?” Komitopis asked.
“Yes,” Amaranthe said.
“She was one of the imperial students in the archaeology program at the Polytechnic a few years ago. I wasn’t on the island teaching at the time, but I think they put her into the secret program to study the technology.” Komitopis touched the sphere on the table.
“Random people can simply sign up to study it?” Amaranthe asked.
“No. It’s not spoken of with students and certainly not listed in the course catalogue, though information about the technology isn’t as tightly ratcheted down in Kyatt as it was here. The program is entered by invitation only.”
“So people with enough money could arrange an invitation?” Amaranthe didn’t mean for her tone to sound accusing, but it came out that way. Why had the Kyattese allowed anyone to study that technology? It should have been buried somewhere for another fifty thousand years. Except, she thought with an inward sigh, secrets had a way of becoming unburied whenever more than one person held them. There must have been dozens of people on that mission, and Forge might have found the Behemoth one way or another regardless.
“That shouldn’t be a criteria,” Komitopis said, “but I couldn’t promise that it never has been. As soon as Rias and I returned to my homeland, our gear was searched and the artifacts I’d discovered taken. Though the Polytechnic has kept me as an adviser, and I’ve argued for a tight-lipped policy, I am not now, nor have I ever been, in charge of the study of that race and its relics.”
“I had the tunnel entrances blown up before I left the Northern Frontier,” Starcrest said, “and we never saw anything like that ship, but we’ve since learned there are other deposits of the technology in the world.” He shared a look with his wife. Amaranthe remembered Retta mentioning an underwater laboratory they’d discovered. “Unfortunately, we’ve heard of a handful of the artifacts appearing on the black market. The only boon is that few of the people who acquire them know how to work them.”
“Except Forge,” Amaranthe said, “though now that…” She took a breath. Confession time again. “Retta and Mia are both dead. I believe they were the only Forge votaries who knew how to control the Behemoth fully. Fully enough to operate it anyway.”
“They must have been quite bright,” Komitopis said, “to learn even that much in a few short years. One could spend a dozen lifetimes studying that ancient race, its languages and technology, and not truly understand it.” She waved to the sphere on the desk. “After twenty years, I haven’t grasped everything in this little dictionary.”
“More of an encyclopedia than a dictionary,” Starcrest said at her self-deprecation. “And even that is a poor term to describe the depths of knowledge inside of it.”
Komitopis wiggled her fingers in acknowledgment.
Starcrest faced Amaranthe again. “What you’re saying is that your Behemoth is stuck exactly where it is until someone figures out how to fly it elsewhere?”
Her Behemoth. Amaranthe cringed at the notion of taking possession of it. “I believe so, yes.”
“Anyone could enter it as long as it’s right there,” Komitopis said, “and they could be inside, gathering artifacts to sell or hold as keepsakes. Knowing what I know of that race, many of those devices will have the potential to be deadly. Few people know how to work them today, but someday, someone will publish books on the language, and…” She spread her hands helplessly.
“It must be moved,” Starcrest said. “The South Pole might work. Or better, put it at the bottom of the Drellac Trench. It’ll be a few generations, at least, before we develop our own technology to the point of making a subaquatic descent of over six miles in depth. By then, we can hope humans have forgotten about the ship.” A twist to his lips suggested he didn’t have much faith in that hope.
“Perhaps it’ll be destroyed by dropping it in there,” Komitopis said.
“Can anything destroy it?” Amaranthe asked. “We know it can survive on the bottom of the lake, and… if it can fly into outer space…”
“The lake is a few hundred feet deep, true,” Starcrest said, “but six miles deep is a far greater order of pressure. At the bottom of the Drellac Trench, the water column above an object would exert a pressure of 15,750 pounds per square inch, over a thousand times the standard atmospheric pressure imposed at sea level.” He didn’t pause as he spoke, and Amaranthe wondered if he was capable of making such calculations between one breath and the next or if he had the facts memorized. “As for outer space,” Starcrest went on, waving skyward, “it’s a vacuum, we believe, with pressure close to nonexistent. Quite a different environment than the depths of the ocean. It would pose its own challenges, but I wouldn’t be surprised if we breach outer space before we roam about in the deepest seas. Of course, entering, or in our case reentering, the atmosphere would be problematic with the friction heat caused by the extreme speeds a craft would…” Starcraft glanced around at his audience, catching a knowing smile on his wife’s lips. “Ah, I wandered off on a tangent, didn’t I?”
“Yes, but an interesting one,” Komitopis said. “I dare say you’d like to put that craft somewhere that you can study it.”
“That is tempting, but I’d wish to publish anything I learned, and everyone’s concerns are deathly real. The world isn’t ready for this kind of power. It may never be, so long as humans walk upon its continents. Though I’d be lying if I said I wouldn’t like to be proved wrong about that.” He waved away his musings. “Yes, the trench, that may be the best bet. Corporal Lokdon, you have some men available here, don’t you? Men who are capable fighters and loyal to you?”
“Ah?” Though they’d been including her in the conversation, Amaranthe had felt like an outsider and hadn’t been imagining herself as being a part of the Behemoth-trench mission. “I mean, yes, I do.”
“I’d appreciate it if you and a couple of your better fighters would go along to the ship and see what can be done. I imagine Tikaya will be able to find some map inside to show her around, but a guide could prove helpful.”
A guide? Her? Amaranthe had accidentally wandered into her own torture chamber the last time she’d been looking for something in there.
“It may be dangerous over there-if they haven’t already, people will soon stop gawking and will see that monstrosity as a prize to be claimed,” Starcrest said, giving his wife a solemn nod.
She crossed her arms over her chest and arched her eyebrows. “Usually when you send me off into danger, you come along.”
“Yes, but there’s a room full of officers next door who have convinced themselves I’m the answer to all their woes. I’m not sure yet if they actually want my help, or simply want to toss my name at their enemies, but they might wet themselves if I were to wander off right now.” Starcrest gave her a warm smile. “Regardless, I’m positive that you’re more capable of independent competence.”