Yes, chillingly so, Amaranthe thought, picturing the guards she’d seen devoured by those crimson beams.
“You said they’d been modified?” Tikaya asked Amaranthe.
“Yes, by Retta’s assistant,” Amaranthe said. “The first modification changed them so they didn’t target humans, but then she changed them again so that they did. The last I saw them, they were mowing down their own people.”
“Not their people,” Tikaya murmured.
“Well, Forge people.” Amaranthe didn’t want to imagine the “people” who had thought incendiary cleaning constructs were a good idea.
“If it’s safe to come out…” Mahliki considered the thus-far mute soldiers, shrugged, and did something inside, near the lip of the hatchway.
A panel on the bottom side of the hatch popped open, and a thin metal square with hinges slid out. It unfolded in four segments, creating a gangplank that thudded down on the edge of the dock.
“I told you it would reach,” Mahliki said into the submarine.
“Yes, yes, now get your big butt off the ladder so I can get out, will you?” came the cousin’s voice from inside.
Mahliki rolled her eyes. “My butt isn’t big. It’s contoured.”
“Please, everything you have is big. You’re a giant, just like Aunt Tikaya.”
“Not here, I’m not. Lots of Turgonian women are six feet tall, Father says, and the men are even taller, just like him.” Mahliki considered Maldynado and the soldiers, a hint of appraisal in the gaze. It seemed more like a tourist examining the curious natives rather than anything with sexual undertones, but Maldynado naturally straightened and returned this appraisal with a yes-I-am-a-handsome-fellow-aren’t-I smile.
“Stop dithering around, you two,” Tikaya said. “We have a larger mission to complete tonight.”
Amaranthe tapped a finger to her lips as she watched the exchange. She wasn’t sure what she’d expected, but the girl sounded like a normal teenager, rather than some precocious genius.
It’d been hard to judge height when only Mahliki’s head and shoulders had been sticking through the hatchway, but on the dock, she stood even with her mother, maybe even a hair or two taller. Amaranthe could understand why someone from Kyatt would consider her a big woman, though neither her butt nor anything else was disproportionate, despite her cousin’s teasing. Rather she had her mother’s curves along with an easy athleticism that captured every man’s attention as she climbed from submarine to gangplank to dock, catching herself quickly when her foot slid in a patch of ice.
Watching the soldiers puff their chests out, Amaranthe imagined her team of men starting brawls in their haste to gain the young woman’s favor. For the sake of simplicity, she hoped Tikaya intended to send her off to stay with the same grandmother who was housing the other children.
Mahliki clanked as she walked down the dock to join her mother. Curious, Amaranthe eyed her for weapons-surely, she didn’t have some knife collection beneath her jacket? Although with a Turgonian admiral for a father, perhaps it wouldn’t be that strange. Though, upon consideration, what she’d first thought of as clanks were more like clinks, such as bumping glasses might make.
Mahliki returned the gaze, cocking an eyebrow.
“Sorry,” Amaranthe said, “I was wondering why you were rattling.”
“Ah.” Mahliki unzipped her jacket and displayed rows of vials of various sizes secured to the inside flap, along with a few metal tools, and was that some sort of folded net?
“Dear,” Tikaya said, “what samples are you expecting to find here? It’s winter.”
“Not all flora, fauna, and insects die off or hibernate, Mother, and I’ve read that the nymphs of Turgonian flies live in ponds and streams, often under the ice. They feed throughout the cold months and emerge as adults in the spring. I’ve never had a chance to observe insects in a sub-freezing climate. I’m also terribly excited to find a dragonfly for my collection. We don’t have them on the islands. I’ll be curious to study them. They’re vicious predators.”
Tikaya pulled her parka closer, nodding and casting a wary eye toward the surrounding landscape, as if she expected the empire to be full of vicious predators.
“Those are for collecting insects?” Amaranthe asked, wondering if the girl knew she and her submarine had popped up in a war zone.
Mahliki waved a hand, as if guessing her thoughts. “Whenever there’s time.”
“And sometimes when there’s not,” Tikaya said. “She’s faster with those specimen collection tools than your assassin friend is with his knives.”
Mahliki smiled, not disagreeing.
The gangly man who climbed out in her wake was more of what Amaranthe imagined typical Kyattese citizens looked like. More bone than brawn, he had shaggy blond hair that hung into blue-gray eyes half hidden behind a pair of spectacles, and while he didn’t trip clambering through the hatchway and onto the gangplank, it was close. An equally shaggy tuft of hair dangled from his chin, the classification somewhere between beard, goatee, and flower gone to seed.
He paused on the gangplank, chomping down on his lip as he considered the soldiers lined up on the dock. His attention snagged on their swords and rifles, and he didn’t seem to notice that they were too busy pretending not to watch Mahliki to know he existed.
“Lonaeo,” Tikaya said, “can you secure the Explorer, please? We won’t be back tonight, perhaps not for a few days. If you have any food and water rations easily accessible in there, you may want to grab them too. We aren’t going to the city. We’re going to deal with… a problem.”
“A problem?” Maldynado asked, his eyes devoid of humor. “I assure you it’s more than that. I was there when it landed.”
Tikaya nodded in acknowledgment. She probably hadn’t wanted to alarm her daughter, who was, it seemed, being invited along.
“A bigger problem than those cubes?” Mahliki asked.
“By a billion times,” Maldynado said.
“I thought we were going to visit Uncle Rias’s mother and cousins up north,” Lonaeo said.
“That was the plan, but we may need your help in the ship.” Tikaya caught Amaranthe’s dubious gaze. “Though they didn’t choose to study archaeology or linguistics for their careers, they grew up around my work, and they’ve both proved useful in navigating other ruins before.”
“How far is it?” Lonaeo asked.
“About five miles,” Amaranthe said.
“We’re walking?” Lonaeo peered toward the head of the dock. “No runabouts here?”
“There are steam carriages,” Amaranthe said, “for those who can afford them. And trolleys, but that’s for the city. Street skis and lots of bicycles, though the ground’s a bit treacherous for that now. Actually…” She eyed the submarine. “Fort Urgot is-was-” she winced, “-a couple hundred meters from the lake. It has a dock, if that wasn’t destroyed. Maybe we could…” She gestured toward the submarine.
“Boss,” Maldynado hissed, “haven’t we been underwater enough in this last year-” he caught Mahliki looking at him, and changed his complaint to, “-to develop a taste for that travel? Yes, indeed, I’d love to see that submarine.”
Amaranthe rubbed her face. This was going to be a problem.
“I suppose there’s room,” Tikaya said, though she eyed the four soldiers dubiously.
“We’ll have to squish,” Mahliki said.
“We’re fine with that,” Maldynado said brightly. The soldiers were quick to nod as well.
Yara is going to pound you if you don’t quit that, Amaranthe signed tersely to Maldynado.
He blinked. What?
For once, his innocence didn’t seem feigned. Maybe it was some sort of reflex, and he truly didn’t realize he was flirting.
“All right then,” Mahliki said. She’d noticed the hand signs and crinkled a brow at her mother, but Tikaya waved it away as nothing. Good. “Everyone in, I guess.”
“By the way,” Amaranthe said, gesturing for the soldiers to cross the gangplank before her, “which way was that cube heading when you saw it last?”