Page 84 of Ship of Smoke and Steel

“I’m not surprised,” he says. “I wish you could have brought some back for study. You can never have enough bones, I say.” He reaches the bottom of the staircase and gestures at his bizarre collection with his cane. “Thank you for accepting my invitation.”

“You said you had something interesting to tell me.”

“I do.” He smiles, and pushes his glasses up his nose. “And I have reason to think you might be willing to listen, which is more than I can say for the others.”

“What others?”

“Our oh-so-wise officers.” He snorts. “Zarun and the Butcher can’t decide if they’re going to rut or kill each other, Karakoa can’t see past the next hunt, and Shiara cares only about herself. Whereas you, you have been asking questions.” He cocks his head. “At least, your princess has.”

“I don’t—” I begin.

“Don’t play stupid. These things get back to me, you know. And there’s nothing wrong with asking questions, at least as far as I’m concerned. Some of the others might not take such a benign view if they knew what you were really after.”

“We’re just … curious.” I shrug. “We live on this ship, but we don’t understand it at all. And mostly no one seems to want to.”

“Curiosity is difficult,” the Scholar says, tapping his way closer. “Better to fight out your little feuds, hunt the crabs, and try to forget about it, especially when the answers aren’t easily forthcoming.” He stops across from me, beside the desk full of bones. “You’ve been thinking about what I said at the audience.”

“A bit,” I admit. “We know there were people on Soliton generations ago.”

He taps the desk. “These bones are two hundred years old, give or take.”

“But there was almost no one here fifteen years ago. Sometime before that, there must have actually been no one, except maybe the Captain.”

“Very good.”

“So something wiped everyone out.”

“Exactly.” He gestures at the bones and other artifacts with his cane. “And I can tell you this. It wasn’t the first time. I’ve found fragments from a half-dozen generations. Never much, but enough to tell me people were here, and then that they weren’t. Over and over.”

“And? What happened to them?”

“I can only guess.” The Scholar sighs. “So few things get written down.”

I chuckle. “Meroe was complaining about the same thing.”

“And has she found any answers?”

“Not really.” I shake my head. “Why are you telling me this? Just because I like to ask questions?”

“Oh no.” He beckons. “Come upstairs. There’s more to the show.”

Another set of stairs, my legs groaning in protest, keeping pace with the Scholar’s slow ascent. The second level of the tower is set well above the first, and covers only half the circular space, with a ragged-edged drop looking over the floor below. The stair reaches a landing and then continues upward, through a hole in another, more intact floor, the opening currently blocked off with a cloth.

This level, apparently, is where the Scholar actually lives, inasmuch as there’s a large bed shoved against one wall like an afterthought. A table beside it is piled high with dirty dishes, which look as much like archeological specimens as some of the debris below. The rest of the space is devoted to more tables, all covered in carefully arranged trash.

“Arin, dear,” the Scholar says. “Go and help your sister fetch water.”

There’s a yawn from the bed, and a girl in a long white robe sits up, kicking back the sheets. She’s identical to Erin, except that her hair is loose instead of braided. When she sees me, she looks interested, but not alarmed. The Scholar says nothing while she puts on shoes and troops down the stairs. Only when she’s out the door does he turn back to me.

“You don’t trust your … servants?”

“Erin and Arin are very dear to me, and I would never question their loyalty,” he says. “But I wouldn’t want to upset them unnecessarily.”

“What exactly are you planning to show me?”

“Just this.” He walks to one of the tables and raps on the wood. “What do you see, Deepwalker?”

I look. The thing on the table is like a rope, if a rope could be woven of steel strands. It’s coiled around several times, and roughly severed at both ends. The individual fibers untwist at the cuts, opening out like a flower into smaller and smaller filaments, until they reach the limit of vision and become a vague fuzz.