Page 81 of Music of the Ocean

“Staying close won’t be a problem,” Saxby stared into the darkness. “We’re really going into this thing?”

“Yes,” Indigo said, moving down the V-shaped indentation in the ocean floor. “You will want to see what’s down there.”

“I don’t know, Indigo. That looks pretty scary. Is it even safe? Isn’t, like, the pressure here insane?”

“The planet will do nothing to hurt you. Or any of us. I’ve been down here often and so has Callie. So have many others, in fact. You are safe here.”

Saxby blew out a breath. “It’s a good thing you’re cute. Okay, sure, let’s do this. Just a walk in the park, right? Gods.”

“Maybe not as easy as a walk in the park, but it is safe.” Using his powerful tentacles, Indigo started their descent.

“Whoo boy, it’s dark in here, and the pressure is increasing. The temperature’s dropping, too,” Saxby mentioned as they swam downward.

“It won’t be cold for long, but yes, it may get a little uncomfortable.”

Indigo’s tentacles worked extra hard to push them downward. The chasm’s walls were smooth, worn by millennia of underwater currents.

“This is one of the deepest points on the planet,” Indigo said, his voice carrying clearly through the water.

As they went deeper, the water temperature stabilized, no longer dropping.

“Not far now,” Indigo said. “Are you doing okay?”

“I am. I feel a little heavier, but I guess that’s normal for us?”

“Yes.”

Light slowly filtered up from below. It wasn’t the shifting, organic shimmer of the city’s living lights. This was hard edged, saturating the water with a cold white-blue, casting every ripple and outcropping in sharp relief.

The deeper they went, the brighter the glow became. Indigo tugged Saxby into a tunnel that led to a shelf that overlooked the bottom of the chasm.

Saxby hovered in place, his mouth open.

Below them, arranged in neat rows across the cavern floor, were dozens and dozens of docked spaceships. There were scout vessels, shuttles, midsized freighters, and at the far end of the cavern, partially obscured by rock formations, sat what appeared to be five military-class battlecruisers.

“The planet keeps what it claims,” Indigo said, watching Saxby’s face. “These ships, for one reason or another, ended up in our oceans.”

“Holy shit. You not only have space travel capability, you have a fucking military. Fuck.”

“I did say if those claimed did not return voluntarily, I would retrieve them. I was not lying.”

“No, no, you’ve never lied. I know that. But this? I never dreamed you had this. Can we get a closer look?”

“Absolutely. I assumed you would like to see them since you were a starship navigator.”

Indigo led Saxby to the floor of the chasm.

Saxby approached the nearest ship. “This is a scout vessel. It has NePre markings still visible on its hull.” Saxby reached out, his fingers hovering just above the metal surface. “But what have you done with it? It’s an odd mixture of metal and organic material.”

“We do not construct our ships like other species. Instead, we take a structure and use microscopic robots called nanoms. We rely on organic genetic manipulation and fluidic space integration,” Indigo replied. “Our ships are grown.”

“You mean they’re part metal and part organic material from the ocean.” Saxby glanced around. “At least, that’s what it looks like.”

“Yes.” Indigo moved to join Saxby, his tentacles trailing behind him. “When ships crash in our waters, the ocean brings them here instead of destroying them like you saw with the probes and such. The pressure and mineral content preserve them.”

“And the crews?”

“You already know the answer to that.”