Rust Is Inefficient
The weeks that followed settled into the same steady, methodical rhythm the fifty-meter gun had once demanded, no reckless late-night sprints, no single person trying to hold every piece of the design in their head alone, just patient, distributed progress, each specialist handling exactly the piece they understood best.
Arista and Colm worked together on the mechanical stylus for the better part of two weeks, calibrating the spring tension against the copper plate's flex, adjusting the clockwork rotation speed until the soot-paper readout produced clean, legible lines instead of the erratic scrawl their first several attempts had generated.
"Tension's still too loose," Colm said, tapping the needle after their latest test, watching it wobble against a deliberately introduced pressure wave from a nearby water tank. "It's registering, but the line's shaky even on a clean signal. We need a spike to look unmistakably different from background noise, or I'll second-guess every reading once we're actually down there."
"Tighter spring, then." Arista adjusted the mechanism, testing again. The line steadied, crisp and clean, jumping sharply the moment she dropped a weighted object into the test tank several feet away. "...There. That's the difference between 'something's out there' and 'I think something might maybe possibly be out there.'"
"That's the one," Colm agreed, already sketching a calibration log to track the mechanism's sensitivity over repeated use.
Claire, meanwhile, spent her days crawling through the hull's growing lattice of piping: steam lines, the electrolysis cell's water intake, the CO2 scrubber's circulation ducts, checking every joint personally, rejecting anything that didn't meet her exacting tolerance standards regardless of who'd forged it.
"This one's off by a hair," she told a visibly nervous dwarven smith, handing back a rejected pipe section. "A hair matters at depth. Redo it."
Bram, for his part, had been assigned, with only the usual token protest, to testing the emergency ballast release, a mechanism designed to flood or purge the tanks instantly in a genuine crisis rather than the slow, controlled adjustments used for normal diving and surfacing.
"Emergency purge test three," he announced, pulling the release lever on the scaled-down test rig they'd built specifically for this purpose. The ballast tank emptied in a violent, satisfying rush, the test frame lurching upward exactly as designed. "...Fast. Good. Nobody's drowning slowly in this thing if something goes wrong."
"That's the goal," Arista called over, not looking up from the sonar calibration.
"I would like it on record," Bram added, resetting the rig for another test, "that I have tested more emergency failure conditions on this project than actual functioning systems, and I'm choosing to see that as a compliment to my resilience rather than a concerning pattern."
"Noted," Arista said, grinning.
Thoth visited most days, drawn by the same restless curiosity that had carried him through his first, joyful discovery of flight, settling nearby, wings folded, dish rotating slowly as he tracked the construction with obvious, genuine interest.
"This vessel," he observed one afternoon, watching the hull's steel plating go up section by section, "is being constructed from iron and steel, exposed directly to seawater."
"That's the plan, yeah," Arista said, not looking up from her welding. "Reinforced, obviously, but the exterior hull's mostly conventional metal."
"Iron corrodes in the presence of salt water. Rust formation is an inevitable, ongoing structural degradation process." Thoth's dish tilted slightly, processing. "I will not be accompanying this expedition."
Taken from NovelPhoenix, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
Arista set down her tools, genuinely curious now. "...Wait, why not? I figured you'd want to come. You've got wings, sure, but there's an entire ocean floor nobody's ever seen, same kind of unclaimed exploration you said your whole purpose was built around."
"I remain interested in exploration," Thoth confirmed. "However, I calculated the specific parameters of this vessel and determined that continuous exposure to a corrosive environment represents an unacceptable, ongoing degradation of structural integrity for any unit accompanying it in proximity to the hull."
"...You're saying you don't want to rust."
"Rust is inefficient," Thoth said, with the same flat, unwavering conviction he brought to literally everything. "It represents unrecoverable material loss over time, for no corresponding gain. I would rather explore environments that do not actively, continuously degrade my own structure simply by existing near them."
Bram, overhearing from his ballast rig, snorted loudly enough to be heard across the workshop. "...The dragon has a valid engineering objection."
"He does," Arista admitted, grinning despite herself. "Genuinely can't argue with that. Salt water's brutal on exposed metal, even reinforced. I wouldn't want to expose you to that either, honestly, you're not built the way the hull's built. Different materials, different tolerances."
"I appreciate your understanding," Thoth said, settling back to continue observing the construction from a comfortable, corrosion-free distance. "I will instead remain here, cataloguing this vessel's construction from an external perspective, and pursue my own exploration objectives independently once you have departed."
"...You've got your own expedition plans?"
"I have several," Thoth said, without further elaboration, in the exact tone that suggested he had already begun quietly planning something entirely his own, on a timeline that had nothing to do with hers.
Arista studied him for a moment, delighted and faintly intrigued despite the sheer, mundane practicality of his refusal. "...Fair enough. Stay dry, stay rust-free. I'll tell you everything we find once we're back."
"I would appreciate that," Thoth said, wings shifting slightly in what might have been contentment. "Efficient information transfer remains preferable to firsthand corrosion exposure."
"...You're never going to stop talking like that, are you."
"No," Thoth confirmed, entirely without apology, and settled back in to keep watching the hull take shape, one careful, salt-resistant plate at a time.
Nettle wandered over not long after, drawn by the general commotion of the installation crew, and settled beside Arista with the specific, unhurried air of someone who'd noticed an opportunity and had no intention of letting it pass unused.
"Thoth."
His dish turned toward her, attentive as always. "Nettle."
"You call Strawberry 'Creator.'"
"Affirmative."
"Why not 'Mom'?"
Arista froze mid-motion, welding torch still in hand. "...Nettle."
Thoth considered the question with visible, genuine thoroughness. "The term would be biologically inaccurate."
"So is 'Creator,' technically," Nettle pointed out, entirely reasonable. "She rebuilt you. She didn't create you from nothing."
"Correction," Thoth said. "Strawberry constructed my present body, restored my core, assigned my designation, and provided my current purpose."
Nettle turned slowly toward Arista, one eyebrow raised.
Arista pointed a warning finger at her without looking up from her work. "Don't."
Nettle looked back at Thoth instead, entirely undeterred. "And she worries about you."
"Frequently," Thoth confirmed.
"Checks whether you're happy."
"Also frequently."
"Taught you how to have fun."
Thoth paused, processing that one with unusual care. "...Yes."
Nettle smiled, slow and thoroughly satisfied with herself. "Sounds pretty mum-shaped to me."
"Nettle."
Thoth's dish rotated toward Arista, then back toward Nettle, weighing the available evidence with the same careful precision he brought to every calculation. "Assessment: the comparison is not entirely inaccurate."
Arista set down her tools properly now, staring at him with genuine, wounded betrayal. "...You were supposed to be on my side."
"I was unaware sides had been established."
Nettle lost it entirely, laughing hard enough that she had to brace herself against the nearest support strut.
"So?" she managed eventually, wiping her eyes, clearly not ready to let this go quite yet.
"I will continue using 'Creator,'" Thoth said, with the calm, settled finality of a decision already made.
Arista exhaled, visibly relieved.
"It is more precise," Thoth added.
Nettle grinned. "For now."
"Nettle."
"Mum."
"I hate you."