Gwyn hadn’t heard anything from his lizardy companion as they walked through the halls of the ship. It seemed she wanted to give him some space, maybe let him start the conversation again after everything that had happened. He was a little unsure if he wanted to give in and let chattiness take over. He wasn’t sure he wanted to say anything.

  The quiet, however, brought with it an increase in noticing every other small noise. Their footsteps on the metallic floor were one thing that remained appropriately constant throughout the walk, but after a while Gwyn couldn’t help but feel like he was hearing something else, something mechanical, within the ship itself. Distant whirrs of things. Clanks and clunks of diverse types. Rushes of noise, then silence. It reminded him at times of an old car trying to fire up after being left outside in a long cold, and of other times of the ancient computer when he tried to play a game well beyond its capabilities.

  Eventually he gave in.

  “Do you hear that?” Gwyn said after one particularly loud whirl.

  “I did, it is worrying to hear something like that when in something the Ancients built.” Despite her words, her tone didn’t suggest worry in the slightest. Perhaps Zenototes were just like that.

  “What do you mean?”

  “They were, how should we say, an eccentric people. I have seen some odd mechanisms, and seen some unfortunate folks trapped in them.”

  “Have you been in a lot of structures the ancients built?”

  “I wouldn’t be much of a treasure hunter if I hadn’t, dear.”

  Amaris seemed more flippant than anything else, not caring too much as the structure continued to make noise after noise. It was possible it just came with the territory. She saw this place no differently than Gwyn would see the Roman Colosseum. Whatever funny feelings he got from how sci-fi it was came purely from his genre savviness and otherworldly perspective. For Amaris it was nothing more than ancient history. Maybe men on Resh thought about the Ancients the same way men thought about the Roman empire or something of the like.

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  Yet, it was due to that different, earthly perspective that he couldn’t help but worry. It had to have been him who activated the thing. The same way the room came alive when he sat in the chair, and killed Mina, the whole base, or ship, or whatever it might be was stirring.

  It’s waking up. Mem said quietly when they first started their walk. The Needaimus hadn’t said anything else the whole time, it was being so unusually quiet that it became another worry on top of the pile Gwyn was building.

  “Perhaps we should talk a little,” Amaris said after a moment, “You seem to be very pensive at the moment.”

  “I don’t want to talk,” Gwyn snapped.

  The lizard woman took a deep breath. It seemed as if she was contemplating what she had done wrong in life to be stuck under the water with such a grumpy human, or at least that was what Gwyn presumed. He didn’t care, it was partially her fault that he was even under the ocean with her, though Kako’s insistence was a factor that could not be overlooked, but first came rescuing everyone.”

  “You are a strange one, for a Nonpareil.”

  “I didn’t ask to be one.”

  “I don’t believe anyone does, it is a difficult role, but an important one.”

  “Wish someone else could have taken on the important stuff, I’m just a random person.”

  “Everyone in history was a random person at some point.”

  Gwyn groaned and sped up his pace. Amaris had no issues matching his speed and grinned at him as if it was cute he was trying to outrun her.

  A voice over something like a distorted loudspeaker stopped them in their tracks.

  “What was that? More old Zenotote?”

  “No, that… was something else entirely. If it was a language, it is one I am unfamiliar with.”

  The red-scaled woman finally seemed worried, which brought even more worry to Gwyn. Whatever it meant, it seemed to be coming in part with the other sounds from inside the ship.

  “Mem,” Gwyn hissed, though he wasn’t sure why he tried to speak so quietly, “did you understand that?” The Needaimus was quiet for far too long. Another voice came over the sound system before shutting off again.

  25%. The Needaimus finally said. For a mechanical creature, it seemed as if its voice was laced with fear.

  “What?”

  It’s 25% back to normal operation.

  The words did not bring comfort. Gwyn wanted to ask more, probe the Needaimus for something more useful to go off of, but rattling of a different type began to come from down the halls. It was the rattling of armor, Gwyn had heard as such in historical reenactments. What he did not encounter in those events was the suits of headless armor that rounded the corner.

  He took a couple of steps back, and more clanking came from behind. Soon Amaris and he were surrounded on both sides. Gwyn balled his good hand into a fist and raised it up. It looked like they were looking for a fight.