Up close, the ships were impressive. The black hulls swept overhead, much bigger than they looked at a distance. They had a massive appearance, even more so than Narvo ships. He could see what appeared to be weapon ports, now closed, on some of the vessels.
He turned to their guide. "What are the workers trying to accomplish, Supervisor Nath?"
"These Terran ships, originally constructed to travel underwater, will make very suitable hulls for spacecraft once their technology is updated," she said. "So we're currently installing Jao drives and sensing systems, as well as replacing all controls pertaining to operation in a liquid environment, rather than the vacuum of space. Later we will refit the weaponry."
He reached out and rubbed the metal with his fingertips. It was surprisingly warm to the touch.
"I will show you the interior," Nath said.
Aille and his little entourage followed the supervisor. Drill bits squealed as they passed. Welding arcs flashed. Cables snaked across the concrete floor and up into the sleek ships as the race to refit Earth's fleet of submarines went on.
* * *
Following Supervisor Nath, Aille climbed the scaffolding that bracketed one of the curiously oblong ships and descended a ladder into its interior. It was much closer inside than anything a Jao would have designed. Not only were these Terrans smaller in frame, but they must also must be relentlessly social, he reflected, to be able to live on top of one another for extended periods of time. He couldn't even imagine a marriage-group being able to take these conditions for more than a few solar cycles at a time without losing cohesion, much less a gathering of unrelated individuals who lacked the common bond of kochan or taif.
Nath, showing the quick mind he had already suspected she possessed, seemed to have divined his thoughts.
"The plan is for jinau troops to staff the vessels, after the refit, with only a few Jao in command. There should be enough room for the Jao officers, after the unnecessary equipment for operating underwater is removed and replaced with our own spacegoing systems. As a rule—though not always—Jao technology is more compact than human."
She continued to explain as they moved through the cramped ship. Very quickly, Aille came to realize that the reports he'd read had drastically understated the sophistication of human technology. Where the reports tended to use terms like "convoluted" and "excessively intricate"—often enough, "bizarre"—Nath's explanations showed an appreciation for the subtlety involved. Many areas on the submarine served double and triple duty, depending on what was needed at any particular moment. He was particularly intrigued by a table in the "wardroom" used as a surgical bay in times of need.
Tully had waited topside with Yaut, who wasn't about to let the human out of his sight, but he wished Yaut were here so he could see what the wily old fraghta would have made of all this. He turned to Supervisor Nath. "Have you ever ridden in one of these under the water?"
She grimaced. "Once. It was a dreadful experience, being closed in with that many humans. These ships can dive quite deep, much deeper than any Jao could possibly swim."
"I wonder why they expended so much ingenuity and resources on such travel?" He ran a hand over the gleaming fittings. "Have they constructed cities beneath their seas, or discovered resources that can only be extracted this way?"
"They did utilize some underwater resources," she said, "and humans seem to set great store on the concept of 'exploration.' They're like crechelings, that way, always wanting to climb and dig and wedge themselves into the most inaccessible places. They think nothing of scampering up cliffs and mountains, and even crawling through caves. In fact, it is impossible to keep them from it, even when they are quite likely to die in the attempt. But these particular vessels were warships, not exploratory ones."
Aille was surprised. "Why would they fight each other under the water? They can't live there."
Nath fell into a quite elegant rendition of rueful-puzzlement. "Hard to say. I get along with them rather well, but they still sometimes seem like lunatics to me."
"How large a crew did this one carry?" He ducked his head, but still grazed his ears as he stepped through another hatch into a forward chamber filled with equipment.
"Over a hundred," she said. "I gather the number varied, according to the type of submersible and the nature of the mission. Records are spotty. They destroyed much of their armaments, once defeat became inevitable. A number of these ships were taken out into the ocean and 'scuttled,' as they term it. Deliberately sunk."