Page 107 of The Surviving Sky
It was Naila who answered. “It’s what we believe, but the only ones who would know for sure are Ecstatics themselves, and all of them have been excised. They’re in no condition to tell us anything.” The Junior Architect turned to Dhruv. “If your device is picking up on some strange energy that is only available when an architect is in Ecstasy, then perhaps Ecstatic trajection isn’t the same as normal trajection. Perhaps it’s a completely different energy signature.”
“Maybe,” Dhruv answered. He removed his glasses and began wiping them again.
“That could help the council, couldn’t it?” Naila continued, voice eager. She turned back to Iravan. “It could contribute to better safety measures in the ashram. Dhruv may have invented something that detects Ecstasy.”
“He may have invented something thatusesEcstasy,” Iravan said quietly, studying the sungineer.
Dhruv’s eyes looked disturbed behind his glasses. “Maybe. I don’t like the implication.”
“Neither do I,” Iravan agreed.
On both their faces, Ahilya saw the same thought that she had. Technology that used Ecstasy would inevitably create a need for Ecstatic Architects. It woulddependon architects losing their minds. Naila bit her lip, frowning, evidently realizing all this.
“I think we’re getting carried away,” Ahilya said into the building silence. “The tracker charged itself in the jungle for the last five years. How could that be if thisEnergy Xis the same as Ecstasy?”
“We already know Bharavi-ve was capable of trajecting the jungle,” Naila said. “We don’t know what Ecstatics are capable of.”
“But for five years?”
“It could be the same principle as before,” Dhruv said, shaking his head. “The tracker could have been feeding off of Ecstatic trajection fromallthe other cities. We’d have to ask for an account of Ecstatic Architects from every ashram.”
“We will never get that,” Iravan said. “That’s not information the councils of various ashrams share openly. I agree with Ahilya. I think this hypothesis is wrong. If Energy X were truly Ecstatic energy, then you’d need a steady supply of Ecstatics from all the ashrams powering the tracker. But Ecstasy is a rare event. And Ecstatics are immediately excised. This entire theory hinges on Ecstatic trajection being different from normal trajection, and we have no evidence of that.”
“Ecstatic energy or not,” Ahilya put in, looking from one to another, “that’s not our priority. Something downthereblocked Energy X. And we should be thinking aboutthat.”
Iravan’s face became thoughtful. “You think the same thing blocking Energy X is ruining trajection?”
“It’s possible, isn’t it?”
“Unless whatever is down there has nothing to do with anything,” Dhruv said, “and Energy X is blocking trajection.”
“There are too many unknowns,” Naila said, in frustration. “We don’t even know whatisdown there.”
“Yaksha habitation,” Ahilya said firmly. “It has to be.”
The others gazed at her, but for the first time, Ahilya saw something in their faces that she’d never seen before while claiming this: consideration.
“What kind of habitat could survive the earthrages?” Naila asked, her voice soft.
“Something powerful,” Ahilya replied. “Something unbelievably strong. Something that we in our obsession with flight may have forgotten even existed. My theory is that it’s architecture humans built a long time before in an early attempt to escape earthrages.”
“There’s no evidence ofthat,” Naila said.
Ahilya swept out a hand. “Our data shows that the elephant-yaksha’s tracker stopped recharging each time it went to a single area within the jungle. That is hard evidence. There’s something down there.”
“But for it to be made by humans? Our ancestors? For it to even be around still? Ashrams began flying nearly a thousand years ago.”
“Yes, but flight was not the only method that our ancestors tried,” Dhruv intervened. “Our histories tell us there were other attempts made to survive in the jungle.”
“Failed attempts,” Naila said scornfully. “Abandoned attempts. We already know flight was amiracle—thatpeople had tried different methods, until architects discovered flight. Just because the tracker stopped working doesn’t mean it’s a habitat down there that survives earthrages. It just means there is something that sungineering cannot get to. And whatever is blocking sungineering could be another trick ofevolution—away the jungle plants evolved over the years somehow. It’s a leap to think it’s habitat of somekind—”
“It’s not a leap; it’s deduction,” Ahilya said. “Jungle plants wouldn’t be able to evolve in such a manner, not in the exact same place, not when there are constant earthrages shattering them apart. The better logic is that whatever is down there is a remnant of archeology. We don’t know what materials our ancestorsused—onceupon a time, they created core trees, embedded them with flight andpermissions—somethingwe can no longer replicate. For all we know, they had other means to create a different kind of architecture. Our histories have preserved only what the architects thought wasuseful—butwe know that architects were frightened of the jungle proper, they wanted to be separate from it even when they lived within it. Perhaps it was the non-architects who built something.”
“If non-architects built something that could successfully withstand the earthrages, why did they abandon it?” Naila argued. “Why didn’t they just stay in the jungle? Why did we fly at all?”
“Perhaps,” Dhruv said mildly, “thatwas an architect decision. Maybe the political situation back then was different. It’s not like we have indisputable records of anything. Our history is the history of architects. We don’t know what happened then between the citizens. Perhaps the habitat was abandoned when flight was discovered, not because of its failure but because flight was a better alternative for a civilization that had always feared the jungle.”
“You’re blaming the architects again,” Naila said, incensed. “If it weren’t for us, we’d all have beenextinct—”
