Ophelia seems to read my thoughts. “You have no reason to trust us, but we will trust you, Ana. You are the last Dakkar. Theodosius clearly thought you were capable, and you did manage to bring your crew safely to Lincoln Base.”

Luca gives his wife a troubled glance. “Are you suggesting… ?”

“Yes,” Ophelia says. “We will show Ana everything. Let her decide.”

Gem’s chair creaks as he sits forward. “What exactly is everything?”

He does a pretty good job keeping the excitement out of his voice. Still, like any good Shark, he is probably dreaming of shiny new weapons.

Ophelia’s gaze stays on me. “You understand that the alt-tech devices you have seen so far—the Leyden guns, the dynamic camouflage—are only pale imitations of Nemo’s technology. Over the last century and a half, both HP and Land Institute have tried to re-create what Nemo did. We’ve had a few other successes: the microwave, fiber-optics, lasers, nuclear fission.”

“The microwave?” Nelinha looks stunned. I can’t imagine her surviving without the microwave oven in our rec room at HP. She does love her popcorn.

Ophelia musters a faint smile. “Yes. One of Nemo’s less dangerous inventions. By the late 1940s, we felt it was safe to leak that technology to the general public.”

“Hold on,” Gem says. “Nuclear fission? You’re telling us Captain Nemo had atomic bombs?”

Ophelia smirks. “Of course not. He would never have created such crass, clumsy weapons. But he did pioneer nuclear physics. During World War II, Land Institute decided they could ‘improve’ the world by leaking some of Nemo’s knowledge to help along the Manhattan Project. They still maintain they did a good thing, even though the subsequent Cold War arms race came close to destroying the world half a dozen times.”

“Okay…” Gem says slowly. “But that tech also led to nuclear power, cancer treatments, and long-range space exploration, right? Tech can be good and bad.”

Luca puts his hand over Ophelia’s wrist, as if he’s afraid she might jump over the table and strangle Gem.

“My boy,” Luca says, “every time an alt-tech advance is leaked to the rest of the world, it is incredibly destabilizing. Nuclear fission is just one example. Can you imagine if we told the world that Nemo knew the secret to cold fusion?”

Nelinha takes a sharp breath.

I’m not as much of a hard-science expert, but even I understand how big a deal that would be. Fission breaks apart heavy atoms to make energy, but it also creates a bunch of nasty radioactive waste. Fusion is the opposite. It combines atoms. It’s the force that powers the sun. If humans could learn to harness that process at room temperature, “cold” fusion, they could make unlimited energy and produce nothing but harmless gasses for exhaust.

“Why would you not share that information?” I ask. “It would revolutionize the world.”