Aquanaut 3

Things went wrong, as expected. With nothing but clouds and the smouldering wreckage of the Heyerdahl to latch on to, Art found himself off course. He had to be, despite calculations he didn’t see pod 6 anywhere. He spent what he estimated to be about an hour looking for it but simply couldn’t find it, not above the water or down below. The water was actually much shallower here than he’d anticipated, and he could see coral reefs teeming with life – but luckily nothing sapient. The little squid seemed content to sit by his side, occasionally splashing water over herself to keep hydrated. Art rubbed his chin and tried to consider a new course of action. He knew there were people who had made it, just like he had. Chances are they’d rigged some kind of engines to pod 6 and then taken it for a ride like Lafayette had tried to. But where had they gone? He had no radio with him so even if there was some kind of signal with rendezvous coordinates he couldn’t know, could he? Moreover now that he was in the shallows again he didn’t want to go anywhere else. Deeper water was more dangerous, that he’d become convinced of. How long could he wait out here? The squid girl had survived somehow, and much of her system probably resembled that of a human internally as well as externally. She’d eaten the fruit that he had. It only stood to reason her species was able to obtain food in the water easily enough, right? And that meant she could help HIM find food, right? But how should he communicate that to her? The lack of a common language was getting to irritate him. At least for the time being he wasn’t in an immediate danger of starving to death, but…
The squid girl jumped into the water suddenly, startling him. Art looked down and watched her dart around the corrals, as if she were looking for something, or… chasing something?
Then he saw it. A shape of some kind, moving in the water, the colour of the corral, then the rock, then the sand… the shape was always the same colour as whatever it moved over. Camouflage, it was a creature with camouflage. The squid girl had identified it from all the way in the surface, and so easily!
After a short chase the shape took on a different colour, becoming more distinct. Brown tentacles, brown arms, body, a head, it looked rather like the squid girl had; only her tentacles were smaller and this individual clearly had, hm, greater maturity. The two began to circle one another, their arms and tentacles animated. The newcomer changed colours on occasion and looked up directly at Art’s raft when he was pointed out. Bubbles emerged from their mouths, indicating they were making noises of some kind. There was obviously a discussion going on and he was the subject of it. After a while the two squids reached some sort of agreement and Art’s companion returned to the surface, beckoning to him, while the new one slowly swam someplace. He was expected to… follow? What else could he do without pod 6 anywhere in sight? Follow the aliens, surely nothing bad will happened!

For some ten minutes Art followed the squids out into deepening water with increasing nervousness, until at last he saw what they had been heading towards. Pod 6! He saw no lights but the glaring red of the number painted on it left no uncertainty. The thing had been sunk to about 20 meters. The sense of joy he’d felt upon seeing it left him as quickly as it came.
Art watched the two squids discuss something underwater again, then the newcomer’s camouflage once again became activated and it disappeared into what Art now saw was another forest of kelp. Or was it the same forest he’d seen before? He tried to recall the respective positions of pods 6 and 4. Could a forest of seaweed be so large? Moreover, was it filled it potential danger? He saw very little he could do about that situation for the time being and allowed the raft to float up to the nearest piece of kelp that reached to the surface. He took hold of a wet strand – making sure there was no sea-weed woman hiding in it this time – and moored his raft in place with it. It ought to hold here for the time being, he thought as he dived down to investigate pod 6.

Immediately upon reaching the pod Art noticed that the top hatch had been opened already. No lights, not even the emergency lights, were on. The flotation devices were all emptied out and the anchors were all firmly attached to the bottom. Slipping inside Art saw that the bottom hatch was open as well. The pod had been sunk on purpose! But why? Slowly and methodically he looked through every storage space and found everything to be empty. The seats were gone. Not just stripped down, completely gone, but completely taken off the wall. The spot where the Fab would’ve been was empty, with a great deal of circuitry removed along with it. The radio was gone. The only thing Art discovered was a plastic envelope containing a piece of paper with something written on it. He returned to his raft and saw the squid girl remained in the pod to explore it. Let her, where’s the harm?

Back on the surface Art opened up the envelope and read the paper.

“To whom it may concern:

This pod was boarded by Junior Technical Officer Juri Sergenovitch and Master Sergeant Kurome Rei. During our descent we discovered dry land. Upon making planetfall we decided to vacate there. This pod has been stripped of most materials required to make the journey. Once on the island we will endeavour to establish a signal and help other survivors rendezvous at our location. We are removing as much of the pod’s circuitry as we can without stopping it from being able to broadcast a signal so it may be later salvaged. We are sinking it in this shallow spot to make this easier. To reach land travel directly south-by-southwest for five nautical miles and do not relent from your course despite the fog, which we presume to be permanent. Bon voyage.”

Art crumpled the paper and grinned. Kurome was alive! That fine piece of ass was out there somewhere, and all he had to do was go through some mist? Hah!
Looking towards what he assumed to be south-south-west Art discovered in the distance what looked to be a very low-hanging cloud. That had to be the fog that the message had referred to. There was land there! Actual land! On Mare! Now all he had to do was…
A loud rumbling noise sounded an Art shivered, fearing another thunderstorm was approaching him. He turned to look back to the direction of the sound and saw that the Heyerdahl was… falling apart even further. There was a crack along the length of it, with seawater pouring in and a hiss of steam rising in a pillar to the heavens. Concerns about the possible detonation of a damaged reactor core began to occur to him. If seawater flooded the engines, what would happen? Would the automatic systems shut things down, or would the fusion reactor use the hydrogen in the water to keep going? Art had to admit to himself he had no clue as to how the Heyerdahl’s engines actually worked. He hadn’t been hired to do maintenance on the engines after all, so what the hell did it matter?
What was more important now was reaching land. 5 nautical miles of open water was something to the order of ten kilometres, wasn’t it? Something like that. Less, surely. But still a lot to cross in his little raft wasn’t it? Lafayette and Sergenovitch had rigged themselves engines after all. And what did he have? Feet to paddle with. The distance wasn’t going to get any shorter of course, and the longer he waited the weaker he’d get, but for the first time since the crash he felt like he had actual chances of making something of his situation, of actually surviving and having someone else take responsibility for once! And all he had to do was…
A flash of light and a sensation of heat, and Art was flying through the air. The wind as knocked out of his lungs and he couldn’t understand what was happening until he fell face-first into the water and stared up at the wave on the surface as it pushed through the sea, tearing his raft apart and sending his effects into a disarray, some floating, some sinking. Art swam up to the surface and realized his ears heard nothing but a loud, high-pitched ringing. He could barely get air into his lungs. Looking toward the most likely suspect, the Heyerdahl, Art saw that a plume of black smoke that eerily resembled a mushroom cloud had risen up from it, hiding the engine compartment. The rest of the ship had been torn asunder and he could see even now pieces of it sinking into the sea. The ship was gone and anyone who had been alive aboard it was likely dead. Churning seas and an ever increasing supply of steam made the spot where the ship had been look like an underwater volcano erupting. Art was treading water, unable to think of any course of action he could take. Would there be a radiation leak? Should he go further away? Should he… should…
Art shivered as a tentacle plopped on his shoulder, but he soon realized who it was. The little squid looked frightened and he reached out an arm to pull her closer. As she wrapped her tentacles around him he saw her hands were holding something. Fruit? Fruit! Fresh fruit, ripe, at their best! She had nibbled on one and offered him another. But where had she…
Of course! The kelp forest. It was full of what passed for trees. Art bit into the not-so-delicious fruit and sucked on its juices greedily. After sloppily eating it he began to swim towards the kelp forest to ascertain if he had been correct. Some study revealed that yes, there were in fact such clusters strewn about among the writhing trunks. This place had FOOD. And food that had a high water-quotient as well! He wouldn’t have to rely on his scavenged nutrient bars now. Thinking about it, Art saw that this location had certain advantages. The pod had a signal that would lead others here eventually, and with a source of food he could survive while he waited. Crossing open water and risking the attention of predators seemed like a dangerous idea now. But where would he sleep? Sea otters were known to attach themselves and their young to kelp such as this to keep from drifting, but they were also naturally far more buoyant than… But he had the solution to that as well!
Art looked around for the life preservers and jackets and found them. The core of his raft was still essentially intact, more or less. This he took and went looking for another suitable spot to attach it to…
And that’s when he saw the lily pads. Massive, with a surface are of at least 25 square meters, jutting out to the surface of the water, thick as a man’s arm in the middle. He couldn’t believe what he was seeing. But then again everything was unreal now. The Heyerdahl had been destroyed. He’d never get home. It didn’t matter. He’d live. He’d live here. He might not make it to dry land. But that didn’t matter either. He would live, and he would live here and now, and tomorrow and the day after that, he would live and nothing was going to kill him, Mare was not going to kill him, no, the Heyerdahl’s possibly radioactive engines or dehydration or hunger or predators or anything else wasn’t going to kill him, he was going to
“LIVE DAMMIT!” he shouted and realized he could hear his own voice. The squid girl munched on her fruit and repeated after him “Lib dumit!” enthusiastically.

			***

As it turned out, the lily pads were strong enough for Art to stand on quite comfortably. There was some water that the waves sent over the pad but it never reached more than ankle deep. All in all this seemed to be a godsend. Art was blocking out the horrible consequences of the Heyerdahl’s engines blowing up and focused instead on how he could help himself for the time being, and this was exactly what he had been looking for, a place to sleep! He could easily attach his life-preserves to the lily-pad and be completely certain of being able to stay dry and above the surface – not to mention invisible to predators – while he slept. This was the most important thing right now. What he needed to do next was dive down and get on of the anchors, use it to smash holes into the pad, then use the anchor cable to attach his soon-to-be-bed to the pad with enough leeway that even if a large wave washed over the pad he’d still remain above the water level, and then… oh, he’d have to dive down for his tarp and get it back to get something to keep himself safe from rain and sprays and such, but that shouldn’t be too hard. After finishing with that he’d leisurely wait while keeping himself fed and watered, and things would work out fine. Wouldn’t they?
Another thought occurred to him. What if with the explosion of the Heyerdahl, the networks that the ship had been keeping up had gone down? This meant that the pods would all still be broadcasting, but what about the reception of those signals? What about communications? What about all the schematics for the Fabs? He was fairly certain that a Fab only stored so much data in its memory bank and took the rest of the schematics it needed from the main network. And then there was coordination and navigation and who knows what else that the system had been keeping tabs on... everyone was practically MIA as far as anyone else was concerned as of this moment. That didn’t really change Art’s situation of course, but still…
He decided not to concerns himself with that overmuch. Attaching his preservers temporarily to nearby kelp he dove down to the pod to find one of the anchors and put it to use. The squid girl seemed to take interest in this and darted around him as he struggled with the unwieldy and heavy anchor. It took him several tries to get it up above the pad and then he found the effort of using the sharp wings to punch holes into the lily pad to be even greater. His back and arms ached and it felt like the skin would soon come off his hands by the time he’d managed a few descent holes. Sitting down he realized he had absolutely nothing to cut the anchor cable with so he’d have to just rely on the rope on the life-preservers and hope that would be enough to keep him afloat and attached in case of an emergency.
Attaching the preservers was easy enough. The squid girl was especially interested in the knots he tied and he had to remind himself to keep an eye on her, she’d undone his knots in the past. Next came the retrieval of the tarp. Waterlogged, it was damned heavy, and it was unlikely to dry properly for a long time, but it would be better to be under it than fully exposed, at any rate. With some looking Art found his sunken bags, with his med-kit and his copper wire. Bringing these to the surface left him winded and he sat down to just look at the world. He still saw the fog-cover of the distant island in the horizon; he saw the steam-mountain of the Heyerdahl, and beyond that just open water and clouds. A beautiful world, was Mare, but how long can a man stare at endless waves before he loses his mind? You needed something to do.
It occurred to him that while Kurome and Juri had stripped pod 6 of various electrical components, including the emergency power cells, something was still powering it. That something was probably one or two still attached solar panels. Solar panels… was there something he could do with those? Assuming the pod still had some devices or circuitry inside it, he could bring it up to the surface and… no wait, there was another option. What if he left the pod where it was but brought air down into it instead? All he’d need to do was build some kind of piping, a series of tubes, and attach a pump to it and fill the damn thing with air. To what end, exactly? No real reason, but it would be something to do, right? While he waited.
Considering he might have to wait indefinitely he’d definitely need something to keep himself busy. But would it really make sense to waste his time trying to pump air into a sunken pod? Surely there was something more productive he could do. For example! Was it possible to detach the flotation devices of the pod and make a better mattress out of those? He’d be much more comfortable with them after all. Maybe he ought to do that.
It also occurred to him that if he pumped the pod full of air he could sleep inside that. He’d be safe and sound regardless of storms up top and couldn’t sink any lower… but if anything native decided to mess with it he’d be in trouble. Staying up top was best after all. So to work!

The problem that manifested itself next was Art’s physical condition. He couldn’t reach anywhere near deep enough before his lungs began to burn and he had to return to the surface. He lied down on the lily pad and stared at the sky, breathing heavily and wondering how long it would take for his body to recover from the long sleep. Regardless, he had reached the limits of his strength, and that meant he needed rest. The old parachute that was to be his bed sheet and blanket was disgustingly wet and unlikely to dry properly any time soon, so he felt no real desire to crawl into his new bed yet. He thought about the fruit growing on the kelp and considered collecting some for a quick meal now and another meal later on. He wouldn’t need to dive all the way to the bottom for that, so it might still be within his power. And food would help him recover his strength, though he feared he would quickly grow weary of eating this particular fruit. He still had some good old fashioned space-faring food in the form of the nutrient bar, but that was unpleasant as well. What Art wanted was something with fat and grease and flavour. He could try catching some fish… one day. Not now, no way. But if he found something to fashion a spear out of…
The water surface broke and the squid girl climbed onto the lily pad carrying something in her tentacles while brushing her hair with her hands. What was that?

The squid girl dropped what she was holding and Art saw it was in fact two somethings, or rather, two halves of a something. Two half-spheres, that is, one sphere split in two.
“What’s that you’ve got there?” he asked and reached for the pieces. She offered no resistance and so Art picked the things up. Light-weight, made out of some kind of metal. He’d assumed it had been a piece of the pod but now he wasn’t so sure. There was some kind of mechanism on the inside of the two pieces, and on the outer shell there were moving pieces that he assumed were switches. It didn’t really look like anything he’d ever seen.
Art tried to fit the halves together. Oddly enough it didn’t seem like there had ever been anything to hold them in place. He fiddled around with the internal mechanism but couldn’t figure out what it was for. There was a propeller or a fan of some kind? For cooling, maybe? There didn’t appear to be any kind of power source attached but he did find a sort of socket where a battery or something could be made to fit. But what the hell was this thing? Juri was a technical officer so he might’ve rigged it out of the pieces of the pod, though it didn’t really look like any pieces Art could recognize. Moreover, he hadn’t seen it inside the pod. Of course the girl had spent more time exploring it than he had so of course it was possible he’d missed it, simple as that.
An idea occurred to him. If he took the solar panel and brought it up here, then ran his copper wire from there to this device, he could probably power it up. That would solve the mystery of what it was supposed to do, and it would kill time as well, keep him busy. Art smiled. A simple mystery to solve through simple means, just what the doctor ordered.
The squid girl looked on quizzically as he placed the device inside the same bag his wire was in, then hid it under the parachute.
“I think it’s time to go gather some grub, don’t you think?” he asked.
“Tink”
That’s right; she was starting to learn how to speak out of water. Somehow that had slipped his mind. He really ought to try teaching her some English. Or maybe try learning her language? No, it would be better to just teach her, less memorizing for him that way.
“Wonder what your name is” he said. She didn’t reply.
“Maybe I should name you”
She kept staring at him.
“N-a-m-e”
He pointed at himself.
“Art” he said, tapping his chest.
“At” she repeated, tapping her own.
“No, no, I’m Art”
“At!” she said with conviction, beating her chest like a gorilla or Tarzan.
“Yes, that’s my name. What’s YOUR name? Your NAME?” he asked, pointing at her. She looked at his finger for a while, then wrapped a tentacle around it and shook it, nodding with a serious expression on her face.
Art sighed.
“Yes, that’s a handshake” he said, washing the tentacle-mucus from his hand.
“Shake!”
“Yes, that’s right. Now let’s see about that food”
She didn’t reply.
Art dove. He heard her jumping in the water after him, and slowly he began to descend along the massive tree-trunk-like stem of the lily. There were quite a few of them growing in this area, and some shorter, thinner ones in the gaps between, reaching up to the surface and sun. Between the stems there were the rows of kelp, which seemed to be growing in far more orderly rows than you’d expect. Forgetting about the fruit for the time being Art looked around at the spaces between the plants and saw neat rows of stones of various sizes lining them, with what looked like pathways of sand crisscrossing the are. After returning to the surface for air he continued his investigation and found that at the very edge of the forest there was a sort of wall of theses tones, piled up to about a fore-arm’s height from the bottom. There was no way to interpret this than one: someone had built this place with purpose. Only intelligences could produce such things.
Worry entered his mind again. If he was in a place where fruit-bearing plants were being cultivated on purpose, wouldn’t he be considered a trespasser? His previous encounters with the locals had not been exactly pleasant, but he didn’t want to relocate from this point either. And the squid girl had been able to communicate effectively with the cuttlefish, hadn’t she? It stood to reason that the other octopus was a local to this area specifically, and that meant he could talk his way out of potential problems with the help of his ward, who for whatever reason had yet to wander off. Why was she so attached to him now anyway, despite having met someone of her own kind? Was that racist? Thinking all octopi were the same? Art shrugged that off and set about collecting his sustenance. He had no pockets to shove the fruit in so he just stuffed them under his shirt, as many as he could fit without crushing them. He found no plant-women but had an unnerving feeling that someone was watching him. This was probably just paranoia from his realization that this was a garden that was being cultivated rather than just a natural forest, though. He had no proof of there being anyone or anything around expect for the squid girl and regular fish.
Up topside Art placed the fruit he didn’t intend to eat yet safely under the parachute-tarp and began chowing down. He didn’t feel the need to drink anything because of how much water content the things had. He noticed the squid hadn’t followed him back here. Was she exploring? Art once again tried to think of why she’d stuck around with him. From what he knew of Earth’s oceanic life, bioluminescence was an attribute more commonly found in deeper water, in things like vampire squids. This girl didn’t look like her eyes had any trouble in the sunlight up on the surface so he had to wonder as to where her natural habitat was. Moreover, Mare was an oceanic planet. The seas covered more than 90% of it. It had been somewhat shallow where the Heyerdahl had dropped him – thank God – but just how much deeper could the seas get? Assuming most of Earth was covered in water with only the tops of the highest mountain ranges above the surface that would almost double the depth of the deepest parts of the ocean. Imagining the kinds of creatures that could dwell in the depths of these alien seas was a frightening thought even without taking into account the oddly humanoid shapes some of them took.
The water plopped behind him, and Art didn’t turn, assuming the squid girl had returned.
“I saved you some” he said, holding out a piece of fruit behind him. It was taken. Then there was another plop from the water. And another. And another. Art turned around slowly. None of the plops had been the squid he knew.