Deep Calls to Deep

A standalone sci-fi short story.

Photo by Daniel Newman on Unsplash

We both fear and are fascinated by the land. It’s hard to explain to those who’ve never been out there. But once you’ve seen Our world from that perspective — seen things most people will never see with their own eyes! — it changes you. What we want to share with You today will take You over a threshold like that. For what we want to tell You is the truth about what happened on the Great Southern Height, and what we want to put before You is the choice to act on that truth, not only for Our own good or even the good of the nation, but for the good of all of New Deep.

It’s dark in here, friends. Yet who among Us feels blind? We hear each other’s voices. We can reach out and touch another’s limb. Most of all, We cast our fieldfeel and find each familiar face, and every crevice and every piece of junk that’s been left in this cave. We can even admire the new barnacle studs Our friend ThinksLikeDiamond is sporting today, and laugh when she rolls her eyes at us. The first time you make an ascent, you discover how crippled you are when something that fundamental is taken away. And perhaps you begin to wonder what the world would look like to a creature with senses We don’t have.

But we’re getting ahead of ourself. You’ve heard the official story of the Great Southern Height. But let us tell You tonight about what we and ThinksLikeDiamond saw.

As far as we know, the only person at the Institute with more dry-land experience than us is our good friend CourageousSpirit over there. We’ve been Above more times than we can count, but every time we still feel that fascination. It’s almost addictive. So when the call came about the Great Southern Height, it took us less than a second to decide. Before we’d responded to Director ClearWater, our Number Three was already signalling to ThinksLikeDiamond to start packing and two of our other limbs were looking up transport south.

We had never been to the Great Southern Height before, although we’d dreamt of it for decades. The biggest landmass on the planet. Almost untouched. Even without the immediate reason, we’d have jumped at the chance. But the immediate reason, the reason Director ClearWater was so hush-hush about that he turned moray-grey all over, was so unimaginable that we pulsed electric-white and herring-silver in quick succession, and nearly shorted the datapad Number Four was holding.

ThinksLikeDiamond could hardly keep her limbs quiet on the torpedo train. We had to remind her several times that We were sworn under the National Security Act. Yes, the Act that we are breaking now, and not lightly. It would cause a panic if it got out, after all. As far as the public are concerned, the meteorological and astronomical satellites were offline due to a solar storm. Perhaps some of You still believe that? Hear us out.

Not until We arrived at the military cordon and met Commander ToughLikeKelp were We fully apprised of the situation. Although even then, he briefed Us to only the extent that he thought We needed to know. We were told that there was a large xenos starship now in orbit behind the Greater Moon; that two days prior it had launched a probe to a site some five miles inland from the western edge of the Great Southern Height, and that the following day it had launched a lander near the same location.

The military doesn’t care a shrimp’s tail about land biology. The only reason they sent for Us was because Our research tanks are much more sophisticated than the things they’ve got, and We have more experience Above. In essence, they wanted Us to be their scouts. In retrospect, we don’t think it occurred to them that We might also know a bit more about land fauna than They did, even if We’d not yet seen any in the flesh.

We started the ascent very early in the morning. When We broke surface, the sky westward was just beginning to pale to hammerhead-shark, and sunrise was still some hours away. We were to proceed to the landing site, or as near as possible without being seen. The military engineers had gone to town making a sandglass disguise for Our tank, so that if an observer wasn’t too close it would look like a large boulder.

This boulder outfit made the tank heavy to drive and rather limited the view. We had to keep two limbs on the steering and an eye on the fuel consumption. On a biological note, we were beyond thrilled to see thick mats of algal growth stretching well past the edge, even beyond the tidal zone. But on a mechanical note, this made the initial stage slow and slippery. We also felt very blind. Our expeditions are usually in full daylight, because on land, in the tank, Our senses are stripped down to vision and such audio as the external microphone transmits to us. Not having fieldfeel is crippling. We were operating at the limits of Our senses, and felt very anxious about getting to the site unscathed.

We had the approximate coordinates of the landing site, and our radio receiver could easily detect the xenos transmissions. Yet once we got round the first hill, these were completely unnecessary. They were blazing light like a fire in a magnesium refinery. It was blinding.

We moved with extreme caution after that. The xenos lander was closer than we’d expected, just half a mile into a shallow rocky basin. The area around it was lit by a lamp embedded on the lander itself. We crept a little closer. The western slope of the basin would stay in shadow longest, so We settled next to a real boulder, arranged the flaps as best we could, and watched.

It was a long wait. We passed the time speculating about the origin of the aliens. We agreed that the frequency of their blinding bright light suggested a star further in the blue than Our Sun. We disagreed on their reasons for landing on a Height rather than entering the aquasphere. ThinksLikeDiamond suggested it was due to a lack of adequate technology for re-launching from water, but we wondered whether it was due to more fundamental physiological requirements. We sat for hours while the plain outside got lighter. We eventually moved on from speculating about the xenos to arguing about the evolutionary biology programme and why Our ancestors were so short-sighted as to completely omit land creatures from their manifest. And then, the lander opened.

To see creatures emerge and move around Above, without a tank, was — we don’t have the words to describe it. It was beyond unnerving. They appeared encased in pale shells, like crabs with too few limbs, and they walked on the land like crabs walk on the bottom.

There were two of them. They scuttled around the lander for some time, staying mostly in that area lit by their lamp. When the Sun reached its zenith, they ventured a little further. One came in Our direction, and for a terrifying moment we thought it might notice Us. Happily, it passed by at a distance of several yards. Its movements were heavy and slow.

After a while, they retreated to their lander, and a little later, they — or another two — came out again. They unpacked something like a small wheeled buggy, and they set out towards the edge, almost along the same line We had travelled.

What happened next was ultimately, in our humble opinion, the result of bravado and bungled communication. We didn’t see it ourselves. We remained in place watching the lander. As far as we understand, the xenos approached the edge and dismounted. They were now in range of the military observation periscopes. They spent some time walking around, apparently sampling everything they could — rock, algal mat, water. After some time, they split up. One of them was walking along the edge north from their buggy and, to our alarm, towards our entry point. If it went that far, it could hardly avoid stumbling on our optical cable, even if it didn’t notice our tracks in the algae. We were ordered to detach the cable, leaving us cut off from all but emergency communications.

The second xenos turned south and proceeded along a shelf of basalt that emerges steeply into the Above at that point. This shelf is richly colonised with barnacles, limpets, and other edge fauna. It seems the xenos leaned over to collect samples. However, perhaps because the west-facing portion of the rock was now in shadow, and we surmise their vision is poor, it lit a lamp mounted on its shell.

This proved unfortunate. The high-intensity, high-frequency beam struck a soldier positioned below, opposite the shelf. The Vents War showed Us the unfortunate tendency of some of Our forces to act without sufficient central nervous processing, and we continue to humbly suggest greater training for Our soldiers in advanced limb control.

According to the soldier’s report, his Number Five responded to the light with a harpoon shot, while Six to Eight set up a Level Three field charge. The alien’s shell and hence, as we found later, its communications system, was crippled as soon as it hit the water. The harpoon itself pierced the creature’s shell. A squad arrived on the scene, observed the xenos fall to the bottom, then captured it.

How we wish we had been on the scene instead of sitting bored and anxious on the land! The worst might still have been avoided. Commander ToughLikeKelp is a brilliant strategist, but it never occurred to him that We might be dealing with a life form so different that it cannot breathe water.

We got the emergency return signal by radio. By then, we and ThinksLikeDiamond had seen the buggy return at speed, with just one of the xenos. We had seen a third emerge from the lander, and seen them look and wave their limbs towards the edge, and We sensed something was wrong. Yet We dared not move until after sunset, and it was a long and stressful journey back.

The body was laid out in the field hospital. They’d taken it out of the soft shell and attempted to apply first aid, but without the slightest clue about what the creature needed. They had not understood that the water slowly filling its shell was entering via the harpoon hole, rather than exiting.

We were asked to conduct the autopsy, alongside the military chirurgeon. We were fizzing with barely-controlled electric charge. We’d studied the theory of land fauna, we’d pored over the databases of Old Deep’s ecosystems, we’d poured decades of our life into advancing land life on New Deep. But we’d never seen, let alone touched, an air-breathing animal.

To cut the body seemed sacrilegious, yet it had to be done. We might never have this opportunity again, and anyhow it was already dead. We had all eight limbs in action, while ThinksLikeDiamond took notes, managed communication, and scoured the databases for clues.

We measured, sampled and imaged everything. Its blood was dark and retained residual warmth. Its eyes were small, but surprisingly similar to Our own. Its four thick and rather inflexible limbs all ended in tiny subsidiary limbs. We were strangely reminded of some species from the Old Deep database, but it fit none of them. We sent a courier to the Institute with a blood sample for genetic analysis. Some of You were involved in that, and saw those results for yourselves.

The autopsy took the best part of three days and nights. During that time, the observation posts reported that the remaining two xenos had made several trips to the edge, apparently in search of their companion. Towards the end of the second day, a second lander was launched and landed near the first.

By the end of the autopsy, it was clear that the body would not last much longer in the warm conditions of that area. We argued strongly that it should be returned to its people. The military vetoed this. Let them think it was an accident, said Commander ToughLikeKelp. No point giving ourselves away. Besides, everyone wanted a piece of it. Literally. Some agreement was hammered out to send portions of the body to the research organisations of every major nation. ThinksLikeDiamond and we were sent back here to the Institute.

The genetic analysis results were waiting for Us, as You know. We already had more than half a hunch by that point, but when we opened the file it still sent a shiver through all our limbs. For these too are descendants of Old Deep. Far removed, to be sure. The closest match in our database is a species of furred tree-climber. Evolution has done its slow work in the long aeons since our ancestors set out in the Ark. Yet these creatures are our relatives. We came from the same cradle.

The question is, what should We do now? These xenos — our land-based long-lost cousins — are still camped on the Great Southern Height, and their ship is still parked in orbit around New Deep. Our governments are arguing. The Reef Federation says We should wait, hide, until they leave. But there’s no guarantee that they will leave. We’ve shaped this world as like Old Deep as We’ve been able to — is that not an attractive proposition for them now too? The Abyssians say We should take the initiative and chase them off. Both options seem to us equally risky and short-sighted. We suggest a third way. Our race has been working for generations to begin shaping the land ecosystems, as We have already shaped the aquasphere. We learned long ago that melting the ice of New Deep with our reactors, salinating the water to the right proportion, populating biospheres with the seeds of plants and animals brought from Old Deep, all that was not enough to keep this planet viable. We need to bring the land to life too. And who better to partner with Us than beings who are expert in life on land, and who have clearly now achieved the technology needed for interstellar travel?

Friends, we put to You this bold proposal. Let Us not hide in the dark. Let Us not blind ourselves to new persepectives. Let Us show ourselves. Let Us communicate. Let Us return their companion and confess Our mistake. Let Us partner with these aliens, if they’re willing. Yet this will take courage, and resolve, and willingness to make mistakes and be misunderstood. It will take time. But We are experts in projects that take time. Deep calls to Deep. Shall We not answer?

(2492 words)

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