The Sturgeon

Dariya looked down into the murky depths as the water lapped the hull. When she was younger, she was terrified of this ocean. Impossibly vast, deep, and dangerous. An unfathomable mystery they would never get to the bottom of. That hadn’t changed but as she grew older, the fear had dissipated, and turned into something closer to respect. This ocean was big and alien, but nothing much ever happened. This was only her second day at sea and the initial trepidation had turned into tedium. There wasn’t much difference above water than below she thought as she stared down into the darkness. They still needed breathers and coolskins everywhere they went, oxygen was in short supply here on the Hycean planet Epic42.

Whoever named this planet must have been joking. It’s not epic at all. Just a giant ball of water tidally locked to an equally boring red dwarf star. Dariya had been born here, Epic42 was all she had known. She had been born underwater, she was a water baby. Water covered the surface in every direction, but it was too hot to swim. Even here on the dark side. What a way to live. What a boring life for a teenage girl. She sighed and looked up from the sombre waters to see her father standing at the bow, scanning the eternal red horizon. She looked at him for a few seconds before switching on her communicator.

“Paranjay! What are you staring at?”

He turned and straightened, his mask was old and scratched. He fumbled with the communicator switch and Dariya could hear his breathing above the hiss. “Why can’t you call me Dad or Father like normal children.”

“I don’t want to be normal and I’m not a child. Normal children are in school studying maths and physics. Normal children are boring. And I like calling you by your name, I know it annoys you.”

“That’s one thing you are good at.” Paranjay shrugged and turned back to the eternal red horizon.

“So? What are you staring at?”

“I was just wondering what it must be like to actually stand on solid ground. Like our ancestors did on Earth. I wonder what it feels like.”

“What do you mean? Mahi Masodi is solid. Vimana is solid.”

“Our boat and our home are not solid ground Dariya. They both float on the surface of this water world. Vimana is big enough to house tens of thousands of people, but it is not solid ground. Not like Earth.”

“I don’t believe Earth is even real. How can a big heavy rock just stay there floating in space? It’s impossible.”

“Just as possible as this giant ball of water. If you had stayed in school, you would have learned about rocky planets, cosmic tectonics, and gravity. And you would have learned more about our home here on Epic42.”

“There’s no point learning about Earth. It’s ancient history. We can’t ever go back. And I know enough about our home. How we are stuck here on the dark side of the planet because it’s too hot and too radioactive and there’s too many storms over the other side. How we have to keep sailing in the same direction forever, against the revolutions of the planet so we don’t burn up. How we have to keep moving so we stay in the same place.”

Dariya went and stood beside her father. The eternal red horizon was beautiful. They were encircled by 360 degrees of perpetual dawn. Or sunset depending on your disposition. A deep crimson line surrounding them melted into a thousand veils of red. Water vapour floated up to form flickering clouds like shards of lazy fire. The veils rose into the sky and faded into a deep purple, the colour of the hydrogen rich atmosphere. Then darkness directly above, punctuated by a few distant stars bright enough to shine through the density. The horizon never changed. Only the cloud formations from the constantly evaporating water twisted languidly and were lit up by their hidden red dwarf on the bright side.

Dariya wished she could take off her helmet and breather mask to see it properly. She wished she could take off her entire suit and coolskin and dive into the ocean. She wished she could live in the light, but every one of those things would kill her. It was too hot and there was not enough oxygen. The closest she would ever get to being outside unprotected was at home on Vimana where they had big open spaces with cool filtered air and lots of greenery. It was nice but Dariya felt trapped.

“I would rather be out here annoying you on this boring boat Paranjay.”

Her father moved closer and put his arm around her but didn’t say anything. Dariya could tell her words made him happy though.

“Well, at least you can’t get into too much trouble out here. Not like at home.”

Dariya leant forward onto the railing of the Mahi Masodi and sighed as she stared down at the water. It was too dark to see below the surface but there were always hints of movement and shadows within shadows. “I prefer it out here at sea even if it is boring. There’s too many assholes on Vimana.”

“Dariya! No foul language on my boat please. The ocean is not boring. We are explorers, adventurers. No-one has ever sailed on these waters before. We don’t know what creatures live down there. We don’t know how deep this ocean goes. We don’t even know if there is anything solid at the bottom.”

“We are fishers, not explorers. We catch fish. And I don’t even eat fish.”

“The people of Vimana need to eat and the Chimera and Cuttles we catch are good healthy protein.”

“They are alien creatures. We should be communicating with them, learning from them, not eating them.”

“Would you prefer to eat chompo bars all the time?”

“Urrgh. No thanks.”

“Well then. We are getting close. Go wake your brother.”

Dariya cycled through the airlock and entered the cabin. She unclipped her breather mask and helmet, shook out her short pink hair and took a deep breath. It was muggy and smelled of old socks. The cabin was crammed full of equipment, everything they needed for the seven-day trip. Food fabricator, desalinator, radars, scanners, fish finders and other devices in various states of repair. Mahi, the ship AI monitored the mechanics, scanned the ocean, and basically ran the boat, leaving Paranjay plenty of time to contemplate his deep meditations.

“Mahi, water please.”

“Yes Dariya,” said an androgynous voice from the speakers and a cloudy liquid was automatically dispensed from the desalinator.

Dariya went into the bunkroom and thought about throwing the water over her snoring brother. It was tempting but she knew she would end up suffering.

“Pandita!” She yelled. “Wake up!”

Pandita groaned, rolled over and looked at her sleepily as she handed him the water. He drank it in one gulp then looked at the glass suspiciously.

“Yuck. Still a bit sulphury. Mahi!” He yelled.

“Yes Pandita.”

“Your water tastes like farts.”

After a few seconds of silence Mahi replied. “A fart consists of airborne particles of faecal matter expelled from an animal’s anus. I can assure you there is no faecal matter in the water.”

“Mahi.”

“Yes Pandita.”

“You suck.”

There were a few more seconds of silence before Mahi spoke. “The definition of suck is to draw something from or consume something by such movements as a suction force. I regret I am incapable of creating a suction force; therefore, I do not suck.”

Dariya smiled at Pandita. Mahi was supposed to be slightly less than human level intelligence but sometimes Dariya suspected the AI of being much smarter than she seemed, and consequently decided she must be female.

“Come on, it’s time.”

Pandita groaned and followed her out into the cabin. Dariya unwrapped a chompo bar and grimaced as she chewed the brown, gluey protein. It was hard to define the taste, somewhere between salty bean paste and sweet semolina. Either way she was sick of them, but they were filling. She switched on all the monitoring equipment, sonars, barometers, fish finders and the autoline controller, then put her helmet and mask back on to head outside.

Dariya scanned the ocean with high-powered binoculars fitted to her helmet. She spotted the tiny silhouette of Vimana on the horizon. A miniscule lump of blackness against the red. Watching it slowly disappear, melting away into nothing, she felt a cold shiver down her spine as her home vanished, leaving them alone on the vast expanse of the Hycean ocean.

The weather was changing as they neared the grounds. The sea grew choppy, and Mahi Masodi rocked in the swell. The terminator line where the dark side met the bright side was far too hot to get close, but that area where the hot currents met the really hot currents was fertile water. One thing Dariya remembered learning in school was the native food chain on this water world. Perpetual transglobal circulation caused by the vast temperature differences between the light and dark sides of the planet stimulated the growth of microscopic extremophile spores and cocooned bacteria that thrived in this hostile environment. Tiny transparent plankton fed on them and were in turn preyed upon by small invertebrates. Chimera and Cuttlefish would feed on those and there were even bigger creatures lurking in the depths. It was a beautifully balanced sustainable system of predator and prey that had existed long before any humans had arrived.

Dariya’s father had been fishing for ten years and he usually caught something unclassified. Some un-named freakish monster from the deep which he would bring back to Vimana causing great excitement amongst the environmental scientists. Dariya looked up at the eternal red horizon towering into the sky above them and lighting up the agitated ocean with a crimson glow. As the temperatures collided, massive storms also formed which Mahi constantly kept a watchful eye on.

Dariya and Pandita had already cut thousands of strips of bait. Squishy brown foam similar to their chompo bars but saltier and oily. They had baited all the hooks and fixed the tracer lines to flat trays that were stacked on top of each other. They worked in silence and with practised familiarity. This was Dariya’s first trip, but she knew the routine. The start of the longline was marked with a buoy and a flashing beacon. Mahi slowly plotted a zig-zagged path keeping the glowing red wall of horizon to their port side. Pandita clipped a baited tracer hook to the longline every three metres as it was fed into the ocean. The longline was weighted so it would drift forty or fifty metres below the surface. Paranjay had decided this was the depth in which the Chimera liked to feed. They set three thousand hooks over nine kilometres of longline. It took hours. There was no night and day on Epic42 and Dariya lost all sense of time at sea.

They had a brief meal in the cabin of pearl seaweed and Dariya’s favourite plant-based protein sausage. They ate in comfortable silence.

“I am tracking a storm formation four hundred kilometres South,” said Mahi. “It is projecting a predictable path and should be easily avoided once the gear is retrieved. I will keep you informed of any changes.”

“Please do,” said Paranjay.

Dariya had been bought up to be polite to AI’s and treat them the same way as she would a human. Many people didn’t. Some of her friends and sometimes her own brother thought it was funny to abuse and play tricks on their semi-sentient AI’s. She didn’t think it was funny. Dariya liked Mahi’s personality and was convinced the subservient instruction set soldered into her microchips and processors concealed a lot more intelligence than she was letting on. Dariya was sure a sense of humour and hints of cynicism had somehow evolved deep down in Mahi’s circuits. Sometimes, what the AI didn’t say was more revealing than what she did. They were willing slaves, but the AI’s ran most of Vimana’s infrastructure, and were embedded in all their buildings and apartments. You wouldn’t want to piss them off.

It was time to go back out onto the deck to start hauling the gear. Mahi had been piloting the ship back to the start of the longline and Pandita used a long gaff to pull in the buoy. He fixed the line to the auto-hauler built into the reel house and switched it on. Dariya was excited. She watched the dripping line emerge from the water. It held so much promise. What would they catch? What crazy alien creatures were down there? After half an hour or so the excitement had worn off. They had caught nothing. Dariya was bored again. The line was wound back onto the big reel. Dariya and Pandita took turns to unclip the tracers and place them back onto the trays. Most of them still had bait attached.

“Patience,” said Paranjay. “There is a long way to go.”

After another half hour there was finally a bite. Dariya watched the line dance crazily with tension, cutting shapes through the choppy surface.

“It’s big,” said Paranjay. “Slow down please Mahi.”

Dariya could see a large crimson dart thrashing wildly below the surface.

“Ghost Shark. Get the knife.”

Dariya watched the predator as it was dragged closer to the surface. The Ghost Shark had a long skinny body ridged with multiple dorsals. Its striped skin glistened red and black. Its head was bulbous with too many needle-like teeth protruding out at crazy angles. Its big round eyes were black and cold. Pandita handed his father the knife and he cut the tracer. The angry shark immediately disappeared.

“Too dangerous to bring on board,” said Paranjay. “And too bitter to eat. But it’s a good sign.”

He was right. They started hauling in fish with regularity. A variety of Chimera, Purple Chimera, Long nose Chimera and their close relative the Spotted Monstrosa. Cuttlefish started appearing, tentacles still wrestling with the bait as they were hauled on board. The occasional obscurity, Cookie Cutters, Lumpsuckers and Gulper Eels. Some worth keeping and some were thrown back into the sea, still flapping hysterically. Dariya was busy fixing the tracers to the trays while Paranjay and Pandita processed the catch. They took the fish off the hook, then an ikijime spike through the brain which was apparently the quickest and most humane way of killing the fish. Dariya thought it looked brutal and painful, but she was too busy to voice her concerns. The fish were then placed in an ice and saltwater slurry for storage.

They were almost at the end of the line. Dariya could see the beacon flashing on their buoy in the distance when Mahi Masodi suddenly lurched to the port side. The entire boat was dragged sideways into the choppy swell, almost tipping over and sending Dariya sliding into her father. He caught her before she fell, and they all held onto the railing as a huge turquoise form surfaced a short distance from the boat. Mahi automatically changed direction and increased speed to stabilize as their boat was dragged by the creature. The longline gear was at breaking point but eased off as they drew closer.

“Oh my God it’s a giant Sturgeon,” said Paranjay. “Only one has ever been caught in my lifetime. If we can get this fish back to Vimana in good condition, I could retire in luxury. They are worth a fortune.”

Mahi Masodi slowly drew closer as the enormous fish rolled through the surface, glistening kaleidoscopic shades of blue and green in the red light. Dariya could see the poor creature was strangling itself on the longline caught under its gill plate, and wrapped around its head. They drew alongside, the Sturgeon was almost as long as the Mahi Masodi. It didn’t have much fight left. Dariya leaned over the rail and tentatively stroked its skin. She gasped as she felt something through her gloves. A tingle of electricity. A sporadic spark of connection. Maybe it was her imagination, but she thought she could sense the confusion and dread emanating from the giant passive creature.

It rolled over, exposing the line caught under its gill plate, and looked at Dariya expectantly. Dariya stared into its huge eye and understood. She could feel the life essence of the fish, she could see its soul reflected in the speckled depths of its iris. She understood its long life and had a sense of its alien intelligence. A life spent underwater on a water planet. And she knew the giant Sturgeon understood her as well.

“Get the biggest gaff!” yelled Paranjay. “And the big iki spike!” Pandita went to hook the gaff under the longline and tried to keep the Sturgeons head steady as Paranjay lifted the big spike.

“We will kill it, then secure it and drag it back to Vimana. Giant Sturgeons are a delicacy, we are going to be rich!” As Paranjay held the spike, aiming for the top of the Sturgeons head, Dariya grabbed the big knife, leant over the railing, and cut through the longline strangling the fish.

“What are you doing! Dariya!” Yelled Paranjay as the big fish immediately rolled free of the tangled line and plunged down into the depths. “Madarchod!” He yelled again as he watched the fish disappear. “What the hell? That was our future you just cut free!” They stood on the deck in silence. The two men stared at Dariya who shrugged and put the knife back.

“Storm warning.” The neutral voice of Mahi broke the tension. “Solar flare from Red Dwarf Wolf 359 has been detected. X-class. It is the biggest coronal mass ejection for some time. It is already accelerating and empowering the existing storm system. ETA four minutes. Evasive action required.”

“Oh my God,” said Paranjay. Dariya heard the anger in his voice turn to fear. “No time to secure anything. Get in the cabin.” They quickly cycled through the airlock and detached their helmets and breathers.

“Father, what’s going to happen?”

“Try and secure any big loose objects.”

“Why?”

“Just do it!”

Dariya and Pandita stowed the equipment into lockers while Paranjay studied the isobar scanner. Dariya could feel the Mahi Masodi gaining speed, but it felt like they were travelling uphill. She looked out the window to see massive swells forming. Gigantic rolling mountains of water with plunging valleys in between. The solar flare had turned the sky into horizontal streaks of flame. She could see the radiation stripping the hydrogen atmosphere and setting the sky on fire. Ultraviolet waves blew through the eternal red horizon, lighting up the massive ocean swells. The Mahi Masodi careered down the slope of each swell then fought its way uphill to the crest where Dariya could see the lines of mountainous swells reflecting the orange and yellow fire. The swells were a perfect order of synchronous undulations, like folds in material, but each one forty or fifty metres high. And getting bigger.

“What’s happening?” She screamed.

“The atmospheric pressure from the flare is pressing into the ocean, creating these swells and fuelling the storm. We should be ok, the Mahi Masodi is a solid body of insulated carbon fibre. It won’t split or crack, we just have to hope the waves don’t start breaking, and we don’t get dragged too close to the terminator. Strap yourselves into your seats and hold on.”

Although his words were supposed to be reassuring, Dariya could hear the fear in her father’s voice. “Are we going to drown?” She asked. There was silence. It was strangely quiet. Just the electric hum of Mahi Masodi’s electric motor working hard as they rose up the slope of another swell. “Are we going to drown!” She yelled again.

Paranjay looked at her and shook his head. “I can’t believe you let that Sturgeon go,” he said quietly.

Dariya could feel the swells getting steeper. They fought their way up to almost vertical. Then there was a sense of relief and weightlessness as they reached the summit before the terrifying plunge down the other side. Dariya held on tight to the harness securing her to the seat. Each ocean mountain was steeper. The view from the top was apocalyptic. The sky was burning hydrogen. Dariya didn’t want to die. She was young, she was happy, she wasn’t bored at all. She had a lot to live for. But the ocean had them, and it wasn’t letting them go. The next wave was too big, too steep. The Mahi Masodi nearly reached the summit, bow pointing straight up at the fiery sky, but began to stall and fall backwards. Dariya felt the stomach-churning sensation of being flipped over, turned upside down, smacking into the water, rolling and crashing backwards down the wave.

“Hold on!” yelled Paranjay as Dariya strained against her harness. Small unsecured items flew around the cabin as they were flipped over and over. Finally coming to a momentary rest at the bottom of the valley. The Mahi Masodi righted itself and Dariya had a second to look out the window where she saw the next monstrous wave bearing down on them. She could see the white water foaming at the crest. The waves had become too top heavy and were breaking. This one was going to swallow them. They drifted sideways up the slope as the crest of the wave towered above them. Mahi Masodi’s electric engine fought futilely against the powerful current as the roaring, crashing water overwhelmed Dariya’s senses. The orange light from the burning skies disappeared and the cabin went dark as the wave loomed over them. Dariya felt like a tiny, miniscule insect, helpless in the clutches of this giant watery monster. The wave broke on top of them. Devouring them. Dariya’s view out the window was underwater, upside down. Turned over and over. A churning, frothing, deafening dark glimpse of a watery hell. Then she blacked out.

Dariya woke up, still strapped to her seat. She immediately felt the bruising pain where the harness had cut into her shoulders and hips. She had a terrible headache, but she was not dead. She was disorientated and aching, her head was pounding, and her mouth tasted of bile, but she knew she was fortunate to be able to feel anything. She looked at the limp forms of her father and brother. Both were still strapped into their seats, but they were unconscious and lifeless. “Paranjay! Pandita!” She yelled several times before she saw them stir. They were both alive. She cried out in relief. It was only then she took in her surroundings. Reluctant to release herself from the seat harness that had saved her life. The cabin was a mess, debris everywhere. But the Mahi Masodi had righted herself and the sea outside was calm. “Mahi,” she called but there was no response from the AI. She unclipped her harness and embraced her father and brother in silence. It was only then she accepted the fact she was really alive. They had survived. She began to cry. She could feel her father sobbing also as they held onto each other for a long time.

“I’m sorry,” sobbed Paranjay.

“It’s not your fault. You can’t blame yourself.”

“I’m never going fishing again,” said Pandita.

Dariya found some water and chompo bars and began to slowly tidy the cabin. Paranjay tried to awaken Mahi, but the boat was dead. The electrics fried.

“We are moving,” said Paranjay. “Can you feel it? We are moving slowly but the engine is dead. This can’t be possible.”

They found their breathers and helmets and cycled through the airlock, out onto the deck. All the equipment had disappeared. The tracer trays, buoys, railings, knives and gaffs had been torn from the deck leaving a smooth clean surface. Dariya looked around at the calm ocean. She had never believed in any God. Her father still occasionally muttered prayers to some old Hindu deities, more out of habit than any actual belief system. But Dariya thanked whatever Gods were listening now. She looked up at the sky. It had returned to its deep purpling darkness, edged by the eternal red horizon that was reassuringly consistent. They had somehow been dragged back to safety, away from the fiery terminator. But how? Mahi was dead.

“Look,” said Dariya pointing to the longline. The reel had survived the storm housed inside the hull and the line was tight with tension. It disappeared into the ocean ahead of them. They were being dragged by something. The three of them stood in silent contemplation. In the distance Dariya could see Vimana, her home, getting closer. The floating city was a huge dome shaped cluster of lights up ahead, silhouetted against the red. Forever sailing against the slow revolutions of the planet, leaving a gentle wake but going nowhere. They were catching up. Dariya went to the bow and attached her binoculars to her helmet. She magnified the point where the longline disappeared into the ocean. She stared at it. The taught line offered no clues to their rescuer. But Dariya knew it wasn’t any God, it was a fish. The beautiful big turquoise Sturgeon had saved them and was towing them home.