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THROUGH THE TURRET’S underwater porthole, I watch my husband swim blind and defenceless towards the humans. The fishermen aren’t hunting for us in the darkening navy ocean, their lines are baited for fish. Still, other dangers lurk in the rocks at night—sea stars, crabs, seagulls . . .
A high-pitched squeak pierces the silence. Has something gone wrong already? I squeeze my muscle against the glass and still my gills. The sound stops. The squeal came from me.
“He’ll be fine, Leah,” my father says, gliding through the turret’s dimmed freshwater to his sleep pad. “He’s done this before.”
“Not here,” I remind him. Arun once stopped his gills for a whole hour on our home planet of Taeual. But there he was surrounded by the freshwater of our communes, not Earth’s toxic saltwater. “And not without sight.”
“The salt would corrode his sight sensors, you know that.”
“Not if he wore his re-breather shell,” I grumble.
“We’ve tried that. We need to know if he can smell or track the native chitons better without it. He’ll come straight back if he can’t. He’ll be fine.”
“What if he isn’t?”
“We’re running out of time, Leah.”
I tighten my grip again. If our planet were in that much danger, they would have sent the military here, not our tiny group of scientists. “He won’t help anyone by dying tonight.”
“Nothing will happen.” My father lands on his pad, disconnects his sight sensors and plugs them in to recharge. “It’s just a trial.”
“An unnecessary one. We still have a whole month!”
My father switches off the last light in response. We’ve been having this conversation all day. He and Arun have agreed, as they always do, that the risks are worth it. If only I’d venture outside, they say, I’d see that this was the type of place where the parents brought their children to splash, where the ageing brought their tired limbs to train, and where no one would ever dream of hunting for us. Every day Arun tantalises me with his descriptions of the rock baths. But I shudder every time waves pound against the outside walls. To me, they’re waves of poison and will never be anything else, just as the humans will never be anything other than predators. I can’t understand what could make Arun think I’m missing out by staying safe inside the turret; and I’m angry with myself . . . Arun is just like my father, an irresponsible thrill-seeker, and I’m a sucker for wanting to see him happy. I’m also, therefore, going to end up alone.
I remain glued to the window until Arun and his night team are out of visual range, then glide to wait by the radio. Even though the fishermen won’t understand if they hear us, Arun’s team plan to maintain radio silence until they reach the rocks, as a precaution. The only sounds are the soft swishing of freshwater in and out of gills as my father and his day-crew sleep in the stacked pads above me. I’ll hear more if I disconnect my sight sensors. So I relieve my body of the artificial circuitry, creep on top of the radio’s control pad and let my hearing adjust.
Gradually more sounds come—the snapping of distant shrimp claws and fish crunching on coral, the resounding chink of what Arun says are chain-rails swinging against boardwalk posts, and the reassuring gush of water being piped from beach taps into our turret. The human government has gone to a lot of trouble to help us. They could have simply granted us permission to take samples and make observations, then left us to it. But they located this turret, converted it into a home and laboratory, and passed laws making it illegal for humans to hunt chitons of any kind. All we have to do is stay within the confines of what they call the aquatic reserve.
Of course none of that will protect us from being killed and eaten by some unsuspecting human who doesn’t know the law. Maybe that’s why the human government has been so helpful—they don’t want to be responsible for an intergalactic incident, as they have in the past with other species? War is the last thing my planet needs right now. Maybe theirs too?
My mucus glands fill as I think of home. At the rate our seawater is rising, it will reach our family’s commune in eleven months. Of course, like Earth, it depends on how fast global warming melts our ice caps.
The mucus oozes up through my body. I snort it into the water so it can dissipate before someone wakes up and realises I’ve been crying. We haven’t evolved eyes, like Earth’s chitons, we’ve evolved intelligence instead. So why can’t Arun use his brain to think a way around this? Seawater adaptation can’t be the only solution for our species.
With the control pad under my body, I shift my weight around, using pressure points to access research cells containing our latest findings. My father and Arun both anticipated that the chitons of Earth would be similar in size to our species, yet docile and inattentive. But when we got here, the dumb brutes were almost twice our size, had fully functioning eyes that could see us coming, and avoided us at every opportunity, leaving each other undetectable chemical cues along the rocks for swift escape routes. They’re so fast, yet collecting samples from them is vital to figuring out how the stupid buggers have adapted to the salt. If only we could totally submerge ourselves in the water, our sense of smell might hone in on their subtle tracks. At least that’s the theory Arun’s trying out tonight.
Finally, the radio crackles into life. I shift off the files and start recording. What I hear, though, is not the reporting of a controlled experiment.
“Not . . . You’re gonna be . . . Arun!”
I shift my body weight right so they can hear me. The crackling cuts out. “Leah here. What’s happening?” I lean left.
More crackling.
“Leah! He’s following . . . Get back, get back . . . Is that a . . .” Their yelling continues, distorted.
I shift right. “You’re on the wrong frequency. Can you hear me? Switch channels.”
No one answers. Then, through all the distortion . . . a word that makes my girdle shudder . . .
“Hook!”
“What’s going on?” I shout.
The crackling screeches higher, then falls into a gentle whooshing rhythm. “Leah,” says a clearer voice. Someone has re-tuned. It isn’t Arun. “We can’t see him. There are hooks everywhere. We’re coming back.”
“What? No!” I scream. “You can’t leave him there! He can’t see!”
“It’s too late, Leah. He’s gone. We’re excreting a track for him to follow in case he makes it.”
“You’ve already left? You can’t!”
Someone nudges me. “You don’t want them to get caught too, do you love?” My father’s scent follows the voice. “Let me up there.”
I slide down. Images flash through my mind: Arun caught on a hook, twisting in water as he’s reeled up, unable to see his way free.
I grab my sight sensors and attach my rebreather shell. My father’s already so deep in conversation with Arun’s night team he doesn’t hear me sling a spare rebreather shell over the top of mine. I dart past the sleeping day-crew and slide silently into the upper hatch. The clanking of the hatch’s lock is so loud it startles some of the day-crew awake.
“Leah!” my father shouts. “Wait! You don’t need to . . .”
“Arun is on the beach,” I yell back. “This is the quickest way.” I heave myself up, out of the water, and flop through the hatch onto a cold hard surface. Arun’s descriptions become my breathless black reality. Ahead of me is a boardwalk. It stretches across the rock baths, ending near the beach. Floodlights bolted to a tall pole cast long shadows over sandy rock plains. That’s where I have to go.
I angle my sight sensors, search behind me for danger, see only our curved turret and the grill of the upper exit hatch, so hurry towards the salty baths. The boardwalk’s swinging chain-rail chinks as wind howls over my shell. Crashing waves send sea spray into the churning emerald water. The floodlights’ yellow beams strike through the blue brine, turning it green. It’s both beautiful and deadly, and I’m running out of breath.
As soon as I feel the edge under my muscle, I throw myself in and swim like I’ve never swum before.
I’m halfway when the salt numbs my muscle. The water shallows. I’m almost there.
Then I hear the humans.
“Butter-binkin, butter-binkin.”
They aren’t on the beach anymore. They’re on the boardwalk, crouching around a white bucket. One of them is making notes on an electronic device. I slow, unsure how to get around them. Without a translator present, I can’t understand what they’re saying.
One of them gasps, points into the water.
I still my gills but it’s too late. Their bulging eyes are on me. I search around. There’s no camouflage, nothing red or green in sight. I’m clearly visible. I don’t know what else to do, so sink low and cling onto a boardwalk post.
Undeterred, the human faces move closer to the water surface. “Butter-binkin, butter-binkin.” Baring their teeth, they lower their bucket.
They’ll need more than a plastic rim to scrape me away. I tighten my grip and feel mucus rising. These humans have my husband, now they want me!
“Leah?” A familiar scent follows the voice.
“Arun?”
He glides out of the bucket, the scent of freshwater surrounding him.
I don’t understand. There’s also no time for questions. Arun can’t breathe in the saline rock baths. I shake off the spare rebreather shell. “Get inside this!”
Over his shoulder, the bucket rises out of the water. The human faces remain.
Arun attaches his shell. Filtered water swishes in and out of his gills. He can breathe.
There’s no stopping my mucus from pouring out now.
“It’s okay, Leah. Calm down. It was an accident. I told you, it’s safe here.” He nudges me. “You were right though, I shouldn’t have gone without my sight. I could’ve seen it all—the beach, at night, out of the water! It was beautiful, wasn’t it?”
“You . . . what?”
“Come on, let’s go back. I’ll tell you everything I found out about the dumb brutes. I know where they’ve been hiding; it’s easier to track them from the beach.”
“But the . . .” I look up. The faces have gone.
Arun nudges me again then starts swimming.
“The humans,” I ask, “they . . . saved you?”
“You know, I don’t think we’re that palatable to them.”
I can hear my father before we even reach the hatch. He’s seen the whole thing and his voice is smug. “I told her she didn’t need to go.”
***
THE NEXT EVENING, ARUN and I flop out of the hatch again but this time we swim across the rock baths in a leisurely glide. The humans are there again; some with fishing rods, others with electronic devices. This time though, Arun can see them.
“Amazing,” he says as we crawl out the shallow end, over the rock plains to the beach. “It’s so colourful out of the water.” He gazes at the green land-coral on the tall cliffs. “It’s also easier to find the dumb brutes from here—you see?”
I do. Mostly brown and yellow, they’re hiding among the rocks. Finally we’ll get the data we need.
“Butter-binkin, butter-binkin.”
Behind me, the humans are crouching low again, and pointing as we dive from rock pool to rock pool for breath.
“Butter-binkin, butter-binkin.”
“You know what, Leah?” Arun asks, his sight sensors wide. “I think the humans like you.”
“Butter-binkin.” The faces move closer again, bare their teeth. But I understand now this doesn’t mean they wanted to eat us.
“For once, Arun,” I say, widening my sight sensors too. “I think you’re right.”
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR: ZENA Shapter writes from a castle in a flying city hidden by a thundercloud. Her writing reaches across ages and genre into the heart of storytelling. Author of ‘Towards White’ (IFWG 2017) and co-author of ‘Into Tordon’ (MidnightSun 2016), she’s won over a dozen national writing competitions—including a Ditmar Award, the Glen Miles Short Story Prize and the Australasian Horror Writers’ Association Award for Short Fiction. Her short work has appeared in the Hugo-nominated ‘Sci Phi Journal’, ‘Midnight Echo’ (as well as their Australian Shadows Awarded ‘best of’ anthology), ‘Antipodean SF’ and Award-Winning Australian Writing (twice). Reviewer for Tangent Online Lillian Csernica has referred to her as a writer who “deserves your attention”. She’s a movie buff, keen traveller, story nerd, and inclusive creativity advocate, who’s founded community creativity projects for writers such as the ‘Art & Words Project’ and the award-winning Northern Beaches Writers’ Group. She’s also a writing mentor, editor, book creator, HSC English tutor, Service NSW Creative Kids Provider, and short story judge. Find her online via every major social media platform and zenashapter.com
