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Hoarfrost, Lupasha System, Coro Region, Tolo Arm
January 4th, 2038
Terry rolled over in his bunk and stretched. After a week, his joints no longer ached with every movement. Unlike the cetaceans, the Humans hadn’t been getting treatments to live at the extreme depths of their new home. Their bodies weren’t designed to live at such depths. Orcas had been observed to dive more than 300 meters. That was nothing compared to the 2,000 meters of ice over their heads.
“I wish the place didn’t smell like rotten fish,” he said as his feet hit the deck. As usual, it was cold. He was always cold. After a lifetime in Molokai and always being warm, he thought they should have named the place Hell. He’d learned in school that the Vikings believed in a frozen hell, not a hot one. Made sense if you lived in the icy north.
The room’s lights came on to show the stark grey walls. He had his own room again, 28.8 cubic meters of opulence. His bunk, a little desk, a chair, and a toilet that wasn’t shaped for his butt. The toilet also converted into a shower, but it only sprayed cold water.
He went into the bathroom and washed up a bit, brushed his teeth, and used the toilet. The mirror was a highly polished piece of stainless steel. It worked well enough.
One level down, and he was in the mess hall. The sun wasn’t visible to them, so day and night cycles had been established to match what they’d been used to on Molokai. Since it was breakfast time, the place was crowded. Conversations bubbled all around, some quiet, some loud. A few laughed, a couple cried. Adjusting to the pressure was a personal process. Not everyone experienced it the same way.
His mom came in and made her way over to him, standing in the food line. She was smiling, which got his attention. “What’s up?” he asked.
“They got the first set of heaters working.”
“Oh, thank god!” he said. “When?” She pointed up, and he tracked her gesture. A series of fabric tubes the engineers had strung the day they arrived in the hopes the heating system worked as planned had sat, unmoving, for days. As if her gesture was the cue, they began to billow, then stiffened. The first breeze of warm air blew across his face.
All around the room people looked up, some in confusion, many in amazement. They all wore just about every piece of clothing they had with them in order to keep warm. The habitat’s atmosphere processing and basic power systems created enough heat to keep it from being freezing inside, but nobody in their right mind would call 10 degrees Celcius warm. They’d also been sleeping in shiny reflective space blankets to keep warm.
“Warm air!” someone yelled. A wave of applause rippled across the room, which quickly grew to loud cheering, and then a standing ovation. Terry’s mom patted him on the shoulder and walked up to the front of the room where a low stage sat. The mess hall was also their meeting room, currently. When the people saw her, they fell silent.
“The staff hasn’t had much sleep the last week,” she said, “as I’m sure you all know.” The door opened, and three people walked in, all looking oily and tired. “I think we owe Melissa and her men a round of applause.”
The three new arrivals stopped in their tracks as everyone in the room applauded them, many yelling their thanks. The leader, Melissa, waved her hands to stop the applause. “This is just the start,” she said. “We have the power transfers working properly now, so we’ll have all the rest of the regular support systems working in short order.” More applause. “But first we’d like some food, and some sleep.”
“It feels so good,” Terry said when she rejoined him. It was already warm enough that many were removing some of their extra layers. Terry set aside one of the two jackets he’d been wearing.
“It sure does,” she agreed. “You get any food yet?”
“Still waking up,” he said and yawned.
“How do you feel?”
Terry flexed his arms and nodded. “Better,” he said.
She nodded and flexed her own arms. “Me, too. In fact, everyone seems to be getting there.”
Their nominal medical staff had done everything they could to accelerate the acclimation process, but mostly it involved letting people adjust. Each day the pressure had gotten higher, until they were the equivalent of one kilometer down. Science had figured out how to allow people to acclimate much deeper, though it would take months. Coming up would be just as hard. The pressure would now only increase a few PSI per day.
“Any luck with the rotten fish smell?” he asked.
“They found a scent dispersal system,” she said.
“You mean it stinks on purpose?” he asked. She nodded. They’d thought there must be a huge cache of rotten fish left behind by the Selroth. Now it looked like they liked the smell and had done it on purpose.
“They’ve turned one off, but there must be another.”
Luckily for everyone, they’d brought their own autochefs and supplies. The food was at least pretty good, even if some of the prepackaged stuff had imploded the previous day. Afterward, the cooks had taken measures to prevent any more losses until they could get local food processing properly.
After he’d eaten, he got up. “I have to go check on Pōkole,” he said.
“Dr. Jaehnig says he’s doing fine,” she said.
“Yeah, he’s used to the feeding system. Little guy just misses me.”
“Don’t forget, classes this afternoon.” Terry rolled his eyes. “Be there, young man.”
“Fine,” he said and left. His mother yelled something after him, but Terry pretended not to hear her.
Leaving the mess hall, he went down two levels to the main floor, where he could see the dome. Their entire habitat was built inside a dome made from a single piece of ruby formed by the Izlians deep inside a gas giant. The technicians explained it was a molecular matrix that would handle almost any pressure difference. Regardless, it was hard to believe the water pushing on it was over 100 kilograms per square centimeter.
“One tiny crack,” he said, looking at the dome.
Even so, the view was worth it. Thousands of lights were placed all around the dome at regular intervals, providing light during daytime hours. By projecting the light out, the brightly illuminated water created a more natural glow in the dome’s interior. Outside, a pair of orcas swam past, too far away for Terry to tell who it might be. In addition, a dizzying array of native fish swam everywhere.
The native fish were blind, never having evolved eyes two kilometers under the ice. Instead, they possessed many varied ways of sensing their environment. These ranged from incredibly delicate pressure sensors on many, including the larger predators, to feelers. Many of the plant-eating fish sported a fan of ridiculously long feelers that reminded Terry of a mustache, used to find plant life along the many common volcanic vents.
The dome was built on the flattened top of an extinct undersea volcano. It was within a hundred meters of the ice, which extended for two kilometers above their heads; the melt shaft another hundred meters to the side. They weren’t directly under the shaft, so if an accident happened, it wouldn’t sink directly onto the dome, which wasn’t indestructible.
As they were still working to get the habitat fully operational, the mines weren’t yet a priority. They were scattered all around the habitat in every direction at varying depths, from a few hundred meters below them to several kilometers.
Inside the dome, their habitat was a series of buildings, varying from the five-story living quarters he was just leaving to the ten-story administrative and control systems building whose roof met the top center of the dome. Several smaller buildings were dotted around as well. He was heading for the one tasked as cetacean care, a two-story sprawling building with one of the habitat’s three locks.
As he walked to the building, he passed a bunch of kids playing a kickball game. They were all younger, and seemed oblivious to both the view and the fact they were under the ice on an alien moon. They were just happy to be off the starships and to have ground under their feet, even if it was volcanic stone. The group noticed him and waved. Somehow, he’d become famous among the children.
The cetacean care building, dubbed the CC, was where Dr. Jaehnig had set up. As their sole cetacean-qualified physician, he was also their main Human doctor. Since he was forced to wear two hats, he wanted to be closer to those who would need him more.
The doors to the building were open, though a sign proclaimed, “The Doctor is Out.” Dr. Jaehnig had a staff of five others, two fully-trained medical techs and three nurses, one of whom was learning to be a doctor. Terry knew the medical staff was one of their biggest concerns.
Terry went in and through the small waiting area into the back of the first floor, where Dr. Jaehnig had his office. The physician looked up and smiled when he saw who his visitor was.
“Good morning, Mr. Clark,” he said.
Being called Mister made Terry feel strange. His father was Mr. Clark. “Morning, Dr. Jaehnig. How are your patients?”
“They’re fine,” he said. “The robot feeder is doing its job, and the cetaceans are continuing to eat their way through everything they can find that swims.”
Despite being thousands of meters under the ice, Hoarfrost had evolved a wide variety of marine life. Most of it was various plants feeding off large amounts of nutrients ejected from deep sea vents, tiny animals feeding on those, and on up. The largest aquatic animal was a dinosaur-looking fish a meter long, which fed on smaller dinosaur-looking fish. At least until the Selroth had come along.
Terry caught movement out of the corner of his eye. One entire wall of the building was constructed against the ruby dome. Outside, one of the Floot flashed into view. It smashed into the wall and ricocheted off at an angle. No sound of the impact passed through the super-hard ruby wall. The Floot was classified as closest to the genus Chelonia, the green turtle. Except the Floot had six flippers and a long flexible neck, which could retreat into the shell, and a flippered tail for extra power.
A second after the Floot swam away, one of the orcas appeared in hot pursuit. Dr. Jaehnig shook his head and made a note in one of his slates. “They haven’t figured out how to eat the Floots yet, but they keep trying.”
Hunting the native life proved easy, since they were all blind. The Floot had been imported by the Selroth. Apparently they’d brought their own sea creatures for food and amusement. The marine biologists had been horrified to learn this fact, saying the damage to the biosphere was probably irreversible.
Dr. Patel was working on a study of the various Selroth species they’d encountered. He’d assembled a list from the GalNet of creatures from the aliens’ home world and was marking them off as each was located. To this point they hadn’t seen an Oohobo, a large predatory species native to the Selroth planet.
Terry looked at some of the Tri-V displayed details on Selroth marine species, noting their eyes shared similar characteristics—silvery with red rims and two irises. A strange and cool evolutionary adaptation.
Another of Dr. Jaehnig’s Tri-Vs was showing a dissected local fish with descriptions pointing to various parts and organs. Terry could hear Dr. Patel’s voice speaking as the dissection proceeded.
“Have they brought in any new fish today?” he asked.
“One of the bottlenoses, Hula, did a few hours ago. It was chewed up a bit, though.” He gestured to a table, and Terry went over to look at it.
“It’s got legs,” he said.
“Looks like it,” Dr. Jaehnig said. “Not my specialty. Patel will look at it this afternoon.” The scientist glanced over at another slate. “You going to handle feeding Pōkole?”
“Yes,” Terry said. Dr. Jaehnig nodded and went back to watching the video and putting bits of fish into test tubes.
Terry walked though several doors and down a corridor to the lock area. Of the city’s three locks, only two were currently working. One of them was the submarine bay, which was still slowly transporting equipment down from the surface at the rate of one trip a day. The other was in CC, and acted as the center of all underwater operations.
As soon as he entered the moon pool room, he saw Doc and his crew were already there. “Hey, guys!” he said.
“What’s up, kiddo?” Doc asked, glancing up from their project. All seven mercs were working on a series of big robots hanging from frameworks. They hadn’t been there yesterday.
“Robots?” he asked.
“Not quite,” Doc said. “We’ll show you soon.”
“Aw, come on?”
“Chill, kid,” Honcho said, flipping up a welding mask to glance at him.
“Yeah,” Hutch said. He and Peyton weren’t helping much; they were playing cards, as usual.
“You never said if you’ll be leaving for any other contracts,” Terry said, hoping to change course and keep his eyes on what they were doing.
“Not sure yet,” Doc said while looking at a slate Terry couldn’t see.
“Going to take us three days to decompress from here,” Tina said and shrugged. “Plus we have to rely on passive comms so nobody knows we’re here.”
“Go feed the fish, kid,” Toothpick said, gesturing with his head toward the moon pool.
Reluctantly, Terry turned and headed over toward the moon pool. He glanced back once but still couldn’t see anything. What the heck are they working on? he thought.
He reached the pool, and Pōkole immediately surfaced and chirped at him. “Hey, buddy,” Terry said, “how you doing?” The young orca bobbed his head up and down quickly. He’d become much more expressive in the last few weeks before arriving on Hoarfrost, though Terry could tell he also missed his mom.
A movement drew his attention, and he saw Moloko floating just outside the lock. She had part of a dead sea creature and was playing with it. The life was so abundant around their habitat, the colonists were eating the stores put back for the cetaceans, because they didn’t need it. Terry touched the transmit on his translator.
“Good morning, Moloko.”
“Morning, Warden Terry,” she replied. “How Pōkole?”
“He is fine, but misses you.” Terry took the ready bottle, and the calf greedily drank.
“How now soon?”
“Nine days,” Terry said, after checking his slate to be sure. The pressure equalization was slower because of the Humans, which was hard for the cetaceans to understand. “Where are the rest of the orcas?” he asked.
“They go.”
“Where?”
“Explore.”
“Oh,” he said. This was the first he’d heard about them exploring. “What are they looking for?”
“Shool!”
They’re looking for their god? Terry thought. “How are they looking?”
“Call into deep. Wait. Listen.”
“Have they heard anything back?”
“Not yet.”
An hour later he was finished with Pōkole and headed back out. Doc and his people were nowhere in sight, and neither was their project. He made a face as he casually looked around the equipment bay, only finding random tools and testing equipment.
He must have still been scowling a few minutes later when he ran into his mom as he was heading toward the classroom area.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
“Nothing,” he lied. She gave him her stern mom face. “The orcas are looking for their god, and Doc and the guys are up to something and won’t tell me what.”
“As for their god, that’s up to them,” she said and shrugged. “Dr. Orsage thinks it’s therapeutic for them, being isolated from the sky and Earth.”
“I guess that makes sense,” Terry agreed.
“Yeah, it’s probably harmless. As for Doc and his guys hiding things from you, how horrible,” she said with a smile, which did nothing to reduce his saltiness.
“Everyone says I’m important. Why are they keeping secrets from me?”
“Only a couple get to know everything going on, and I’m sorry to say you aren’t one of them.” He looked down, embarrassed. “You’re a huge help, but you don’t have to know everything. You’re not old enough to be responsible.”
“I know,” he said, feeling like a grade-school kid.
“As one of those who knows everything going on, I can guarantee you’ll be quite excited by what the guys are working on.” He brightened up, hoping she was about to spill the beans. “That said, aren’t you going to be late for your first class?”
He checked his watch. She was right, class started in five minutes. “Yeah,” he said.
“Get going, you’ll find out soon enough.” She continued in the direction she’d been heading.
* * * * *
