Interstellar travel—the Guāngguànhuán Drive enables escape from the Solar System
The Galactive Interactive is founded. The number of planets with a population exceeding one billion (Gigas) increases to twelve. Industrial Secretary of the Pan-planetary Minister Assembly, Shin Zūron, declares that the Astro Duodenum calendar was to replace the Anno Domini calendar. (He stuttered as he said ‘Astro Duodenum’ on the podium. Every planetary representative opposed his declaration.)
The Galactive Interactive massively expands. The number of Gigas increases to 15. The total human population is 40,000,000,000.
The Gendo emigration fleet arrives at a new solar system. They call themselves the Circs. The Circ calendar begins.
The tensiometer graph monitoring the 8000-meter fishing line suddenly spiked.
“Hit!”
From the gloomy control deck of the Insidious, a spacecraft littered with various retrofitted devices, the voice of a young gunner nervously rang out. The captain calmly responded, “Is it a stationary tornado?”
“Doesn’t match.”
“Is it an accretion of suspended bake particles? Or maybe it’s reeling in our own trash?”
“Doesn’t match, the tension pattern of that sorta false positive’s completely different,” Itar, the young gunner, responded, briefly stopping to search and compare previous graph records. “In tornadoes, the tension undulates periodically, and dust clouds produce a long, soft tug. But this one shot right up, and then kept oscillating weakly. If I had to guess, it's debris or something from an ejector, but whatever it is has a weird pattern…”
Smiling, he then turned around.
“No data—but that much was obvious already.”
“Quiet!”, a voice asserted before the ten or so crewmembers could grow any more excited. “What’s obvious is the fishing's already started. Time for our real work to begin. We're reeling it in no matter what!”
It came from Gendo Magiri, the soon-to-be 40-year-old captain. Her red lips moved as she played with wavy black hair hanging over her forehead. She looked over her trusted subordinates, eyes glistening with excitement.
“All crew! Prepare to fish!”
That order echoed from one corner of the ship to the other for the first time ever while the winged ship sliced through the vast brick-colored sky on powerful rockets.
“Let’s do this!” “This one's ours!” “Don’t mess this up.”
With Magiri’s words, the crew members all faced back to their devices. Magiri's subordinate, Officer Sivi Endeavour, kept watch over her from the back corner of the captain's seat. She had conflicting feelings. Captain Magiri was best suited to firing up the crew, so seeing her rein things in felt incredibly wrong—especially when long ago, someone else had been a perfect fit for the job of maintaining order and quiet. Ten years had already passed since that person vanished, but the hole they left never seemed to have been filled...
That thought in mind, she looked at the window-shaped screen displaying the ship's exterior. Of course, there was nothing to remember them by out there, much evoke their memory.
Not a single mountain or tower jutted from that sea of clouds. There were no forests, rivers, or islands, not even an ocean. Only ammonia clouds, pure white and crystalline, graced the vast hydrogen sky; below it, a drifting layer of ash-like bake shrouded a mix of acetylene, hydrazine, sulfide and phosphine that yawned into an abyss more than 20,000 km deep.
Fat Beach Ball was a gas giant, and its horizontal stripes and enormous vortices were reminiscent of Jupiter, another planet from another time. The ship traversed its northern hemisphere, staying 30 kilometers above the 1 ATM level. However, referencing sea level to that was only for the sake of convenience—it wasn't the ship's point of departure.
It hadn’t ascended from below but descended from space.
The Insidious had been remodeled for that purpose. For the last 15 years the many dual-function ships constructed in orbit scooped up bake, the raw material for so many essentials, and hauled it in with purpose-made equipment. However, the once plentiful particles of suspended bake had substantially thinned out. The fleet now often found itself in the red.
There hadn't been any glimpse of hope until two years ago, when a fish was sighted swimming through FBB's atmosphere. It was unprecedented for a gas giant, but the sight hadn't been a mere optical illusion or strange cloud—it was certainly a solid body. With that certainty came the determination to hunt down the fish and discover its true nature.
The sighting led the hundreds of ships orbiting the planet to join forces, everyone desiring the resources which would allow the population of Circs, now 50,000, to survive.
The fleet made a grave miscalculation while it was still en route to the planet eighteen years earlier. Gas giants in a star system usually have many satellites, but that certainly hadn't been the case with FBB—not a single metallic or rocky moon orbited it. The left the fleet stranded with only a limited supply of the most essential materials to maintain it.
Their recycling efforts, alongside developments following the discovery of bake, a burnt-looking powdery substance, had kept them afloat. Still, it was impossible to halt aging. Their ships and equipment continued to deteriorate over time, and their supplies would only sustain the population for another year or two before it became a crisis if things continued in that direction.
It was then, when doom seemed inevitable, that the fish was sighted.
If they managed to catch that fish, it would supply far more resources, far more efficiently, than dozens of hours of scooping bake could ever provide. So, the best way to go about it...?
Fishing. A hook and line on a reel.
Despite 6500 years removed from Earth, human culture continued to pass down fishing.
The Insidious was not a remodeled bake-collecting ship. It was a battleship. Still, equipped with four high-thrust engines and massive collapsible wings, it made for a powerful dual-use ship. Its rear cargo bay housed a purpose-built drum for their fishing line, along with a hopper to hold their catch. The line was made of carbon and its hook was forged titanium.
There had been some debate over what to use as bait but they ultimately settled on making a boilie from bake. The self-proclaimed (and formerly wealthy) fishing enthusiast Xīnxīng argued it was proper practice to use live bait while in fishing grounds. Not that the point mattered much when, without an ounce of doubt, there were neither earthworms nor ragworms at FBB. It hadn't caused much of an issue.
Then the last question: who would cast the reel?
“The tension massively increased! It's at 65 kilonewtons!”
It was the gunner of the former battleship Insidious, Itar, seated at the reel's operation panel. In lieu of a main gun it now had various fishing tools, and while the tools had changed the shared sentiment was that Itar's job of vanquishing foes had not. He was putting his reel operation skills to the test in front of the full bridge crew.
“67, 68, 73, 69...!”
“So, our target must weigh around 7 tonnes. Pretty big, huh? Did it figure out what's happening and start struggling?”
“Yeah, seems like it.”
“This one's a bit slow to react, eh?”
“That's to be expected, y'know. I doubt any fish on this planet has ever been caught like this before.”
“Aha, does this mean that we’re this planet's first fishermen?”
“Are we going down in history...?”
“That's only if we come back alive—now focus! Verify the status of all parts!” Magiri's voice sounded in the bridge, then reverberated through speakers across the ship. “Rear bay, how's the tension on the rod?! The reel's temperature?! Preparations for the hopper?!”
“The stress on the rod suspension is at 40% of design.”
“The reel's motor temperature is at 349K, within normal range. 7981 meters of dragline's been pulled, with our expected margin at 2000 meters.”
“All clear, the hopper is on stand-by!”
“Reel and hopper, worst-case, you have the option to dump our catch. Main engine! Wings!”
“Wing 1, 2 and 4 thrusters are working nominally. Wing 3 bake filter is currently flushing... Flushing complete, no abnormalities!”
“No foil abnormalities.”
“Bulge Dome! Can you see it?”
“We can't, the bake’s too thick.”
Unlike the lively voices of the rear, port and starboard workers, the voice from the worker in the aft port observation dome was subdued.
“We’ll continue pointing the 150mm scope at the line, but we don't have visuals beyond the 5000 mark. As soon as we sight it, we'll report back immediately.”
“All right, got i–”
“Wait, something's showing up!” Not even a second later, another report from the Bulge Dome interrupted Magiri.
“It’s finally visible, the bake’s cleared out! Set the range to 7800 and turn to channel 3,” the worker said hurriedly, and almost as an afterthought added, “Woah, it's ugly!”
The real-time transmission from the 150mm refractor pointing out below the dome on Insidious' lower decks incited the same reaction from the bridge crew.
“Ew, gross” “Fugly.” “That's an interesting shape.” “What is that...”
Displayed on the screen was a long and thin torso with multiple thin spiky protrusions spread across its surface, zigzagging clumsily. Whatever it was looked like a black fish no less than 4 meters long.
“Eda, do you think that this is an alien li–” Magiri, noticing her mistake, quickly cut her sentence short and covered her mouth. The others averted their gaze, as if used to it.
“I mean, Papa Henri. Could this possibly be an alien life form? The real deal?”
At Magiri's prompting, the elder Black scientist hacked a cough and looked at the display, unfazed.
“If that's the case, then it’s great news! Its symmetry is quite broken, but creatures like that aren’t unheard of out there. Many species of crab and shellfish have pincers very different in size from one other, and there are also the eji from Solma System's north, which are well-known for being completely asymmetrical animals. I can identify what seem to be a tail and torso—ah, the head too! Those little dents on the sides of its head might be sensory organs, and since it was capable of taking our bait, we can assume it has a mouth. So, if it's capable of excreting... that would make it an animal, one surprisingly similar to something from Earth. But of course, we can only be sure after we catch it—until then, it's only a possibility.”
“Mhm, understood, thank you. Let's give it a name! What should it be, everyone?”
Magiri looked around as her team stared up absently, before they finally spoke.
“Twisty rascal! It's like a bratty kid twisting and flailing around!" “It's got fins, it's got spikes...thin stickleback?” “How about jīwǔkōng?” “Besshu.” “Arête brûlée is perfect, isn't it? Don't you think it looks like a failed attempt at roasting a fish?”
“Wait, what did you just say? Radenvijaya.” Magiri called on the shipwright, a young boy whose stare was fixed on the display. He was quiet and soft-spoken. Even during at critical moments, he was the type to stay silent until prompted, often carrying out his duties wordlessly. The others, aware of his taciturn personality, fell quiet.
“Besshu.” Repeating himself, the boy turned around wearing a wise expression, “It's a fish, and it's vague, it moves around and we can't make much sense of it. So if we join the two...vague, vei, bei...fish...we get besshu.”
“Besshu, huh? Rolls right off the tongue. It also kinda sounds like 'bake fish'...good, isn't it? Everyone.”
Magiri looked around and everyone nodded as if to say ‘not bad’. Someone spoke up again with “Arête brûlée...”, but before the disagreement could take root, there was a loud thud and the bridge violently shook.
Magiri tumbled from the captain's seat, but Sivi, lurking behind her, quickly caught the older woman's body with the help of her high-g suit's actuator before she could get hurt.
“What?”
“The tension's at 350 kilonewtons!”
The bridge fell dead silent. Papa Henri then shouted.
“35 tonnes? What happened?!”
“If you've got the time to name it, then you’ve also got the time to look down!!” Itar shouted, and the team turned their eyes back to the display without reply. To their surprise, something else was pulling at the body of the hooked besshu...
Its lower half was engulfed by another solid body five times larger.
The besshu wasn't alone. Below it, multiple shadows could be seen swarming in the bake.
“Are they eating each other?!” “This is bad, one of them is 20 meters long!” “That couldn't possibly fit into the rear bay, could it?” “No, the catcher is absolutely going to break if we attempt to bring it–”
The big besshu turned and violently yanked the reel line, rocking the entire ship. Itar, breaking out in a cold sweat, shouted, “400 kilonewtons! The reel's near its limit! If it gets over 500 kilonewtons it'll go flying! Captain, what should we do?”
"Shall we toss the jetsam?” asked Papa Henri, arm positioned and ready to press the two emergency disposal buttons. Before he could do it, Magiri shook her head.
“Itar, how many kilonewtons can the bay structure handle?”
“If we're talking about the main frame then... probably 1200 kilonewtons for a static load. While we enforce a 60-tonne maximum limit, our safety factor is at least double that.”
“Hmm. So we can trust the fishing line of a large-scale ship like this to handle 200 tonnes. Alright, pilot, line us up with our prey! Rear bay! Support the line with two– no, six columns of the main frame!”
“Won't fixing the line in place tangle it?” Itar shouted in surprise.
In response, Magiri flashed a confident smile. “Mhm, but it's not going to break, yeah? We're dragging it with us.”
“You want to drag it to exhaustion?! For how long?!”
Gendo Magiri would later become a mythical leader of the early Circs, but her capivating repsonse was the only saying that still endured from that time:
“Until we're down to the last ship, of course. Why give up on this planet without even trying?”
Holding a lunch basket on one arm, a woman in plain clothes—tunic, culotte and boots for ease of movement, hair in a loose braid—entered the thicket with confident steps on leaf-littered undergrowth.
Sivi Endeavour stopped at a small sunny spot. Ivy wrapped the crumbling ruins of a tall, almost elegant, stone rampart that formed a dead end in front and left of her. It radiated the mood of a bygone era. Parked just in front of that dead end was a decaying covered wagon, its frame canted on broken spoke wheels. A single horse grazed on the many wildflowers growing around the wagon.
Sivi called out to the little corner that resembled a secret spot on the outskirts of a forest. “Magiri, have you already taken a look at our first report?”
Silence responded, as though the place was empty. Sivi walked to the back of the covered wagon and gave the horse a gentle pat on the back in passing, which caused it to quickly trot away. Peeking inside, she found the woman she was searching for looking out through the wagon's opening, wrapped in an old blanket.
The task of visiting Magiri here was always a bit hard on Sivi's heart. Not that Magiri’s behavior was unreasonable or unearned, which was why Sivi tried not to pay it much mind. She set the lunch basket on the wagon bed, turned around, and before waiting simply asked, “Would you like some?”
A small bird perched on a branch of an elm tree chirped. It was real, not a hologram or robot, and so was the tree it perched on. Horseflies loudly buzzed around canola flowers. The horse running to the nearby spring was artificial though, and so to were the glowing rays of light. The system's G star, Mother Beach Ball, was 680,000,000 km away, and its distant light didn't carry much warmth. However, it was undeniable that this ship’s space was a splendid recreation of Earth's surface.
The Circ ships orbiting the gas giant were generally poor, so they couldn't gift their leaders with an official residence. The freight ship Idaho, which used centrifugal force to simulate gravity, contained the little garden as a gift instead. Only the leaders of the 24 codenamed Circ ships were permitted entry, along with Magiri's trusted bridge crew—Sivi and the others.
Magiri wasn't just the captain of her own ship, she was Great Chief Magiri, admiral of the entire Circ fleet. Recently, she’d offered to captain a fishing boat again and was strangely eager about it. She'd been vetoed, but not because she wasn't capable. Quite the opposite—she was too capable.
At the start of the Circ Calendar (CC), mistakes by the people in charge caused ships to sink into cloudy hell left and right. Many believed the Circs would have already met with certain demise much earlier if two women, talented and charismatic, hadn't replaced the leadership instead of allowing things to run their course.
In CC 3 the two, Gendo Magiri and Prof. Lucid—known as The Vesperian Sailor and The Exceptional Eda—were colleagues. Although they worked on bake collection, their innovation of coverting bake into raw materials made them massively popular. That allowed them—spontaneously and unconstitutionally—to overthrow the old leadership. They had been responsible for bringing progress and order to the Circ fleet.
In the 15 years since, Magiri had not only been the type of leader to govern kindly and cheerfully, but she’d also been strong. She was unwavering in times of suffering and always pulled the 50,000 Circs through those times with her. Even after Prof. Lucid's passing in CC 8, with the exception of a short mourning period, she continued to display leadership and advance their civilization. Her charisma was unmatched. That was why even the few surviving leaders of the old guard didn't just agree it was best for her to remain somewhere safe, they insisted on it.
Somewhere safe, exactly like this little corner and its wagon. However, while she quietly kept put for the moment, those boundless brick-colored skies were still a core part of her being. If something happened and she recognized the opportunity, who knew if she'd force her way out and once again descend to the planet's atmosphere.
Sivi Endeavour worked for Magiri, someone she not only deeply admired—but someone she admired. That was why she had both personal and professional reasons to stop Magiri from venturing out, but more than anyone else, she knew how essential it was to Magiri. That was why, no matter how painful she found it, there was nothing Sivi could do to stop her.
Maintaining her calm, Sivi began pouring liquid from a bottle. The noise caught Magiri's attention, who curiously asked what it was.
Back still turned, Sivi replied, “Just some coffee-like.”
“It's fake?”
“Produced with a molecular printer. Compositionally, there shouldn’t be any difference from the real thing. It's a prototype developed by Moshi clan's cultivation crafters.”
“The real thing's not this bitter! Wait, is this bitter because it’s real? Mm...if that's how it is then I want some printed sugar and milk too.”
“I’ll be sure to pass on your high praise, Magiri.”
Magiri then sat on the corner of the wagon frame. She was only dressed in a bra and panties, and her hair was a mess. She brought the coffee cup to her sleepy face to take a sip, then picked up a sandwich from the basket and stuffed her cheeks. Every now and then she'd say, “Sorry about this” and Sivi would respond with “It's okay.” A distance of 15 centimeters separated the two.
“Y'know, Vi, I keep telling you that you don't have to stick around a gloomy auntie like me. You’re quite popular, and I'm sure you've got so many better options out there.”
“I'm here on my own accord.”
“Hmm.”
“I'm not trying to replace the professor.”
“That's a lie, and you know it.”
“Sorry.”
“Hm, well.” Magiri exhaled, the smell of coffe on her breath. “Honestly, you've been a great help. Who knows when I'll stumble!”
“Glad to be of service. I'll look forward to it.”
Ten years like this. The two feeling every one of the 15 centimeters between them.
“My bad, I've only been giving off mixed signals. I'm just tired. I thought I’d try to depend on others more, but it's no use. Everyone coming to me all at once is too much to handle.”
“Yeah, I get you.”
“I think you're the only one who does, hah.” She wiped her right eye with the back of her hand and stretched, straightening her back. Then turning around, she asked “So, putting this slightly too sincere conversation aside, what were you asking about?”
“I asked if you had already taken a look at our initial report. Papa Henri and Radenvijaya finished their autopsy and compositional analysis of the besshu we captured. So, we need to discuss what comes next–” Sivi eagerly answered Magiri, as if that conversation hadn’t happened. The two were accustomed to this sudden shift in the mood between them.
It was afternoon, two days after the four hour and thirty-minute besshu fishing operation in FBB's atmosphere. “Aah, okay, okay, I'll take a look at the draft now.” she said, pulling on a shirt and pants inside the covered wagon before returning with a scale in hand. Sivi similarly produced an information board from her sleeve and began reading the report.
“The besshu's body is primarily composed of carbon, silicon, germanium—so elements in the carbon family—and a previously unknown lithium isotope, which together account for 80% of the body–”
“What do you mean an unknown lithium isotope?!”
“Well, it's unknown, so we can't really explain it yet... The besshu was capable of flight thanks to its light composition. We also identified nitrogen, oxygen, chlorine, sulfur, phosphorus, iron, zinc and, of course, atmospheric components—hydrogen and helium. In other words, it's not edible, but it can be used as an ore. A very good one at that.”
“I'm gonna cry. We finally discover an alien life form and instead of learning its eating habits or mating dances or whatever, our only choice is first figuring out how to put it to use. Makes me feel too much like a groundskeeper...”
Sivi gave an in-depth lecture about the creatures they’d named besshu. She gave more details about their very unusual composition, along with a structural comparison between fish on Earth and FBB. She also said bit more about the previously mentioned unknown isotope and how it might diverge from everything known about alkali metals. She then answered the questions Magiri, who had skipped the briefing to sleep, had on points regarding the report ranging from crucial to abysmally stupid. By the end, Magiri was up to speed on the state of knowledge regarding besshu.
They had also noticed common points in composition between the besshu they’d fished up, the bake collected thus far, observations made of the planet's atmosphere, and rocks they referred to as 'ejectors' that were spewed up from a lower layer in the atmosphere. It had led them to the theory that a solid structure lurked in FBB’s depths, something a gas giant wasn’t supposed to have. Chances were that another celestial body had sunk into its depths...
“Another body? There's no way to prove that, right? It's quite romantic.”
“We do have a mountain's worth of records of icy comet impacts, though.”
“That may be, but that's basically saying that those comets carried life with them, yeah? So romantic.”
“Please leave the romance for later, I also have a mountain’s worth of other things to think about...”
Since the fishing trip hadn’t turned a profit, Radenvijaya had suggested they try trawling with a large tunnel net next time. They'd greatly improve their take while reducing resource expenditure if they managed to catch a full school of fish with it, but managing the gigantic net meant they’d need a ship with an incredibly powerful engine. Needless to say, there was an argument over who would provide the necessary equipment.
Although Sivi tried to keep their conversation moving along, Magiri hung up on this point. She started by asking, “A powerful engine? Have they tried using besshu powder as fuel?” Further disconnecting from the matter at hand, she started musing that besshu could support a new industry and ordered an investigation so as not to let the opportunity pass. At any rate, she had clearly lost focus.
Sivi had no other choice but to continue the conversation with Magiri in that state. “Oh yeah, it was Papa Henri who said this, but apparently the besshu have strange properties.”
“I mean, at this point, is there anything about them that isn’t strange?”
“Well, yeah, but this time it was really strange. After they finished dissecting the besshu, Papa decided to study it had taken that particular shape. He started an analysis to compare besshu to Earth's fish. He put the besshu's fin on his desk display and was looking through photos of various Earth fish so he could compare their silhouettes and skeletons.”
“Uh huh.”
“So, when he came back from a short trip to the bathroom, there was a goldfish on his desk.”
“...What?” Magiri clearly hadn't been paying much attention before, but that left her mouth hanging open in surprise. “A goldfish? The one from the Anno Domini era?”
“It survived well past the Anno Domini era—it still thrives in the lakes of a planet in Pollux-4. It's the same kind of goldfish you see in aquariums.”
“Why?”
“I don't know, but it was most definitely a goldfish on his desk.”
“...The besshu's corpse turned into a goldfish?!”
“Seems like it. And also, I guess it didn't really die.” Sivi shrugged. “As far as we can tell, they aren't really like any living organism we know of. They might have an indeterminate form. It does have an identifiable head, torso and tail. Segments and sensory organs, too. Although Papa Henri's assessment back on the ship seemed plausible, he might have been wrong. His words, not mine.”
“Indeterminate form...?”
“It's exactly what it sounds like: there's no fixed form. It's something that can take any shape it wants. There were organisms with indeterminate forms back on Earth, like amoebas or even legendary animals like the cat. There also were others that changed shape significantly over their life cycle—eels, slime molds, rhinoceros beetles— those changed as necessary for a growth stage. So besshu might be doing the same...”
“Huuuh...” Magiri nodded, absently stared into the air, and then asked, “The forms changed as necessary...?”
“Mhm.”
“Then, why did the besshu back at the lab choose that form... What made it think it needed to become a goldfish?”
“Eh? That's...” Sivi was perplexed. “I don't know, but I also don't think they can know what form is best for them. But... the need to change into a goldfish...”
“There wasn’t one, was there?” Magiri's eyes turned to her only for a moment, but Sivi glimpsed a spark in them she didn't think she would ever see again. “The same goes for the atmosphere of a gas giant. There's no advantage to being a fish there. It would have been way more practical to take the shape of something more apt for it... like a condor, a glider, or if it had to be big, a pteranodon. Those would have been much better choices, no?”
“Well, you're probably right.”
Sivi nodded, and Magiri suddenly hopped off the wagon.
“Yeah, this was a really interesting chat. Thanks for telling me, Sivi.”
“Magiri? Where are you going?”
“Just over there for a bit.”
With that, Magiri left the room. Shortly afterwards, she learned Magiri had disembarked without permission for the first time in ten years.
Sivi Endeavour had a clear memory of her first solo descent 10 years earlier. Shuttles routinely descended from the ships orbiting FBB to collect hydrogen from its atmosphere, and at the age of 19, Sivi was undergoing shuttle pilot training. It process that would have normally taken 900 days, had an emergency not caused her to graduate much earlier. That emergency had been her first solo descent.
Her job had been to retrieve a runaway Captain Gendo Magiri. The search was kept under wraps, but she'd been the first of the 30 search pilots to find Magiri. Now, just as she had back then, Sivi was flying along the very edge of Left Eyeball, a massive anticyclonic storm located on the fringes of Fat Beach Ball's north tropics.
“Magiri, do you hear me?!” Sivi shouted into her rescue radio. “Endeavour speaking. there are another 300 ships coming. I can see you clearly on radar, and 10% of the fleet is fully equipped for capture. You know those ships can endure up to 50 atm. There's no way out! You’re definitely getting caught! Please just come back!”
She wasn't lying about the 300 spacecraft. It was an emergency for the Circs as a whole, and they were treating it as such. They still needed was still necessary for Magiri to lead them, especially now that they were arguing over how to catch more besshu.
Still, Sivi had a feeling that persuasion was the only thing that would work. The only thing that could reasonably be called a threat, the ships equipped for capture, had pilots who hadn't flunked out as civilians. They were perfectly capable of reliably catching besshu... but they couldn't catch Great Chief Magiri, and Sivi knew it.
No, if Magiri's reason for doing this was the same as it had been back then, they should focus on appealing to–
As Sivi hurried, she heard an unexpected reply. “Why do you think the besshu take the form of fish?”
“Eh?”
Sivi reacted almost in the same dumbfounded way that Magiri had when she first heard about the besshu changing shape, but after a short pause, she gave a proper response. “And what does that have to do with what you're doing now?”
“Don't you think someone might be making them take that form?”
“And who would that be?”
“Someone who loved the fish from Earth. Someone who knew more about them than anyone else, who always had a fish fact ready, who carried around fish charms and reference books. Someone who, out of the blue, suffered an accident and fell deep into the lower layers–”
“Magiri!” Sivi Endeavour shouted. “It's useless! Please stop! There's not a single picogram of reason in thinking about that!”
“Eda.”
It finally dawned on her what Magiri was raving about. Or rather, what her delusion was.
Professor Dryeda de la Lucid had been an obsessive researcher, an interstellar biologist first class. She was known to puff her chest out like she contained the most pride in the universe. Figure-wise, she was on the smaller side, and her layered pixie cut, glasses, and white labcoat lent her a dashing quality. She was practically the embodiment of class and devotion. Eda had been on observation duty in the planet's middle layer when their pressure-resistant ship malfunctioned. The resulting situation was like something out of a Philippa Foot trolley problem.
There hadn't been much time to make a choice, so she chose to sacrifice herself and allow the two male crew members, who had a girlfriend, wife, and children waiting for them, to return safely. Alone inside the malfunctioning hull, she detached it and sank into the depths. All the while, she maintained a perfectly calm demeanor.
The 27-year-old woman's parting words were, “Ah...it's fine, it's fine. I really wanted to see what's down there anyway!”
For Magiri, it had been the loss of her perfect partner.
Nobody (not Sivi, not any other woman)—nothing (not the 10 years since, not the providence of outer space) could ever possibly replace that loss, and the 50,000 living there knew it. They knew it because unless a miracle occurred, they were gambling everything on maintaining the sanity of a captain who, other than her loss, was flawless. Now the outcome of their gamble was being dealt. The situation was a bottomless pit of despair.
“If that's the case, so what?”
Magiri plunged directly into a whirling crimson cloud of red phosphorus and methane.
“What if 10 years ago, Eda instructed them to take that form?” Her voice was scarily clear, and Sivi was stabbed with a pang of self-condemnation. “That was the only time she could have done that, right?”
Sivi then upped the booster's throttle with a hand that was shivering feverishly. Now going full bore and scraping the limits of where one could return, the very least she might accomplish was a double suicide.
“Don’t you get it? Don’t you see it? Just imagine. Eda might have been alive. For a few minutes, a few hours, a few days—or maybe even…?”
“Impossible! Magiri, that can’t...!”
“What if she just didn't come back?”
Beyond the point where FBB's atmospheric pressure exceeds 100 bars, past the thousand-kilometer depth mark, humanity has yet to succeed at any of their attempts at retrieval– manned or unmanned. The Circs lived right above a realm of the dead. Within that giant, tempestuous planet was a shore the dead crossed, never to return.
But what if that's not entirely true?
“Then me...and her...after 10 years–”
Screaming with frustration and envy, Sivi Endeavour pushed on the throttle again, but at the same time–
The radar's screen flickered and the line of communication cut out.
On the horizon of that fathomless sea of clouds, deep blue shadows breached.