So Cold Alone

Short Story in Red Space

So Cold Alone

All mimsy were the borogoves, because this was the orb that Dr. Elenove Rasininov would die on, and it did not care. Looking out at the blue and white surface through the phosphorescent screen, Neptune’s largest moon Triton stared blankly back at her. This was because she was insignificant to it and her death would mean nothing to it. She knew that below the surface there was an ocean of water and it beckoned for her body because in the military “Without parole” was an absolute. There was just too little hydrogen to spare.

She had been woken up only an hour before out of her hypersleep, and for the first 10 minutes, the grogginess still lapped at the shores of her mind and she pondered what five years had done to the outside solar system. And then she realized, it did not matter because the solar system was all that humanity had: even Proxima’s Centauri, and its planet, was still too far to go. And so she looked within her spacesuit and wondered what was to become of her.

This was an open question because the secrecy of the prison was ornate: even finding out just what measures were used was itself an undertaking. This was because the members of the Triton prison establishment, called TeePeE, were not part of the Department of Insurrection but were selected by three members who were appointed for life. And with cryonics and regimentation that was quite a bit longer than advertised. It had been almost a century since one had stepped down and been replaced. But still the word “perpetuity” was discouraged. And the mome raths outgrabe.

She thought back to the hearing that sent her here, or at least that is what it was called outside. Officially no record of its occurrence had been kept because it was still classified as informal.

“So, you admit that 12 members assigned to Ceres were terminated before closure?”

Her face drew to a point. “There were only so many supplies and I had to make decisions as to which ones were to live.”

The pen in his hand marked something on the screen. But even be noise did not sound good.

“Now, Dr. Rasininov, what would you define hose the punishment for 12 of the people assigned to a physician be?” she again crinkled her nose in despair because even questions were traps.

“Are we talking with friends or merely acquaintances?”

“Does it make a difference?”

“Certainly, is the physician had some interest. For example, wanting to eradicate the same other person should move up the patient on the triage list.”

The fat face looked at her in a distinctly unamused fashion. “It does not seem to me that you are taking this informal hearing with the level of gravity.”

“That is because all of the decisions have been made. The level of supplies was zero and I had to be the one. So, I made decisions.”

“Decisions? That’s not true. And as for the gravity, remember there are degrees of the Inferno.”

“Then send me to the worst. Because we all know that no one will ever look at my file again.” He noted that disagreeable had been written twice in different hands on her file.

“If that is the way you wish it.”

“It does not matter what I wish because we both know it is up to you.”

And thus it was placed on her file “TPE,” it took only two days for her to be cryrno-sleeped. She was unaware of being placed on the cargo ship. But then it did not matter. But then nothing mattered until she actually saw Triton and found out why there was such a secret about the place.

That was the only thing that she wished to know.

The window shut and a pseudo-masculine voice piped up over the intercom: “Half an hour until we are in the landing bay. Triton’s gravity will start showing. The crew put away all of the bags.” What they meant was the syringes in case the passengers got antsy. This was different from normal landings in that none of the passengers wanted to be there. Or at least, not entirely.

But there was nothing that she could do about any of it except to make herself comfortable. So rested she by the Tumtum tree.

Everything went smoothly, but then the crew did nothing but to Triton and back again, so this was not unusual. She was unbuckled automatically and the lights went on and led her to the door. When she was there the scale was amazing: at least 1000 meters tall and at the edges there was water. But it was different than any water she had seen. And then she realized that there was phosphorescence. She had not expected this and stood awhile in thought.

Equally unusual was a man. It was clear that he had grown off of it because he was slender and lithe. What was even more unusual was that he stuck his hand out: “Welcome to your home away from home.” She gazed at the bluish structure and two of the other ships which were landed. It was a cool light that rippled with the bluish water. And it said this is the way I am supposed to be.

“Dr. ….”

“Elenove Rasininov, I know. We have been waiting for your expertise since you were sent here.”

“I’m supposed to be a prisoner.”

“Details which the outside world will care about but not here. You are among friends.” He bounced as if he were a clown and he burbled as he moved.

“What, I hear for exactly?”

“Let’s get to the briefing room and we will explain.”

The transition from the enormous landing bay with little infrastructure to the small room for debriefing was dramatic. She looked around and saw four screens on each wall and a white rectangular table meant for at least 12 people. In two of the chairs, there was a slot inside the table for punching buttons. She sat down without being asked. The men gently floated down into one of the two chairs with buttons and pressed a few and one of the screens went to blue.

And then on onto this screen came a blue body of water and in the middle was something that she had never seen: it was like an octopus only it had 12 limbs and an eye was staring back end to be camera. Inside was different but not that much so. She wondered whether it had been geneered.

“This is what we found when we came to try to Triton.”

“This was native?”

“Oh indeed so.” He was watching her face to see if he could gauge any reaction. Her face had gone into that thinking mode and even the eyebrows were cogitating.

“Is it from the same source as Earth?” it was clear that she was trying to figure out whether life had been moved by some other species.

“There are differences. The letters of the genetic alphabet have different ATGC and there are slightly different nucleotides in the DNA. But it is not that different.” Introns, exons,  and all the letters in between.

“Why on Triton?”

“On the bottom of the ocean, there are magma chambers which release lava. And near them, there is phosphorus that absorbs the light and over time emits it.”

“So, there is a perpetual light source as long as there’s phosphorus.”

“And phosphorus is a significant part of a rock.”

“That’s unusual.”

“Yes.”

“So what about the intelligence of this creature? What is called anyway?”

“We do not know what they called themselves, but it is quite clear they communicate with each other. We call them Dodecans.”

“For the 12 tentacles. Do they have suction cups?”

“A little bit different than their earthly cousins, but somewhat. Would you like to meet some?”

“What, do they hang around the landing bay?”

“We have to go down to where they feel comfortable, pressure and all. And first, you have to absorb all that we know.”

“So why me?” but there was a sneaking suspicion in her voice that she knew why.

“Before you went for a treating physician your research was on translating languages.”

“I have been out of that field for 10 years, well 15 if you count the cryosleep.”

“No one that we can get our hands on has made any sort of progress.”

“That’s depressing.”

“Our talent pool is sadly limited. We need to be able to snatch talent which makes itself available.”

“Just so we’re clear, you knew the charges were trumped up.”

“Almost decidedly so. But the military usually gets what it wants.”

She instinctively nodded.

The next few days were devoted to reading from biology to psychology. It seemed that the Dodecans were a highly social animal. Partially because they fed on the bacteria that exploded from the lava. It also did not hurt that their predators could not get as close to the lava shells as they could. This meant their swimming was erratic at best.

She also realized that her time had slipped from Earth Standard Day. Instead, she was focusing on all of the data. She knew that there was something here that had been missed. But the key was what.

Then the buzzer sounded and she got up placed a white robe and got the door. One of the things that she had noticed was that the décor was relaxed.

He was there and immediately chimed in: “Which you like to go to where our friends are?”

“You are friends but I’m still an unknown number quantity.”

“Why do you say that?”

“It’s clear from the pictures that they recognize us at least as well and probably better than we recognize them.”

“Are you sure?”

“I will write a paper on it.” Her face was serious and her mouth was a line. It was at this point that he realized that she was probably the smartest person on TeePee. And it made his face worried. There’s something about realizing that the balance of power has been upset.

Then he showed her another layer of secrecy in that they moved to an elevator that had keys encoded on the fingertips. She noted that she did not have a key imprint encoded on hers. When they settled down to wait to descend, she noticed that the entire elevator was transparent and there was darkness but one that was illuminated by the spin multiplicity of the dots from the presence trails. She realized that she was seeing quite a good deal of distance and there were many trails in the darkness.

She also realized that while the elevator was slow they were also sending a very long way down. Pressure here, as everywhere, was a vital piece of the living organisms’ makeup. And the Dodecans like it dense.

But then they crossed some sort of boundary because several Dodecanese had crowded up to the elevator and watched them as they descended.

The lights went down to a minimal level and they descended into the abyss.

At the bottom, she was amazed at how they registered a new face. There was something about their shape that relaxed a few minutes in. There was also something that said to her that they were trying to communicate. Perhaps this one would get the message. There were also something like coral which wove through the entirety of what she could see. She made a note of it.

She stayed down there for two craps three hours watching the swirl. At one point she turned to him: “They started to gather at a particular point. Is that the point where whatever praise on them gets too uncomfortable?”

“You're very good. You’re very very good. Yes, they have predators, and they congregate just beyond the level of uncomfortableness. But we don’t know why exactly that is.”

“Check for an element which disrupts the skin.”

He nodded. “Why do you say that?”

“The Dodecanese have a long molecule in the skin that is hard to duplicate.”

“And thus, you think that there is some reason for it.”

She nodded but she was looking out at her new friends. Eventually, an old one came up to them and fluttered. She could tell it was old because of the degradation of the skin - there was some reason that this one was kept because most of them died after reproducing. It came whiffling through the tulgey wood.

Then something happened when a new creature was trying to dive. Clearly, this was a predator, and the Dodecanese promptly scattered. Except the one who was too old, because his fins and tentacles barely moved him. It is at this point that she reacted quickly and took the light and turned it up as far as it would go. This stunned the two-meter-long needle and it immediately fled. She then turned the lights down and noticed that the old Dodecan came right up to the elevator shaft.

“That was quick.”

“The Dodecans are social animals.”

-

The next month was her staring at the creatures and pouring over the data. She felt sure that the old Dodecan had tried to communicate with her. The question was how? The problem was that the rest of the crew was selected for conformity, not originality, so she had to think for herself.

She was almost delirious finally chanting “the eyes, the eyes.”

On the desk was a request for glasses, two pairs. He approved the request immediately because he was sure that at least part of the answer was found.

The next week they went down and settled a messed up pseudo-coral. They were of course covered with Dodecans. She then took out the pair of glasses and handed one to her companion. “I think that this will be a good step.”

“What are they?”

“There are UV glasses because that is how the old D was trying to communicate. And no one got the message.”

And in a few minutes, the old Dodecan made his appearance, and they put on the glasses and saw that in the UV there was a ripple in several different colors. The breakthrough had been made.  It was also apparent that the pseudo-coral had ripples in the UV light as well probably from eating the rock and digesting it into more subtle and delicious meals for the Dodecanese.

She did not know what was being said, but there was plenty of time to decode the language now that they knew what the language was.

She turned and said: “I think I am going to like it here.”

O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay! She chortled in her joy.