“Interesting idea,” Saul said. “However your proposal has a weakness, in that some positions require more continuity.”
“I just got the most amazing idea!” Alex announced, “What if we did both?!”
“How’s that?” Joud asked.
“Well, as it stands, the positions requiring more continuity are held by elders,” he said, “So, why not have a one month per year requirement for younger people; and a one year per every ten for elders?”
“Brilliant,” Frances said.
Looking very pleased, Alex turned to her and said, “Thank you.”
“You should propose this on the New Government Forum,” Danel said.
“I see you over there whispering with Carla. Why don’t you let the rest of us in on your thoughts?” Alex said to Joud.
“I think it’s a good approach. So, does that mean you’re backing off on the human servers in shops and restaurant thing?”
“No I’m not backing off,” Alex said laughing. “I think it would be pleasant to have humans involved in the exchange of goods and services. In fact, I think it would be really healthy if we took turns serving each other,” Alex asserted.
Joud snorted disagreement.
“What do you think, Frances?” Danel asked.
“Huh. I’ve never thought about it before; but it’s an interesting idea,” Frances answered, “I’ll have to give it some more thought.”
“There’s something else rolling around in my mind,” Alex said. “I’ve been thinking about the extant cultural mix on Varun,” Alex said. “Frances, wouldn’t you agree that the seasteaders and the islanders present as two distinct subcultures?”
“I’ve had less contact with the seasteader population than you, Alex; but that does appear to be the case,” she answered, “Yes.”
“And the future undersea inhabitants will constitute a third group,” Alex went on. “I’d bet on it that the seasteaders, who already tend towards being nomadic, will eventually prove to be contradistinct from the undersea people. For example, I’ll bet the personality of a seasteaders will, in all likelihood, trend toward claustrophobia. I suggest you'll want to design a fairly large surface feature where seasteaders can participate in commerce with the city without having to go below.”
Danel looked from Alex to Frances. “Thoughts, Frances?” he asked.
“I don’t believe it’s appropriate to design the project in reaction to social systems that may or may not develop. We are contracted to design a self sustaining city.”
“Hmm,” Alex said. Looking my way, he said, “Chance-bot, surely it’s time for the after dinner drinks.”
I started with Alex and progressing around the table, arrived to Frances last. As I was filled her glass with the pale blue liquid, she asked me, “What are we missing, Chance?”
Dolphins, my mind said. “No one has mentioned the culture of the indigenous population,” I pointed out.
“There is no indigenous population!” Alex blurted.
Her eyes never leaving me, Frances said, “Tell me about the indigenous population, Chance.”
I told her about my first encounter with the dolphins and about my quest to communicate with them. Next I told her about my conscription into saving a drowning man.
Light dancing in her curious eyes, she asked me another question. “Have you met any other sapient species, Chance?”
“I am uncertain. Perhaps,” I replied. “Last night I came across some notable beings.” I told her about the globe creatures and my rudimentary attempt to communicate with them.
“Fascinating,” Frances said.
“Pardon me, Frances,” Pancho interrupted. “Chance-bot,” he asked, “do you also keep sound recordings of your swims?”
“Yes, I do.”
Danel and Pancho dropped their heads together to exchange a rapid buzz of whispers. His eyes glittering, Danel abruptly sang out, “Carla, I think we may have stumbled on a way to leave planet earth with this project!”
CHAPTER 37
Carla, Danel and the rest had been gone since just after sunrise on the previous day. This morning was infused with absence. I placed the cup of coffee in easy reach. Unshaven, moving slow and visibly blurry of mind, Joud gripped his coffee in both his hands like a lifeline. Not drinking, he brought the cup near to his lips and nose, as if divining cognition from the fragrance alone.
“If the coffee tastes like mud,” I interjected, “it's because it was ground a few minutes ago. Ha-ha. Ha?”
I looked at Joud, waiting for response. Lifting his eyes, he stared at me with an obvious dearth of comprehension; then he shook his head and took his first sip. I left and came back with a plate of his favorite breakfast, seaweed wrapped roe and a side of fried manioc. Setting the food in front of him, I announced, “Rise and shine, Joud. You can't go anywhere without roe 'n your boat.”
Joud’s hand hovered over a fork; but dropped back to the table. Furrowing his brow he surmised something as amiss. “What did you say, Chance?”
“I said, you can't go anywhere without roe 'n your boat. Ha-ha. It is a type of humor known as a pun. Do you get it?”
A pun, Joud thought. A…pun? Rowin' your boat? Joud stared at his plate. Roe…. Understanding blinked on. Roe 'n your boat! In disbelief, he sputtered, “You're telling me a-- a joke?”
“I am attempting to tell a joke. Perhaps I need to work on delivery.”
“Chance, why…are you telling me a joke?” he asked.
“I’ve been analyzing the importance of effective communication. I notice Alex likes to exchange jokes.”
Appearing troubled, Joud picked up his coffee and took a second sip. Carefully, resetting the cup, he advised, “I don’t think that’s a very good idea, Chance.”
Alex entered the room speaking. “Joud, I'm in the mood to go hunting,” he announced. Already dressed in full dive gear, and holding a pair of fins in one hand, he added, “I’m taking the bot with me. Ship's yours, Captain.”
“Oh. Okay,” Joud murmured.
As a gesture of camaraderie, I followed Alex down to the skis, to enter the water near him rather than dive from my usual place at the stern. Without delay, Alex dropped right in. To afford a safe interval, I waited a few beats before following. I leaped high to allow for the fanning free of my dorsal plumage then executed a sweeping underwater arc. As I slid in near Alex, I felt the familiar tapping vibration of a comm-link request. Automatically I accepted. As we set off, I assumed a position, behind and to one side of him to oblige an unimpeded shot. Soon thereafter, a small shoal of medium sized blue tailed fish approached us from a side. Spear gun cradled in the crook of his arm, Alex let them go unmolested.
“I'm bored of that kind,” he explained, “I’m looking for something more exotic today.”
Two more shoals passed by, garnering no interest. “It’s still early in the day,” he justified.
Without question, I followed while Alex contrived an erratic route. Inexplicably, he became increasingly agitated with each shoal he rejected. After two hours of hunting, he was visibly morose. I saw the dolphin in the same instant Alex raised his gun to shoot.
“No, Alex!” I cried, “Don't!”
Ignoring me, Alex secured his aim. Focused and deliberate, he pulled the trigger.
I was a streak of silver and tourmaline green.
Enraged, Alex exploded. “What have you done?!” he demanded.
Now tethered, I confronted his anger. The tautly stretched cord connected the spear penetrating my torso, to his wrist. Faced off, we drifted in place. Oozing malevolence, Alex refused to loosen the tight clench of his fist from the cord.
Wham!
Not until the dolphin struck a blow to his hip, did Alex finally let go his stubborn grip. Even I had not seen that coming. Suddenly, the water was churning with frantic action. The dance I performed was convoluted, as I sought to obstruct continuing attempts at aggression by both parties. With the spear projecting front and back, and the entangling cord
whirling; the choreography was complex, as I aspired to avoid injury to either antagonist.
Without warning, the dolphin quit the competition and sped off into the gloom.
In the sudden stillness the retriever cord, still hooked to my chest but no longer stirred, began to drift. The cord waved a lazy line between Alex and me. Seizing possession of the cord, I reeled it round one of my hands, while Alex eyed his emptied gun rather than further engage me. Our tense swim back was exemplified by an irresolvable calamity of silence.
CHAPTER 38
Even standing at the center of the deck, surrounded by the expansive sky and sea, Joud felt cornered by the overblown anger of Alex. “We had this bot upgraded, so it would help, not hinder!” Alex shouted, “But no-- no instead, this asinine machine manages to block my shot, and damage property in one supremely fucked up move!”
Joud, freaked out and frowning, said, “Wait. What? You're angry because your spear was damaged?”
“I'm angry because the bot got itself shot!” he screamed, stamping a foot. “It has no right! No fucking right to undermine my choices!”
Joud pressed his temples with the heels of his hands and groaned in frustration. Crossing his arms over his chest, he warned, “Alex, I seriously don’t appreciate you screaming at me.”
Nostrils flaring, Alex crossed his arms too. “Fine, but we need to be able to express ourselves; and I am very! Very angry,” he snarled.
“We upgraded the bot,” Joud reminded him, “because we are required to have three crew members. We talked about this. Trusting a stranger would have complicated matters.”
His voice dripping acid, Alex asked, “How is an unreliable bot better than a stranger?” Speaking through clenched teeth, his voice became a growl. “It blocked my shot.” Shaking his hands into fists, he shouted, “I decide! I decide! I’m the human! I decide what happens!”
Joud choked out his words. “What is your problem?” he demanded. Then his own anger flaring, he shouted, “Chance has been an excellent comrade!”
“That! That!” Alex blared, “Is exactly my problem. The bot is not my 'comrade'. It is a tool! A-- a possession-- to be used! It is NOT MY EQUAL!” Alex stormed from the deck and into the cabin.
Spinning away from Alex’ angry backwash, Joud’s furious face fell on me. I had not moved a single extra step beyond the middeck ladder where Alex and I had come aboard. His eyes bounced from my face to the arrow sticking out of my chest. Joud’s glower melted, and the straight line of his mouth softened into a sad smile.
“Come here, Chance,” he said. “Let's see if we can get that thing out of you while you explain to me exactly what happened out there.”
With the back of the spear pointing the way, I crossed the deck.
“At least he didn’t hit your new vision system,” Joud commented while turning me around to assess the situation. “He missed your dorsal plumage too. So...hmm.” He grasped the front of the shaft and tugged. While Joud pulled and twisted and jerked on the part sticking out of my back, I explained, “Alex was going to shoot one of my new friends; the sapient vertebrate I mentioned at dinner the other night. When he ignored my plea, I had to act.”
Joud stopped pulling to digest this information. Turning me around, he tried pulling from the front. “Alright, go on. What happened? Exactly, what did you do?” he asked.
“When he pulled the trigger, I raced the spear and blocked the shot.”
The carbon pike remained lodged, midway, between my chest and hips, slightly off center toward my right side. Since Joud was having no success at removing it, I took a turn. But even grasping with both hands, I couldn’t get the thing to budge. Joud tried to gain better leverage, by having me kneel.
Alas, neither Joud nor I was able to combat the friction of polymer flesh against spear. We stopped struggling “What a weird day,” Joud said. Circling me, he focused on the problem at hand. “Chance, do you think it would be safe to just cut this thing off on both sides? To…just...leave a piece of it in your middle for now? Do you think that will cause any problems?”
“I don't sense any disruptions,” I certified. Fingering the entry and exit locations, I allowed, “It's probably the best option, for now. But let's not use a laser. A laser might create brittleness in the surrounding flesh. I'll go get the bolt cutters.”
“Stay right where you are, Chance. I'll go get the bolt cutters,” Joud insisted. He hurried up a side deck. En route, a small chuckle bubbled up like a burp. In the short time it took him to arrive to the starboard tool bin, the impulse had devolved into a throaty laugh. Collapsing to his knees beside the tool bin, Joud allowed hilarity to overtake him. Nearly paralyzed with convulsions, he laughed himself weak. When calm returned, he grabbed the bolt cutters and hurried back to the deck where he’d left the bot. At sight of the punctured Neptune, Joud, again, began to quake.
Surprised, I asked, “So, this is funny?”
“Ah, Chance. I don't mean to laugh at you,” Joud laughed.
“But earlier…at breakfast? I told jokes; and you didn't laugh. Now you laugh. I see now that it is a release. If I could learn….”
The sincerity, the godlike presence, the spear, the absurdity. Joud fell into another paroxysm. “You’re pretty damn hilarious right now,” he raved, with tears beginning to leak.
After a taciturn dinner drenched in tension, Alex and Joud retired early to their separate quarters. After cleaning up the kitchen, I dove into the ocean. Empty of agenda, I surrendered myself to witnessing the laudable mundane. I saw layered pinpoints of light. I saw vivid flashes of color. Diversity sparked, shifted, and furled past.
The sensation, of a dolphin brushing near, jolted me. Spinning to a stop, I was confronted by Chaser and Dodger. Using its bottle shaped nose, Chaser poked me in the chest where the broken shaft of spear lay embedded. At finding the evidence lodged in my body, Chaser’s outrage was reignited; so he complained to Dodger in a drama laced screed. But the overblown show quickly devolved to silliness. Somewhere along the way, Chaser let the angst fall away. Joining in the slapstick, Dodger helped promote the trick of turning resentment to a manic kind of glee. Teasing me into their game, Chaser aped a performance of my swooping defensive block. In an overly dramatic parody, he shimmied and rolled through the faking of the taking, of the fateful shot to the chest. The pair laughed and knocked into me; drew me into camaraderie. The night passed affably.
CHAPTER 39
Danel circled the giant water tank. “Very intriguing, Pancho,” Danel said. “They have such a machined perfection; yet, they still manage to read as organic. I love the surface ornamentation.”
Danel continued to circle the tank. The first phase when constructing an undersea city always involved building a super-structure; a protective container. In the past, Danel had relied on simple spheres. In his opinion, there was no better shape suited to withstanding the intense pressure found in the deeper regions of the sea. The weight of the ocean delivered a crushing force that dramatically increased with every added foot of depth.
Programmable DNA tile units were the go-to technology for fabricating underwater super-structures. As long as there was an adequate supply of minerals, the crystalline units could self-replicate, thereby growing into predictable controllable shapes. The process was simple actually.
As the structural biologist, Pancho’s primary role was to program the DNA tile units. He was also responsible for specifying the mineral cocktail needed to effectively support the process. Pancho referred to the tile units as egg-stock. The egg-stock had to be set in place by an aquatic-bot, which they casually referred to as the momma-fish. A troop of disposable aquatic-bots called poppa-fish, followed behind the momma, spraying the egg-stock with the specified minerals. Pancho had been experimenting with using the sound clips from the bot as an alternate method for programming the tile units.
Danel stopped his prowl. Pointing, he said, “Tell me about them. Why three?”
“Okay,” Pancho said. “This little
structure was the first one,” he explained, “As you can see it's the most basic shape. At first glance, it appears to be a single sphere; but on closer examination, you’ll find it is actually four tightly interlocked spheres.”
Hands in pockets, Danel nodded.
“I used the briefest snippet of sound to produce it.” He looked at Danel, who did not look away from the tank. Pancho resumed, “The middle structure is so complex, you might think it is something else altogether. But if you look closely, you can see it is an agglomeration of the same primary shape.” Pancho paused again, but Danel made no acknowledgment; only continued to stare at the tank with hands in pockets. “The objects are formula fractals,” Pancho added.
Danel raised his brows in lieu of asking a question.
“The music is acting as a complex formula,” Pancho clarified.
“As you explained previously,” Danel said.
Pancho nodded. “With the third one, I was experimenting with scale. Basically it’s a practice run at scaling up in a predictable manner.”
Danel turned from the aquarium to face Pancho. “Did you alter the momma-bot in any way?” he asked.
“No, everything else conforms to a typical detail,” Pancho said. “That's the beauty of it. We can program the tile units and leave everything else the same. The question I have for you is, how do you want to use this in the project? Or, maybe even, do you want to use this in the project?”
Danel turned back to the fish tank, to stare at the three objects. “Hmm,” he said.
Pancho waited impatiently while Danel deliberated.
Continuing to stare into the tank, Danel said, “I really love these…but if I use them as a superstructure, I’d essentially have to start all over again on my design.” His stare became pensive. He put his hands back into his pockets. “Can’t you fiddle with the process so it makes a single sphere? Only with the mosaic surface?”
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