Embers in the Sea

by Jennifer M. Eaton

  “If we’re going to get out of here, we’ll probably have to climb. We’ll need our strength.” And I, obviously, was running out of gas.

  He reached for the plants. “It’s not worth the risk. I can last another day without losing my faculties.”

  But I couldn’t.

  My hand trembled. Clear liquid dripped off the bubble-like pods covering the jagged leaves.

  If we were in a cage, then someone went through a lot of trouble to create an air-filled habitat miles beneath the surface of the ocean. Why do that if they wanted to hurt us? I broke off a piece and slipped the salty pod into my mouth. I tensed, but held steady, managing not to hurl as I rolled the plant around on my tongue.

  It reminded me of the peas Mom had grown in the garden when I was a kid. Pliable, but hard at the same time, and pretty much tasteless once my saliva drowned out the seawater. I bit into the pod and chilled liquid rolled over my tongue, exploding in a bitter tartness that ebbed into a sweet, syrupy soup.

  “Omigosh!” I held the leaves up to David. “You have got to try this. It’s delicious!”

  He fingered the leaves, staring at the bubbles.

  “Come on, plant boy. This is right up your alley.”

  He slid a wad of leaves into his mouth, chewed, and smiled. “It is good.”

  He took another bite and handed me some more. I poked another leaf in my mouth and crunched the pod, whisking away the salty sea taste and replacing it with the sweet goodness of the plant.

  David glanced at the mirror, and then to me. “That plant provided both sustenance and hydration. The thick outer shell must be adaptive to the pressure. Ingenious.”

  “Like I said. Earth. Full of surprises.” I surveyed the water-filled ponds above and below us, wondering how many surprises lay in store for us that I hadn’t even dreamed of outside fantasy novels.

  David ran his fingers along the edge of the mirror. “Thank you,” he whispered, staring into his reflection.

  I hugged his arm. “Do you really think there is someone on the other side of that thing?”

  “If there is, it wouldn’t be someone. It would be more like something. This environment is like nothing we’ve experienced before. Our bodies would be crushed under the pressure out there. If they live in this, who knows what kind of form they would have.”

  The glossy sheen shimmered inside the mirror, glistening, waiting. Were we really in a cage? Were there things on the other side watching us, studying us, playing with us like hermit crabs in a terrarium? Would they give us toys next, see what we like to climb on? Give us exercise wheels? What? I covered my face, my brain not coming to terms with what David seemed to take for granted.

  One thing I did know: there was no way I was going to live in this little room for the rest of my life.

  I stepped up to the mirror. “Okay out there. Thanks for the food and all. We appreciate the hospitality, but we’d really like to go home, now.”

  David raised a brow, but our watery image didn’t stir.

  “Listen,” I continued, “there is something pretty bad going on up on the surface. You see, these aliens are coming, and they’re going to take over the planet. You’re going to get new neighbors, whether you like it or not.” I cringed, wondering if they’d think that was a bad thing. “I just want to go home. Can’t you understand that?”

  “Maybe.”

  David and I spun toward the voice behind us. A silvery-shaded boy popped out of the water and leaned both elbows on the edge of the pond. He glistened in the fluorescent-like lighting. My heart lodged in my throat.

  “Who are you?” David asked.

  “The more pertinent question is, who are you?” He pushed up and sat on the edge of the pond, leaving his feet dangling in the ocean depths.

  Were there flippers under there? A giant tail? If he was a merman, and I didn’t have a camera, there would be Hell to pay! I moved next to David, grabbing his arm. A tingle formed between us, easing some of my fear.

  The boy flipped himself around and levitated, ascending on two very human-shaped legs. His body glimmered in that same silvery gray tone as his head and arms. His eyes seemed opaque, as if he didn’t have eyeballs—like he was one solid sleek and shiny piece with no beginning and no end. I forced myself to breathe, not sure if I was in awe or terrified beyond belief. My trigger finger twitched, and I glanced at my backpack. To hell with being scared. I needed pictures. Old Reliable had been through worse. For all I know, he was in there, ready and waiting to take the photo of my lifetime.

  David squeezed my arm before I could take a step toward my camera. Stupid, stinking, telepathic alien. This wasn’t fair—any of it.

  The creature walked toward David. “The female’s species we are familiar with. They dwell above. But your make-up is unknown to us.”

  I tightened my own grip on David. “He’s Erescopian. He’s not from our planet.”

  The boy folded his arms, taking on a pose quite similar to what I’d done earlier in the mirror. “I see. One can actually dwell off a planet?”

  “Yes,” David said. “In specialized ships.” How was he staying so calm? We had no idea who this guy was and David was acting like they’d met on line at Starbucks.

  “Very interesting.” The boy circled us.

  “Is that what we are in now,” David asked, “some sort of specialized ship? Is that why the pressure isn’t affecting us? Where is the air coming from?”

  Always the scientist. I was more worried about whether or not this dude was going to eat us.

  I tried not to move as the boy reached out and touched my shirt, rubbing the fabric between his fingers.

  “This coating is not part of you,” he said, ignoring David’s questions.

  “Umm, no. It’s clothing. We wear it. It-it keeps us warm, and, you know, hides stuff.”

  Our gazes met. “Hides stuff?”

  “Yeah, you know. Private stuff.”

  He stared at me before he turned back to David. “And why are you on this planet? You are from somewhere else, yet your pheromone markers are all over this native.” He pointed at me.

  Pheromone markers?

  David blinked twice. “We’re … ” He cleared his throat. “Close.”

  The silver guy leaned nearer to David, as if smelling him, and then did the same to me. “It seems that you are close quite often. Your essence is within each other.”

  David straightened. “We’re connected.”

  Silver flinched. “But you are not the same. You aren’t even compatible.”

  “I don’t care, and it’s none of your business.”

  Silver’s eyeball-less eyes widened. “Interesting. Most interesting indeed. And your individual species have no problems with this?”

  “We’re just friends,” I said. “I don’t know what the big deal is.” Okay, so maybe David and I were a little more than friends, but David was right. It was none of this guy’s business. “How about you answer some of our questions. Like where are we? What is this place, and how the heck are you down here and no one topside knows about it?”

  “The air-breathers know what we allow them to know. There is no need for them to know more.” He pointed to the water-filled hole in the ceiling. “Your ship sunk and landed on the plateau above. We’ve tried to inspect it, but the security system has proven quite effective.”

  “Security system?” David asked.

  “Yes. This.” He raised a hand to the pond, and the sea rose in the center, bubbled, and dripped up like ice melting in reverse, forming a segmented build with ten long, creepy legs.

  Edgar!

  A wave of relief flowed through our bond. The little guy was okay and apparently giving our captors some holy hell. Good boy.

  “As for this place … ” He raised his hands and surveyed the room, “ … we created this environment to mimic the pressure, gaseous combination, and temperature in the vessel that brought you here.”

 
; “So now what?” David asked. “Do you keep us here? Study us?”

  The boy’s solid face pinched where his mouth should be, forming a smile. “You seem to have high expectations of how interesting you might be.” He glared at the mirror, and returned his attention to us. “We are wondering why you ventured to our depths. The air-breathers have already studied this section of the sea floor.”

  “We were looking for a source of kinetic energy. It originates at the base of the trench.”

  The boy arched his back in a very in-human way. “You seek to enter the rift?”

  “Maybe. Do you know where the energy comes from?”

  Silver’s features wiped away, almost disappearing from his glossy skin. “Why do you seek this energy?”

  David shifted his weight. “My people are trying to make a home on a neighboring planet. This energy isn’t there. We need it.”

  “This is not something you can just—take.”

  “That was not my intention. I want to study the source, try to understand how it works so I can duplicate it for my own people. I’m not here to steal from you.”

  Silver nodded. “We can feel your sincerity, but you do not understand what you ask. And this power is not ours to explain, or to give.”

  The boy scrutinized his reflection in the giant, glassy mirror again. His hands drifted out to his sides, as if floating. The slight indent where his nose should have been pulsed.

  Were the ones outside talking to him? Could they be telepathic, like David?

  Silver jerked his attention back to us. “We cannot help you. You need to leave, before you cause more problems than you came here to stop.”

  “How do you expect us to … ”

  The boy took two backward steps and dropped back into the pond. The surface barely swelled as he disappeared into the sea.

  David crouched on his haunches, holding the sides of his head.

  I seated myself beside him. “So now what?”

  “How would I know?”

  “It was kind of a rhetorical question. I didn’t really expect an answer.”

  He reached for me. “I know. I’m sorry.”

  We reclined on the hard stone. I cuddled onto David’s chest, but the rock floor must have been killing him. “I guess we’re back to: how the heck do we get out of here?”

  He stared at the shimmering pond in the ceiling. “We don’t even know if our ship is still up there. They could have done anything with it.” He shivered, and I pulled him closer to ward off the phantom chill.

  Even if the ship was up there, David couldn’t swim for it. Not at these frozen temperatures. I was pretty sure I wouldn’t last long, either.

  The illumination faded to a barely visible gray. David tensed and sat up.

  Silence surrounded us. Not even a trickle came from the watery exits.

  David’s arm slipped around my shoulder. My eyes grew heavy as a sweet aroma tickled my nose.

  Were they drugging us? I sat up. “David?”

  “I feel it.” He eased me back to the ground.

  My chest fluttered. I shook, clutching his shirt.

  What was in the air? Poison? Did they decide it was easier to just get rid of us? And then what? Would they set us out to sea? Feed us to the sharks?

  Pressure built between my temples. Aching. Throbbing.

  My vision blurred. We couldn’t just give in. We had to do something. Anything. But what?

  I folded myself against David, hiding in the safety of his arms until I relaxed and reveled in the sweet, syrupy smell. David’s grip fell slack, and the room faded to nothing.

  8

  A drip echoed through the dim cavern, angering the throb in my temples. I blinked, but it did nothing to dispel the darkness.

  The water beside us sloshed. David and I sprang up at the same time.

  “Who’s there?” David asked.

  “Do not fear,” a voice whispered. “It is me.”

  A bluish shine burst through the water, casting an eerie radiance throughout the room. The water fountained through the air and thickened, forming a human shape as the silver boy landed in a crouch beside the pond.

  I wasn’t sure if I was horrified or impressed. Was he actually made of water?

  David slid his arm around me and drew me closer. “What do you want?”

  Silver inched forward, still in his crouch. The light cast an ominous glow behind him. “They don’t know I’m here.”

  They? The area where the food had appeared hung in complete darkness. I tightened my grip on David’s shirt.

  “I have questions for you,” Silver said.

  “All you do is ask questions,” David replied.

  “But the previous questions were not my own.”

  David’s arm tensed around me. “You said you wanted us to leave. You need to give us our ship to do that.”

  “They left that matter for discussion after the tide changes. The others have all retired.”

  “And why haven’t you retired?”

  Silver’s face tilted to the side. “As I said, I have questions.” He inched closer. “What do you propose to do if you discover the secrets to the energy you seek?”

  Anger sizzled through our bond. “I told you, I need that energy on another planet. To bring another world to life.”

  “Does this planet have an ocean?”

  “Yes. It’s not as big as Earth’s, but parts of it are deeper than the trench.”

  “Sea life?”

  David’s expression slackened. “None yet. Our plan was to ask Earth to share some of its wildlife and plant life.” He turned toward me. “Only to help quicken Mars’s recovery once the precipitation problems are settled.”

  “Precipitation problems?” Silver asked.

  “It doesn’t rain.”

  Silver nodded. “The particles are not charged with the life power.”

  “You know where the power comes from, don’t you?”

  “Possibly, but like I said, it is not something you can understand. It is not something you can take with you.”

  David stood. “I don’t have a choice. And I will figure this out. Too much depends on it.”

  Silver straightened. “You can’t enter the rift. You will not be welcomed.”

  “There’s something else down there.” David’s brow inched up. “Something you’re afraid of.”

  “The depth dwellers are not like us, although they are more like us than they care to admit. And they don’t take kindly to those above them, either my people or hers.” He pointed at me. “They will protect themselves viciously.”

  “I told you I don’t want to steal anything. I just want to study the power source. Reconstruct it somehow.”

  “This cannot be done.”

  David leaned forward. “Is this why you came? To talk us out of going there?”

  “No.” Silver held his hand beside my face and ran it along my side. Close, but not touching. “This is of great interest—how your resonance mingles within hers.”

  David shoved Silver’s hand away from me. Water splashed across the floor. “Why?”

  “Because you are dissimilar. Contact with different kinds is frowned upon here. We are kept apart. Segregated. Same stays with same. I find it curious that two of different species are together.”

  “Well it’s different on the surface,” David said.

  I cringed. Not that different. Dad had bribed me with eggs and extra bacon that morning when he’d tried to convince me that David wasn’t coming back. And David’s only Erescopian friend, Nematali’s nose crunched up like she’d smelled rotten fish every time she saw David near me. Dad had come around a little bit, but in general, things weren’t much different on the surface.

  Silver stood. “The lesser levels of your ship are reinforced and water tight—as if the ship were designed with the purpose of transporting a large, seaborne cargo. I don’t believe that you didn’t intend to steal
the power source, and neither will those below you.”

  David stood and faced Silver. I rose beside him. The muscles in his neck twitched. His hands trembled. Had he lied to me? Was he planning to steal it all along?

  “That ship is designed for many functions,” David said. “Whatever it is that you are protecting, I swear, I won’t take it.”

  “But you could,” Silver said.

  David nodded. “Yes, theoretically.”

  Silver stepped back and sloshed back into the sea. The lights dimmed, leaving us in darkness once again.

  ***

  An amber glow filled the room, and I rubbed the weariness from my eyes. David sat beside me, slipping on his shoes.

  “How long have I been asleep?”

  “I’m not really sure.” He handed me my socks and sneakers.

  “No more visits in the dark?”

  “None that I am aware of, but we need to get out of here. Who knows what’s going on up on the surface.”

  My feet tingled as I forced them into my still-damp shoes. The windows remained dark, but another pile of seaweed lay on the rocky shelf. Not quite the breakfast of champions, but it would have to do. I handed a bunch to David. The cool sweetness of the pods didn’t seem as satisfying as it had earlier.

  The pond in the floor began to bubble. A spray shot up from the center and rained down around us before another geyser appeared, and another until a uniform, frothing column formed with the pond as the base and the hole in the ceiling as the topper.

  Silver stepped out from beside the column. “You are free to go. But you must leave. Return to your world. Tell no one what you found here.”

  David stood. “I told you what our plans are.”

  “You must forgo any plans. Return to where you came from. Immediately.” Silver moved close, and seemed to smell us again. He lowered his voice. “There is an aperture at the bottom of the crevice.” His pupil-less eyed swirled toward me, then David. “Within that space is the source you seek.”

  “You’re helping us?” I asked.

  Silver took a big whiff of my shoulder. “In time, I hope we can help each other. Wait until the tides change.” He stepped back and raised his voice. “You must return to the ship the way you came.”