I shivered.
It had felt, for a fleeting moment, that I was standing above the abyss, gazing into the very heart of Hell itself. It was a strange sensation, one which I was unused to. I fought the uneasy feeling in my gut for as long as I could before deciding that I had had enough. Sixteen seconds. That’s all it took to go find somewhere else to stand. Gerry followed.
“I feel the same way sometimes,” he'd said after we had stepped back into the elevator.
I shook my head as the doors closed. I enjoyed science, I truly did. But what the station was doing on Titan, and what it was researching was beyond anything I had ever hoped to understand in this lifetime. I understood the how of it, mostly, but I still wasn't entirely sure as to the why. I said as much.
Gerry’s laugh caught me off guard. I looked at him and raised an eyebrow.
“Sorry,” he said, still chuckling, “A year ago I didn't even know what half this stuff was. It's funny.”
“I get it.” I said, shrugging. “You gotta adapt to the situation.”
“Some of the things that they're looking at here is chromosomal sequencing,” he said. “Humans are inquisitive beings at heart. Tinkerers and all that. Explorers of the unknown. We look at something and then ask how we can make it better.”
“Okay, sure.” That had been yet another dodge. My irritation was growing with each passing moment. Eventually, he was either going to tell me what was going on, or I was going to be forced to slit his throat. And that would not look good on my resume. I had managed to get a lot of out of my new boss, but was almost at wit's end trying to pull a few final bits of information out of him. A root canal was kinder, gentler and, I was beginning to believe, one typically got more out of it.
“The last level of the tour is really cool. You have any biotechnology knowledge? Anything about Ethology?”
““Uh, marine biology used to interest me. Sea lions, seals, stuff like that. It was something I liked as a kid,” I said, keeping my annoyance out of my voice as best as I could. “Grew out of it when I first joined up, fell back into it in Sniper School. Well, the science part of it. More physics and math than biology, though.”
You heard that correctly. The Marine Corps weaponized math. Oorah.
“Well then, you'll probably find this pretty interesting,” Gerry told me as they exited the elevator. “This is the primary research level here at the station. You'll be down here a lot once you’re cleared for transfer duty. Escorting the prisoners. We run three guards with each prisoner transfer, two behind, and one in front. They're always in cuffs and bracers during transit, no exceptions. That's just stuff we'll go over later, but it's pretty basic stuff. You'll have our operations manual on your PDA by tonight – send me your preferred user name today when we're done here so I can add you to the network – and it'll explain all our policies, procedures and provide you with a map of the entire facility. It's a handy thing.”
“Wow, that's one interesting view,” I commented as we made our way across the fairly open room. To my left, there was a collection of privacy domes, nearly identical to the prisoner cells on the upper level. A few scientists moved between them, offering me a glimpse of the work they were doing at the station. Most of it was on large PDAs that reminded me of old computer banks, though I did see a centrifugal machine in one of the rooms.
The only reason I knew what centrifuges look like is because the rebels on Soma had stolen a few and tried to make a nuke once. AIRS had gotten a bit ambitious after managing to snooker the UN into believing that they only wanted nuclear power for peaceful purposes and kidnapped two female Marines to try and “encourage” US cooperation with the UN resolution. They'd actually gotten a facility up and running before the Navy had decided that an orbital bombardment was the easiest way to discourage any further attempts at building a nuke. Unfortunately, the missing Marines were being kept in the facility. My unit had gone in and rescued them so the Navy could drop a twenty ton nickel-and-iron rod on the rebels. The squids had even waited until we were clear.
For values of ‘clear.’
It had not ended well for the rebels. I’d heard that more than one rod was dropped. I’m not certain, since I was too busy running away. On the plus side, the rebels stopped trying to build a nuclear bomb.
I shook off the memories. On my right lay a few benches near the plasteel, which allowed someone to have a beautiful and unobstructed view of the lake. There were a few tubes filled with the liquid methane running across the room and feeding into The Well. They were more than large enough for multiple adults to swim through together, which I found quite a bit odd. They looked to be late additions to the structure and not part of the original design, though their seams looked flawless. For a moment, I started to wonder about the structural integrity of the station before I remembered that I hadn't gone to college and really knew jack-all about structural engineering. Or engineering in general.
I walked to the plasteel, paused, and looked out into the lake. It was peaceful, serene. The light from both Saturn and the sun was mostly blocked by the thick and dense atmosphere, but what did manage to break through created a golden effect beneath the liquid surface. Not enough to light the bottom of the lake, but there was more than enough to give the scientists inside the station a good view.
I sighed and put my hands behind my back. I stared out into the golden haze. One year. I had signed a contract for one year with the option to renew each additional year in expectation of being assigned to guard some dignitary on a war-torn world. I had anticipated a dangerous job, hard work which almost justified my exorbitant pay.
This though? This was practically a vacation. Outside of the slim possibility that the station could collapse upon itself due to outside atmospheric pressure, this was the safest job I had ever had in my entire life, and that included being a pizza delivery driver in my hometown when I was a teenager. Granted, I grew up in a big city and was poor, so the comparisons were a bit skewed.
I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. The horrors from Soma would never truly leave, but they were something I could learn to deal with, in time. Wounds leave scars, and scars can be ugly, but scars also made up the person I was. Scars also faded with time and became a more permanent part of a person the faster they learned to accept that they will remain.
I wanted them to remain. It would have been dishonorable to try and forget. I couldn't allow the guys in my unit to be forgotten just so I could hide my own pain. That was the sort of thing that makes a Marine forget the entire reason behind their enlistment, forget their purpose, and their oath.
I opened my eyes.
Something dark and shadowy flitted through the oily liquid outside the station, almost too fast for me to see. I jumped back and let out a startled yelp in surprise. I looked over at Gerry, who was looking at me with a smug expression on his face. Annoyed and slightly embarrassed, I leaned back in towards the plasteel so that I could look into the lake once more.
The dark shape returned, albeit moving at a much slower pace. I barely stifled a gasp as it drifted into the ambient light of the research station. At first glance, it looked like an Earth manta ray, with fins protruding from the side like wings. It was medium-sized, almost as big as a German Shepherd. At first glance it looked like an Earth manta ray, with fins protruding from the side like wings. Unlike a ray, each wing had small hands with three tiny fingers.
Its elongated body was more similar to a moray eel than a manta ray, however. It swam back and forth much like a snake on land, the protruding wings more for stability than anything. The creature was pink, almost brightly so, with varying hues of blue and purple running along the wings. The long tail trailing behind it seemed flatten at the end, like the fluke of a whale. I guessed it was shaped that way so it could be capable of sudden bursts of speed to hunt food or to escape some larger predator.
The face was something from the deepest, darkest horrors of a nightmare. Wide, like a manta ray, but no eyes. Instead, tentacles flai
led at random before scooping towards the large mouth. No teeth, but a strange bulge on its upper jaw. I searched for the word. Baleen, like whales on Earth.
My suspicions were confirmed an instant later. The mouth closed, followed by a large pulse of liquid. The creature barely paused in its swimming as it began hunting for more food.
It was terrifying and magnificent all in one.
“I hope this gives you a small idea as to what we're guarding here now,” Gerry said to me as I continued to watch the alien swim by the station. It was weird watching the being move through the methane, yet completely natural at the same time. “We've discovered something so big, so important, that we literally could be looking at the next step in humanity's journey to the stars.”
“Holy shit,” I breathed, watching the strange, horrible, and yet beautiful creature swim gracefully around in the liquid. “What the hell is that thing?”
“We call them krakens,” a feminine voice behind me answered, “and they're as alien as they appear. Welcome to Kraken Mare.”
Chapter Four
Nature is relentless and unchangeable, and it is indifferent as to whether its hidden reasons and actions are understandable to man or not.
–Galileo Galilei
Fifteen minutes later, I'd found myself with my new boss and the head researcher of the facility in another section of the station everyone called the Gallery. The name made sense; there were dozens of specially-designed tubes throughout the room, creating a labyrinth within what looked at first glance to be a standard observation room. Running throughout the room were more of the tubes filled with liquid methane, along with a few habitats. It was eerily beautiful.
“You're doing experiments here,” I commented as I walked with the doctor and Gerry through the Gallery. Most of the krakens were slowly drifting through the liquid methane inside their specialized habitats, but a few had used their miniscule hands to pull themselves out of the watery substance and onto the rubbery, artificial beach the scientists had created within a few of the pressurized habitats. They were basking under a special lamp which emitted blue light. It reminded me of the turtle aquarium I had when I was just a kid. Albeit, this was an aquarium that could kill everyone in the station should it break open.
Introductions had been easy. Dr. Marie Marillac was the leading researcher at the station and someone that I would be dealing with on a semi-regular basis. She was a bright, bubbly person who was also easy on the eyes and possessed a brain that put anyone I knew to shame. I'd always considered myself smart but when dealing with the xenobiologist, I felt like a drooling toddler. I briefly wondered just how many of the contractors on the station had made a pass at the woman and figured it was most – if not all – of the single ones. I also was willing to bet money that their success rate was at about zero.
“Experiments, yes,” Dr. Marillac agreed. “That's science for you.” I chuckled at this. The woman was both smart and attractive. A dangerous combination.
“How do they breathe?” I wondered aloud.
“They absorb methane through their skin,” she explained as we walked slowly through the Gallery. She stopped every few steps to look at one of the kraken before moving on. She was so engrossed in the science behind the aliens that I wasn't completely certain she remembered I was still in the room with her. “We believe that they are able to metabolize it. Our theory is that they emit small doses of xenon in a cycle, much like the carbon dioxide to oxygen cycle of plants on Earth. Of course, it's still a theory, but a fairly solid one. We've found trace elements of the gas in the methane lakes here.”
“I…see,” I said, nodding slowly. In truth, I really didn't understand, but I did know that what humans exhaled, plants inhaled, and vice versa. I figured that was what she was trying to tell me in her overly scientific way.
I paused and watched as one of the smaller aliens slid off the rubbery beach and back into the liquid. It drifted towards me slowly, as if it were sizing me up. It was creepy as hell the way that it seemed to scrutinize me. I tilted my head to the side and stared as the creature approached.
“How smart are they?” I asked, my earlier train of thought gone as I watched the small being hover in the tank before me. I still couldn't see any obvious eyes on the creature, but I could feel it looking at me, assessing me. Perhaps the tentacles doubled as eyes, I wondered. It was mildly uncomfortable to think about, considering that it also used the tentacles to eat with.
“We're not entirely sure,” Doctor Marillac admitted. She moved to the other side of the habitat, her face slightly distorted from the liquid and clear-steel. Her eyes were intent upon the one which was hovering in front of me. “They're smarter than dolphins, we're certain of that.”
“That's pretty smart, right?” I asked, struggling to dredge up long-forgotten memories of my youth. I had been an avid fan of the ocean as a child and had thought about becoming a marine biologist one day in the future. Of course, once I had realized just how poor my family was and that I would have to come up with a way to pay for schooling myself, I'd chosen to become a Marine instead, who would then pay for it. That course of action became a moot point when they drummed me out on medical. I suppose I could argue that I was halfway to achieving my childhood dream. Thanks to the new job, I could afford it now.
“Dolphins have been tested to have an average EQ – that stands for encephalization quotient, which measures your actual brain mass versus your body mass, and can give a pretty solid determinate of how smart you are – of 4.5,” Dr. Marillac said as she traced a slender finger along the contours of the plasteel, her eyes distant as she watched more of the alien creatures swim into view. “This is very high. Humans average around 7.5. We're guessing that the krakens are around a high five, maybe even six. There's no way of knowing without years of more research, and we're rather reluctant to cut open a live specimen.”
“I still think you should just do it when they die of old age,” Gerry stated, moving to stand closer to the attractive scientist. I tried not to smirk at my new boss and what he was doing. It was obvious to anyone with a pulse and any sort of knowledge of human interaction that he was very interested in the woman. The good doctor, however, remained oblivious to his not-too-subtle advances. I nearly laughed out loud at the absurdity of it. The woman was all about her aliens and seemed to lack any knowledge of basic human courtship, or was even aware that Gerry existed. The poor bastard.
Dr. Marillac squirmed uncomfortably at Gerry's statement. It seemed to be a sore subject between them, and I guessed she would explain for my benefit. I was not disappointed.
“For some reason, their body mass decreases upon death. We're not entirely sure why. Plus, what if they're as smart as we are, and they see us cutting open their dead? I would be a little annoyed if someone cut open my dead grandmother, for instance. So far as we can tell, they're allowing us to study them from afar. The Well allows them to come and go as much as they want. They're not what you would call typical specimens, and they're definitely not pets. So cutting open one of their dead might ruin whatever potential relationships we might get out of this. If they're as smart as we think they are.”
She has a point, I conceded, my previous humor tapering off some. I wouldn't want some mad scientist cracking open my grandfather's skull and looking at his brain just to see how it ticked. There would undoubtedly be more than one dead body in the room when I finally calmed down.
“How do you measure their body mass without actually touching them?” I asked. It was an interesting dilemma though I was pretty sure I already knew how they accomplished it.
“Laser spectrum,” the doctor explained, which confirmed my suspicion. “It scans them when they bask beneath the blue lamps in the habitats. They swim in, sunbathe, and then swim away.”
“Changing the light bulb when it burns out must be a bitch,” I said in a low tone. The doctor must have overheard me because she smiled.
“You have no idea just how hard it is,” she confirmed. “Tak
es half of a day. Fortunately, when a light bulb goes out, the kraken go elsewhere.”
“Do they have some sort of habitat elsewhere? Or are they like sharks and just roam around the lake in patterns?” I asked her, my curiosity piqued.
“We don't know,” the doctor admitted. “Analysis suggests that they can withstand an amazing amount of pressure, since they live in liquid methane. The lake goes deep, extremely deep in fact. They might have habitats down below, but we have no idea if it's something they built or something that they found in a cave or anything. We really don't know that much about them.”
“And someone decided to build a station in a lake just to study them?” I pressed, amazed at the idea of someone dropping a massive station onto a planet from orbit to study something that looked like a cross between a manta ray and Cthulhu’s love child.
“Not necessarily,” she admitted. “I can't talk about some of it, as you know.”
I'd figured as much and I knew when not to press. Part of the non-disclosure agreement I had signed when hired by the company covered any instances should I find myself around sensitive information and, accordingly, was not supposed to look too deep into it. It had been the same back when I was still active duty.
Still though, I had to wonder. If the scientists weren't on Titan to study the kraken, and there were prisoners aboard, then what were they actually doing there?
ঠ
“Any thoughts?” Gerry's jovial attitude had changed once we had arrived in the guard quarters. He had shown me to my bedroom, which was bigger than some flats I had seen in New York City. Each contractor had their own room, albeit a sparingly decorated one. Still, it allowed for privacy, and privacy was rare for the average soldier. I was extremely happy to discover that I even had my own shower.
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