Ocean Under the Ice

by Robert L. Forward

  Upon hearing Cinnamon’s greeting song, Little Red undulated over to the window and spread himself against the inside of the window. Through the thick glass Cinnamon could hear a modulated roar that ended in a whistling chirp. A sonar pickup inside the tank sensed the sounds and sent them to James, who translated them from flouwenese into English, and passed them on to Cinnamon’s imp via coded laser beams transmitted from laser diodes hidden in the corners of the corridor ceiling.

  *Are we there yet!?!* came Little Red’s query out of the “earphones” of the small imp on Cinnamon’s head. The tone, although not the volume, was James’s attempt at a reasonable imitation of what Little Red probably sounded like to the two older flouwen. *I’m bored! I want to go explore!*

  “We’ve only just started,” replied Cinnamon. “Although Rocheworld is close to Gargantua in this part of its elliptical orbit, it’s going to take weeks to transfer to an orbit around Gargantua, and a few more weeks before we are ready to land on one of Gargantua’s moons.”

  *Too long!* complained Little Red.

  Just then, one of the galley imps rose up in the lift shaft at the end of the corridor, levitated by the rapidly beating twigs on three of its “feet”. In one “hand” it was carrying Cinnamon’s drink-ball, while the other “hand” held four still-steaming croissants. As the imp passed the croissants out, Deirdre quietly accepted one, broke off one end, and passed it up to Foxx, who took it in tiny paws.

  The squeaks and chirps coming from the tank increased in frequency and intensity as Little Red used his sonar to scan the corridor outside the tank. Although the bodies of the flouwen were sensitive to light, they had no eyes, and so normally they did not use light as a method of looking at things. Instead they used sound pulses generated and detected by their bodies to “see”. In the liquid environment of their home ocean, this was a superior method of observing things. It didn’t depend upon light from the dim and often absent Barnard, so the flouwen could “see” in the dark depths as well as they could near the surface.

  With sonar, the flouwen didn’t just look at the surface of an object, for the sonar penetrated inside the object and gave the flouwen a three-dimensional image of what they were seeing. Sonar travels best in water, and a portion of Little Red’s penetrating sound pulses bounced off the thick glass. Of the part that penetrated into the glass, a large portion was reflected by the glass-air interface, and only a small portion reached the air in the corridor. In the air, the sound waves traveled five times slower than they did in the water, and by the time they reflected from the soft, absorbing clothing of the humans, and back through the air, and glass, and into the water, there was little left. It was enough, however, for Little Red to “see” that Cinnamon was eating something.

  *You eat!* Little Red announced. *I eat too!* The red flouwen peeled itself off the window, and forming itself into an efficient swimming shape, undulated away to the maze of baffles in the far corner of the habitat tank. The infinitely flexible body of Little Red had little difficulty in penetrating the maze, so it wasn’t long before he had jumped an animal that looked like an orange-red blob — as structureless as a flouwen. The animal screamed as it attempted to elude the red pseudopods that Little Red formed one after another to trap it.

  “I think I’ll go now,” said George, getting up as Little Red caught the small creature. He handed his tray to the galley imp, peeled himself off the sofa, and pushed down the corridor to the central shaft.

  “Me too,” said Jinjur, following him while still carrying her squeezer of coffee.

  Cinnamon averted her eyes and left too, as Little Red started to tear his living and still screaming prey apart into little pieces. Each little part continued to scream until its sounds were finally muffled by being absorbed into Little Red’s body. As Cinnamon made her way down the corridor, she raised a hand and made a twisting motion next to one of the “earphones” on her imp headband, as if turning up the volume on a audio set. In response to the motion, James obliged her by playing a loud Sousa march.

  Deirdre, however, trying to learn as much as she could about the little-observed process, looked dispassionately into the tank and watched carefully as Little Red devoured his meal. The orange-red “rogue” that Little Red was eating was one of a dozen that she and Cinnamon had budded from a larger rogue in their Rocheworld fauna breeding tanks, and placed into the flouwen tank vent field. The bud had originally been the size of a small sausage, and now it was as big as her forearm. The vent field must be operating well if the rogue grew that much in the few weeks since they set up the flouwen habitat tank.

  It wasn’t pleasant watching Little Red eat, but Deirdre knew that Little Red was doing what he must to survive. Deirdre had once raised snakes, including large pythons that required rabbits for their weekly meals. Deirdre had perforce become an expert at killing rabbits. It was unfortunate that the food animals that the flouwen ate could not be humanely killed before being eaten, but that was the way life was built on Rocheworld. Like the flouwen, the rogues and most of the other Rocheworld fauna could not be killed. Trying to kill a flouwen or a rogue was like trying to kill a slime mold or an ant colony. One could tear any of them apart into smaller and smaller pieces, but each piece would be just as alive as the larger piece, until finally only the individual cells were left.

  Little Red had torn the rogue into bits which were small enough to digest easily, and they were now dispersed as separate orange-red blobs inside the large flame-red blob that formed Little Red’s body. Deirdre watched carefully as the orange-red blobs grew smaller and smaller until there was only flame-red where orange-red had once been. Deirdre had watched the process of assimilation under a microscope and knew what was happening as Little Red digested the rogue.

  On Earth, where humans, animals, and plants have distinctively proteins, the humans must digest the animal and plant proteins down to simple compounds like sugars and starches and amino acids, then build them back up into human proteins. On Rocheworld, where all the animal lifeforms used the same basic cell, the process of digestion didn’t go as far as it did on Earth. The basic Rocheworld cell was quite large compared to a human cell and had a dumbbell-shaped body of clear jelly that varied from glassy to almost liquid depending upon the water content. When enlarged with water, it was the size of the body of a very small ant. The cells replicated by growing larger, splitting in two, then forming a necked down portion. A group of these cells would spontaneously collect together into a cross-linked blob, with necked down portions interlocking with end knob portions. On the surface of each cell was a complex pseudo-random pattern of grooves and indentations that operated as a “template” for the genetic code of the organism. In the higher animals, such as the flouwen, portions of these patterns were changeable and served as the repository for the long term memory.

  Once a blob of cells had collected together, a liquid crystal layer would form between the cells, with the large complex organic chemicals in the liquid crystal layer being determined and ordered by the grooves and indentations in the surface of the cells. The optical properties of the thin layer of liquid crystal gave the flouwen and the other fauna their distinctive bright colors. The liquid crystal layer acted as the coordinating nervous system or “brain” of the collection of cells. Because all of their body cells were involved in their thinking and memory processes, the flouwen were, in essence, all brain. The genetic code information in the surface of the cells was used to organize the liquid crystal “brain”, while the liquid crystal layer in turn could impress grooves and patterns onto the cells to store memories. When Little Red was “digesting” the rogue, all its body was doing was dissolving the orange-red liquid crystal layer of the rogue, and using its own flame-red liquid crystal to change the genetic pattern on the surface of the cells, which then became Little Red cells.

  Now that the screams had stopped, Cinnamon returned. With her was the ship’s chief engineer, Shirley Everett and one of the expedition’s geoscientists, Richard Redwing.
Both were well over six feet tall and well muscled, like professional basketball players. Shirley’s long, blond braid was held in place behind her left ear by her imp, shaped into a crescent-shaped hairclip, while Richard bore his imp on his shoulder, like all the men on the ship. They came up behind Deirdre, close to the window.

  Deirdre had been so absorbed in watching Little Red eat, that she hadn’t been paying attention to the other flouwen in the tank. Now, she noticed Little White plastered up against the tank window — and her left ear was ringing as if it were being subjected to intense noise. She turned to look at the arrival of the other humans, and the pressures in her ears changed. At the same time, she also finally noticed that Foxx was emitting a continual complaining chitter, and was fussing with her ears. Deirdre then realized that while she had been staring into the habitat tank at Little Red, Little White had been staring out of the tank at her — scanning her body with high frequency sonar pulses.

  ^There is something moving on your shoulder,^ said Little White. ^It is not the Talking@Sticks that some humans have on their shoulders. It has stiff sticks inside, but it is covered with soft flesh and a thick fuzzy surface — like hair — but it covers the whole body, not just the top of the head. I have never seen such a thing before. What is it?^

  “It’s my pet, Foxx,” replied Deirdre. “The fuzzy surface on it is called fur — it is dark red in color.”

  ^Interesting,^ said Little White. ^I must ‘look’ it using light as well as see it using sound.^

  *Pet with red color?!?* exclaimed Little Red. *I must look it too!*

  The two flouwen each formed a pseudopod with a large spheroid at the end and held the spheroid between their body and the window. After a few moments concentration, the color of the red and white spheroids slowly began to fade, while the intensity of the color in the arm of the pseudopod grew. The flouwen were withdrawing the strongly colored liquid crystal layer from between the transparent cells that made up the spheroid. Finally, all the liquid crystal was gone, leaving only a transparent sphere. Initially, the sphere was nearly invisible, since the jelly in the cells was nearly saturated with water molecules, but as the flouwen squeezed the water from the cells, they became denser and more visible, changing shape as it did so.

  Finally, it transformed into a large thick “magnifying glass” held on the end of the colored pseudopod of each flouwen, like a monocle on a stick. The light from the corridor passed through the curved lens of transparent flouwen flesh, which focused it onto the surface of the flouwen body behind. There, the light-sensitive flesh of the flouwen could detect the hue and intensity patterns of the light. It was the primary of Little White — White Whistler — which had discovered the concept of a light-focusing lens some decades ago, before the arrival of the humans, and had taught the other flouwen the technique of making an eye that could focus light images.

  Deirdre took Foxx down off her shoulder and brought the animal up near the tank window so the flouwen could look at it more clearly. While the flouwen watched, she had Foxx go through a few actions; racing up one arm and back down another, hanging from a finger with one hind foot, and jumping from one hand to another. All the while Foxx chittered away excitedly.

  *What does it say?* asked Little Red. *I do not understand its talk!*

  “It can’t talk,” replied Deirdre. “It just makes noises.”

  *It can’t talk!?! Then it must be good to eat!* pronounced Little Red.

  “We don’t eat pets!” said Deirdre firmly.

  With that revelation, Little Red was disgusted. *Pet not good for talking! Pet not good for food! Pet not good for anything! Pet DUMB!* The red flouwen absorbed its transparent “eye” back into its body and undulated away. Little White, however, was still interested.

  ^I would like to know more about this Foxx creature.^

  “James has a large file on Foxx and the many other animals on Earth,” Deirdre replied. “You can look at it on your taste-screen console.”

  The white flouwen kept one portion of his body near the window holding the imaging lens so he could continue to look at Deirdre and her pet, while the rest flowed across the habitat tank to one wall that contained what looked like the screen of a computer console. It was specially built by the ship’s computer James for use by the flouwen. In addition to the usual touch-screen and optical display, it had a “taste-screen” overlay embedded with electrochemical sensors and transmitters that allowed the flouwen to interact with the central computer using the chemical senses that they normally used for transmitting information. Soon, one part of Little White was tasting the information on Foxx coming from James through the taste-screen on the wall, while another part of Little White was looking at the surface of Foxx using light focused through the lens onto its surface, and still another part of Little White was seeing the entire volume of Foxx using sonar pulses.

  ^Very interesting creature,^ Little White said finally. ^Especially the tail. Do humans have tails?^

  “No!” replied Deirdre.

  ^Why not?^ asked Little White in the typical blunt flouwen fashion. Deirdre was saved from having to answer by an announcement from James. “There is a call coming up from the laser link communicator that was set up in Agua Dulce bay on Rocheworld. Deep Purple wishes to converse with Little Purple.”

  Little Purple went over to the wall console, and Little White pulled away from the screen and let Little Purple take his place. The conversation didn’t take long and Little Purple soon returned.

  #My primary called to say it is leaving Agua Dulce for a while. It is going to return to the beaches on the Isles of Thought, there to rock up and continue its thinking on … # there was a pause as James tried to translate the thought, #… advanced mathematics.#, the translation ended lamely.

  “I am sorry,” James apologized to the humans through their imps. “There is no referent known in human mathematics to the phraseology which the two flouwen used in discussing the topic. I am quite appalled at my inability to translate.”

  “If you think you’re dumb, James, how do you think that makes us feel?” said Richard with feeling.

  Little Purple continued to talk. #When I was talking to my primary, there was a delay between my question and answer, as if my primary were far away in the water. Why is that?#

  “That’s because the laser light used to send messages back and forth to Rocheworld takes time to travel,” replied Shirley.

  #Is that true?# replied Little Purple. #If so, light must move very fast. When lightning strikes ocean, light always comes before sound.#

  “The speed of sound in water is about fifteen hundred meters per second, while the speed of light is three hundred million meters per second — two hundred thousand times faster.” Shirley waited while James and Little Purple carried on a side conversation to make sure that Little Purple had understood what the metric units meant in terms of distances and time intervals which the flouwen used.

  #That is very fast indeed,# Little Purple finally agreed.

  “But the distance between planets is so large that even light takes a long time to travel from one planet to another, or in this case between Rocheworld and Prometheus. Which is why you noticed a time delay. Incidentally…” she added. “…I don’t really understand it, but I am told that the speed of light is always the same to every observer, no matter how fast they are moving.”

  ^That is not logical,^ interjected Little White. ^When I calculated mathematical logic for motion of Barnard and Gargantua and other lights in sky, that system of logic says that if one object is moving at one velocity and another object is moving toward it at another velocity, the relative velocity is sum of velocities.^

  “I would agree with you,” replied Shirley. “But I am told that the logic which applies to massive bodies does not apply to light or objects moving close to the speed of light. If you are traveling at the speed of light, and a light beam is sent at you traveling at the speed of light, you do not see the light beam coming at you at nearly two tim
es the speed of light — just one times the speed of light. For things that move very rapidly, you need to use a different system of logic. It’s called relativity theory … and don’t ask me to explain it.”

  #A different logic for things that move very rapidly…# murmured Little Purple in thought. Soon the dark purple body was visibly growing smaller as it expelled water and became more dense in order to increase its rate of thinking. #… the speed of light is always the same to every observer…# The thinking purple blob moved slowly off to one corner, thickening and becoming more and more purple as it shrank in size. Finally it settled to the floor of the habitat tank as a deep purple rock — a thinking rock.

  Little Red spotted his good friend Richard. *Hey! Richard! This tank is too small! Get me out of here!*

  “Sure, little buddy!” Richard replied. “Let me check out your drysuit and we’ll go for a walk so you can stretch your legs.”

  There was a short pause while Little Red listened to the translation coming through James. Suddenly, the flouwen emitted a high pitched scream of laughter that continued on and on as the red cloud literally turned itself inside out. The portion of Little Red nearest them pushed deep into the center of the body and burst out the back end, dragging the rest of the body around with it. It split into an opening flower and continued back around, shaping the convoluting body into a ring of rotating red jelly twirling like a smoke ring. Little White, joining in the merriment, also gave a scream of laughter, and, forming itself into a snake-like shape, sinuously wove its way through the opening in Little Red’s body. After a number of rotations, the red smoke ring collapsed and the screaming subsided as the alien took its normal blob shape.