CALAMARI: By Radrook
Oct 15, 2022 10:28:32 GMT -5
Post by Radrook Admin on Oct 15, 2022 10:28:32 GMT -5
Calamari
By Radrook
By Radrook
The tetrahedral oblong-shaped vessel gleamed a dull crimson as it plowed the ever-thickening atmosphere toward the dark, surging waters below. When it finally hit the surface, huge plumes of steam gushed upward and a rogue wave was created that would capsize any small vessel in its wake.
The waters soon cooled its hull as it descended swiftly into the vast darkness. Then leveling out, it wedged itself into a crevasse on an undersea cliff bordering an abyssal plain.
Inside its dimly-lit recesses, within a concave holding-tank, hair-like tubes that had kept the scientist alive withdrew from his epidermis to be replaced by those that injected the fluids that would revive him from his long slumber. Slowly, as he began regaining consciousness, images began to coalesce in his Mollusk brain.
They were vague at first, fleeting glimpses that would teasingly coalesce and withdraw back into the murky depths of his subconscious. But as the drug-induced synaptic lethargy of the deep slumber waned, they became vividly clear.
Once more he felt his body awash in the warm invigorating waters of his world. Triple moons above a glistening red-tinged sea. Vast breakers crashing wildly against glimmering crystal shores. The red plumes of undersea volcanoes, undersea mountain peaks towering like proud monarchs over domed cities, bioluminescent caverns where his kind frolicked and lived as the dominant creatures of his planet.
And there, on an elevated diamantine platform, within a secluded alcove near the undersea dunes, his ship being prepared to break the bonds of the deep and leap toward the lights that hovered mysteriously in the dark gaseous skies above. In response to the hallucinations the scientist's body stirred and muscles slowly began regaining their normality. It was comforting to know that his neural transmitters were working after being dormant for a decade. But that was his mind. His body was another matter. It was the frail part that rendered him mortal while his mind made him feel like a veritable god.
Again the scientist stirred in his nutrient-filled hibernation tank, and this time his muscles spasmed violently from the effort. He needed to go slow. But anxiety was starting to loom instinctively as he heard the walls of his vessel groan under the unrelenting pressures of this alien world’s ocean. Soon, if he delayed too long, the walls would come crashing in violently with a deadly force.
With a determined, desperate effort. he lifted his body from the tank using his dorsal tentacles. Then he slithered toward the ship’s control panel, and with the power of his mind willed the viewing port open. Immediately with a swoosh the great forward panels parted revealing the ink-black darkness outside. But it wasn’t all darkness.
Here and there, bioluminescent creatures were flitting about. Some approached the portal’s light with grotesque gaping jaws. Others fled frantically. All were too small to pose the ship or him a threat. His scientific curiosity having been stirred, he reached out mentally and gently inspected them, meticulously searching, probing deeply for the precious and rare spark unique to reasoning minds as they swirled around the ships pale green light
From creatures he recoiled in horror and disgust, but his scientific mind forced it on-inexorably, dispassionately, subsuming instinct to reason as his meticulous eons of training had taught him to do.
Yes, they were creatures as himself. Dwellers of the deep as opposed to the microbial life-forms that infested his worlds non-watery surface. Primitive, true, yet kindred, they allayed his fear, for if there were these, then surely the dominant species was to be found in the water domain higher up where the planet’s yellow star could reach with its feeble light, and provide the warmth essential for more complex life to survive.
Suddenly, his thoughts were interrupted by the mournful groan of tortured metal as the ship lurched closer to the edge of the ledge it was precariously perched upon. It would be a quick merciful death as the imploding walls and water would instantly crush his skull like an egg-shell, and his long journey across the eternal night would have proven in vain. But he might survive if he acted quickly before his strength would totally ebb away.
Concentrating all his mental power on the ship hull and a portion of it on himself in order to create an impenetrable barrier, would prove difficult in his weakened state. It would drain him of almost all his mental resources and bring him close to death and maybe incapable of fending off whatever hostile creature might lurk in the sunlit waters above. But he had no choice. Already he could sense that the slow inching of the ship toward the abyss was accelerating and knew he had just minutes to act.
So bracing himself for the effort, he positioned himself before the section of the ship’s hull that had already buckled. Then slowly, his body took on a luminous tinge. Gradually the luminosity divided into striations of a darker hue which began moved in concentric circles from his brain’s frontal lobe to the tips of his tentacles. He shut his eyes tightly and the circles increased in velocity until they became a blur. Then, as he had expected, the wall before him burst, the waters and the rest of the ship imploded but were held at bay by the force field he had generated.
Soon he was slowly rising through the inky blackness toward the alien sea's surface. As the pressures subsided his body began to regained its lithe form which permitted him to glide through the waters with laminar flow. He would need that to traverse the vast distances that separated him from the continental shelves where he expected life to abound.
The dense darkness of the deep was enduring far longer than he had expected but increasing his rate of ascension was too painful. The force field he had generated was weakening by the time the first flickers of the planet’s starlight reached his dinner-plate-sized eyes.
Finally, at approx. two-hundred feet from the shimmering surface, the force field wavered, dissipated and was gone exposing his body to the full brunt of the alien sea. He writhed in pain at its extreme salinity, but by sheer force of will-power he subsumed the sensation and transformed it until it bothered him no more.
Gradually, he gained his bearings. In the far distance he detected the familiar
breaking of waves on a sandy shore. There in the shallower seas would be what he sought. With a squid like motion he propelled himself in its direction. Occasionally he would here ululations emanating from creatures down below. But he was too feeble now to make contact and needed what strength he had to reach the continental shelf. From there he could sense life surging in vast numbers.
By the time he was nearing the shore, the planet's star was beginning to set. Twice he surfaced to view its orange half-circle barely visible above the planet's starlit western horizon .
Several times, white-winged beaked creatures swept down from the planet's skies to attack him and forced him to submerge. How easily he could have fended them off with his mind had he not expended all his energies on the force-field.
But he could not afford too many of such distractions. So once more he swam toward the distant shore albeit more slowly now since his strength ebbed and his moribund body protested to his demands.
It was then he felt it. It arrived suddenly with the drone of what he knew was machinery of a primitive kind. But above the din there was something more. Yes! He could feel it. There was no mistaking it. The realization invigorated him for one final effort. So summoning all his remaining strength, he began squeezing the thick muscles of his mantle funneling the irritating saline water and propelling himself toward the approaching metallic clangor and as his did, there was a meeting of consciousness.
Nebulous at first but then complete. The other mind recoiled in startled surprise and struggled to free itself. It was a strange mind, this one was. Intelligent, true, yet overwhelmed with emotions that it fought to supersede. It was a mind at war with itself. A mind that, he couldn't restrain from disengaging as it struggled to break free from contact. He needed to get closer. It was above him now in some vessel that floated on the water's surface.
Vaguely he saw see the creature that harbored such an alien mind- a four-limbed an air dweller! His instinct told him to flee, but the scientist within told him that he need to make contact. He needed to get closer before his last energies would dissipate. With great effort he managed to lose the distance and once again touched the alien mind. But this time he instinctively recoiled.
There were other minds on the vessel as well, Minds in the throes of physical agony and filled with the dread of impending death. Creatures thrashing about desperately in large cubicle containers being crushed by the weight of
numbers and slowly suffocating, unable to se their gills to process the oxygen from the atmosphere. In their minds he beheld the creature that had inflicted this, the same creature that was now on the vessel's hedge holding a shaft above its head an about to hurl it at him.
Frantically he tried to twist away but it was too late. The sharp pain told him
he had been morally pierced by the creature's weapon. Then he felt himself being lifted-lifted into to that horrible alien gaseous realm, the light hurt his eyes and blurred his vision. But he could see glimpses of the creature who's mind he had touched, Its frontal white and yellow-stained teeth gleamed in the sun as he gazed up at him. Then he saw it open its facial orifice and yell to another biped creature on a nearby similar vessel.
"Hey! Look at what I caught for dinner! Today we eat calamari!"