Deep Dark Sea

It was just a fish in the ocean.  Yet that was significant enough to the captain and crew of Explorer I, the first ship from Earth to land on Europa, one of Jupiter’s four Galilean moons and the only one with an ocean.  What made this ocean special was the fact that it was located beneath a miles-thick sheet of ice.  But Explorer I was ready for that, and in fact it was designed for that very purpose--to drill through the ice and send a probe into the vast Europan ocean.  They detected one fish, and that was an anomaly--a very big anomaly.  Because they detected a fish where no fish should have been.  No other life was detected by life sensors, not even bacterium.  It was a fish in the ocean, all right, but it might of well have been an alien ship from the future with advanced technology beyond Andromeda. 

Colonel Martin turned to Science Officer Simms. Simms was a tall, lanky sort with jet-black hair and jutting jaw.  But even though he had a hard-bitten look about him, he had a sensitive, poetic side, a side which he rarely showed to others.  As the flashing lights of the science counsel reflected in Simms’ aquamarine eyes, Martin asked:

“You’re sure about the sensors?  They showed no other life?”

“That’s affirmative, commander,” Simms answered quickly, adjusting dials while maintaining a fixed gaze at the scientific instruments.

Colonel Martin, blonde haired, blue-eyed and Buck Rogers handsome in his six foot frame, joined Simms at the science station and examined a specific reading, peering sternly over Simms’ shoulder.

“This is most peculiar,” Martin mused.  Their highly trained eyes met, and for a moment it was as if they read each others minds.  Finally, Simms said matter-of-factly,

“It is a deep, dark sea, full of unknowns, full of foreboding.”

Commander Martin, resisting a double take, quipped,

“Poetry, Simms?  That’s hardly regulation.”  and immediately regretted having said it.

Simms was, for the most part, unfazed, even though his face pinked up slightly.  He looked his captain square in the face and, sensing an eagerness to state what they were both thinking, said,

“Go ahead, Captain, say it.”

“All right, science officer, I will!”

“We detected one fish,” Martin continued, “Yet the sensors reveal this entire ocean to be lifeless.  Logically, there should be no fish at all.  Unless, of course, this is a fish with a very long life span.  But that then begs the question…”

Simms cut in: “Yes, Commander, what does this fish eat?”

“Precisely,” Martin added directly. 

Simms pushed back his chair and faced Commander Martin, feeling a bit more at ease.

“Of course,” Simms began, “There is another possibility, one which I am almost reluctant to pose.”

“Go ahead,” Martin urged.

“Well, perhaps this one, solitary fish is not indigenous to this ocean at all.”

“Planted here?”  Martin said.

“Planted here, “ Simms sighed, “But then that gets us right back to the conundrum we touched on earlier, about it having nothing to eat!”

“How detailed a reading were we able to get on this fish, Simms?” Martin asked.

“Only the basics, sir: it is about the size of a grouper on Earth, has scales, gills, and of course, no eyes.”

“Yes, of course,” Martin hurried in, “the ocean is dark all right, no light whatsoever.”

“Precisely, Commander, it is a deep, dark sea.”

The two carried on their conversation of scientific data seeking and speculation then, and in the days that followed, as the probe did its thing in the deep ocean, as Explored I sat like a rigid alien of pipe and tank and rocket exhaust on the ice surface of a Galilean satellite first observed long ago by a scientist brave enough to rock the Catholic hierarchy.

Simms explained further to Commander Martin that, although initial  readings of the ocean’s “grouper fish” were achieved, more detailed readings, those at the molecular level, would have to wait until they returned to Earth.  Explorer I simply did not have the equipment to do so.

_______________

Back on Earth, the analysis was complete, and astonishingly enough, the fish on Europa, that one lone fish, was found to be artificial,  There was no mistaking it; there was no DNA; only technology at the atomic level, micro-circuitry and the like.  Even so, it registered as a life form to the equipment aboard Explorer I.  Scientists to this day are still puzzling over this.

Martin and Simms met for coffee to chat and share socially in the success of their mission to Europa.  And although they both received the news, in debriefing, regarding the artificial fish, they knew they had to refrain from talking about it openly, both of them being professional.  So when they sat down, Martin looked at Simms, gave a wink and simply said,

“It is, truly, a deep, dark sea.”

818 Words
Writer’s Cramp
August 27, 2013