Songs of Thalassa

by Brian Tissot

Sage wished she could match Dina’s enthusiasm. There was a time when hippo sweat and space-age life vests would have thrilled her. If only she could be half the kid Dina met so many years ago, back when her energy level was boundless and her eyes glistened with adventure. Her dad was preparing for the Proteus mission, so Dina and Sage began spending a lot of time together, much to her tutu’s disappointment. Sage was so excited she bounced around telling everyone that she had a professional trainer and was going to be a real surfer.

  Dina and Sage were quite the pair: the tall, lanky California blonde and the small, stout, dark Hawaiian. Dina was a world-class professional surfer who grew up in southern California; both of her parents were professional athletes. She started surfing at a young age, quickly rising through the ranks into big-wave surfing. As she started competing and riding big waves, she found—the hard way—what it took to survive a bad wipeout.

  As their lessons began, Dina taught Sage to be ultra-tough, both mentally and physically, to surf big waves. The sport required the ability to hold your breath for two to three minutes and demanded a body in peak physical performance. Through free diving, Dina taught Sage to hold her breath, stretch her lungs, and lower her heart rate while relaxing and remaining still. A big-wave wipeout was a high-intensity hold-down with little chance to grab a good breath or keep calm. To prepare, Dina made Sage run underwater while holding large rocks, as the first big-wave surfers had done. Sage found it extremely challenging at first, but eventually, after months of training every day, she mastered the art of enduring the stress of being held underwater during a wipeout.

  At the same time, Dina taught her that dropping down the face of mountainous waves was also an emotional challenge, and she needed the ability to face intense fear, but not let it rule her instincts. Fear was natural, Dina told her—you can’t fight it—but if it creates hesitation, even for an instant, it can kill a surfer and others around her. She had learned to respect fear because it was a natural instinct, but Sage needed clear thinking to truly assess the danger of a situation and how to deal with it. Too much fear could cloud her judgment.

  Dina reached out to brush Sage’s hair away from her face. “Don’t you remember the day you won your first big-wave contest? You were flawless. Focus on that moment.”

  Sage smiled. “Of course, I remember it. That day changed my life.”

  It was her 18th birthday, and with Dina’s blessing she had signed up for her first big-wave surf contest at Pe‘ahi on Maui, a place known as Jaws, the ultimate big-wave spot in Hawaii. During the last minutes of her heat, a monster set came in, easily 70 feet, and her competitors were caught inside and washed out. But Sage had seen it coming and was paddling hard on Kekoa. On the largest wave of the set, she turned around and paddled in despite the paralyzing fear in her heart. As the giant swell crested over, she made an unforgettable vertical drop that was captured by every camera, every surf magazine, seen by the entire world on the holoscreen. The unforgettable moment was a portrait of a young woman dropping in on an ocean behemoth, her face steeled in focus, determination, and courage against insurmountable odds. Riding her traditional Hawaiian board, she made the drop with style, carved gracefully out onto the shoulder, and rode the bowl inside. When she kicked out, she had not only won the contest but through the power and realism of the holoscreen, she had also won the hearts of the world and was an instant public figure. Sponsors rushed to endorse her. In the next few weeks, Sage was on the cover of a dozen magazines, the subject of innumerable articles, and her wave had gone viral on the holoscreen.

  “What do you remember most about that day?” Dina asked, mirroring the excitement that Sage couldn’t hide from her face.

  “Sitting in the winner’s circle was awesome. I was surrounded by hundreds of yelling, hooting fans, my neck was piled high with leis, and dozens of cameras from all over the world were pushed in my face. It reminded me of when I won the Menehune contest. But this time it was a veritable sea of love and devotion. The feeling was amazing.” Despite Dina’s obvious pride in Sage’s accomplishment, it felt hollow because her father wasn’t there to share it. But the adoration from her world of supporters helped mask the void. I feel the love.

  Dina replied with a frown. “I meant about the surfing.”

  “Oh,” Sage said. “That was a gnarly day, and that wave scared the shit out of me. I accepted my fear as natural, just like you taught me, and didn’t hesitate. Focus and commit or die!”

  Dina laughed. “That’s exactly right. That’s how you won. Don’t forget that.”

  “How can I?” Sage replied as she picked up Milo’s red board and ran her hands over the yellow flames. “That was the first of my many titles.”

  Dina obviously wasn’t impressed by her vanity, but seem to warm with the memories. After Jaws, they traveled the big-wave competition circuit to Chile, Australia, Tahiti, Mexico, France, Portugal, Oregon, and finally to Mavericks in California where Sage set a new big-wave world record by beating Dina’s previous record. As her titles and trophies piled up, so did her focus and determination, but also her recklessness as Milo appeared and she began to battle for an even bigger wave.

  Only in retrospect did Sage realize she had used the sadness around her father to fuel her competitiveness. But her titles weren’t enough, and she became a wild woman in the water. Gone was the young girl with so much aloha. Now, it was all about riding the biggest wave. No longer content with her stunning accomplishments, she was addicted to the constant adrenaline of big waves and started to do crazy things. Dropping in on a huge wave was like nothing else on Earth, and it invoked an almost primal response in her body. Hooked on the thrill, she couldn’t hold back.

  To win against Milo and his gang, she began taking off from suicidal positions, too deep in the wave’s peak to make it, but she usually pulled it off with her innate talent. And on those occasions when she didn’t make it, she became good at surviving, breathing underwater with an emergency air supply or blasting to the surface with an inflatable vest. Dina objected, trying to keep her focused on her mental and physical training, but Sage had learned from Milo that she had to fight to win; she had to be an asshole in the water. So she started cutting other surfers off, too, and tricking them into going the wrong way—things she had never done before. It didn’t feel right, and she could almost see her tutu looking down in shame at her lack of pono, but it felt better than losing.

  After Milo beat her record at Cortes Bank, she surfed with wild abandon trying to get back on top. But with her new recklessness came beatings; she was repeatedly slamming into the reef, getting pounded by massive walls of water, and running into other surfers. As her actions grew to frenzied proportions, her body started to suffer. First, a gash across her face from hitting the reef, then a broken leg, and at Mavericks she threw her back out going over the falls and spent a month in rehab.

  Dina warned her about the risks she was taking, but she was too driven to win and ignored her counsel. When her popularity grew, she became more dependent on the adoration of her fans; their love tamed her mounting anger and filled the void in her heart. But it was an endless race against the emptiness consuming her as the gulf with her ‘ohana widened. On the rare occasion she went home, her family was stunned at the change in her behavior. No longer the smiling girl with the radiant aloha spirit, she was sullen, combative, and bragged about her victories and fan base. The Sage they knew was gone, and her tutu became increasingly despondent.

  Nazaré was the last straw. As she stood up on the monstrous 130-foot wave, she knew she had beaten Milo. The distraction caused her to hesitate at the top of the wave. Without a final push to drop in, she was stuck in the lip by searing winds and was pitched down the face of the wave. She was falling so fast when she hit the water it felt like concrete, then the white water rolled over her and tumbled her around until she hit the hard sandy seafloor. With her arms broken, she couldn’t reach her vest or emergency air, an
d without her tech she was dragged helplessly along the bottom into the raging shore break until she blacked out. When she came to, although her physical pain was excruciating, her emotional pain was worse.

  She woke up on the beach with Dina giving her CPR. On the torturous ride to the hospital, Sage tried to make sense of what had happened. In her agony, it slowly became clear. “I’ve lost my pono with the ocean,” she cried. She was being too aggressive and wasn’t focusing on the wave and the flow of water as she was taught.

  Few surfers had ever witnessed such a horrific wipeout, and it was on the news for weeks, playing over and over on the holoscreen. Despite an outpouring of sympathy and support, she knew her career was over. I’ve destroyed my life.

  Despite the pain and injuries to her body, she rushed back into competition, hoping she could get back on top. But she had lost her passion and grit, and Dina was furious at how quickly she returned to the competitive circuit. After Nazaré, Sage began to hesitate at critical moments, and bad wipeouts became more common. And for the first time, she began to doubt herself. She had lost her edge; she dropped out of the rankings and was unable to compete.

  “I’ve got to get it back,” Sage said. “I’m done living in the void.”

  Dina frowned. “Big-wave surfing is an unpredictable sport. You can’t have the ultimate highs without the ultimate lows. That just the way of it.”

  Sage nodded weakly. “Yeah, but I wasn’t prepared to live a life outside of professional surfing. I mean, one minute I’m famous and flying all over the world to challenge life-threatening waves, then it all comes to a grinding halt, and I’m sitting in a classroom, staring blankly at a blackboard.” After her career collapsed, she knew she needed a job to make ends meet, so she went to college in California and majored in the only subject that made sense of her life: biology. From there, she got an internship with Cutten and then a job as a microbiologist in the Natural Products division. Without her fast-paced life, her fans, and the love of her ‘ohana, her world turned dark, and she fell into a deep depression. She was a broken woman when Milo contacted her about the mission.

  Dina interrupted her thoughts with her soft voice. “Looking back, I realize it came too easily, too quickly for you. One day you were a young innocent Hilo girl, the next a global celebrity. Everyone loved your natural talent, your ocean wisdom, your laidback and gritty style, and especially your Hawaiian beauty and outgoing, cheerful nature. That day at Jaws everyone saw what I saw the first time I met you: an unforgettable young girl full of aloha spirit. Don’t you see? You perfectly fit the image the public needed. They’ve been nursing a nostalgia for the old ways for decades, and you came along at exactly the right moment. Your spectacular wins made you forget about the mistakes and poundings. You thought you were invincible. Well, nobody is, because the ocean is unbeatable. And you’ve learned that the hard way. Something happened to you, Sage. You’re not the same person now.”

  Sage looked up as the memories of her life flooded her brain. “You’re right. I don’t know that girl anymore.”

  Dina smiled and hugged her. “She’s still there, deep inside. You just have to find yourself.”

  Sage stepped back and held her friend’s hands. “I’m sorry to disappoint you. You’ve been such a great mentor, and I hate letting you down. You’re my auntie Dina. But I can’t get that wipeout at Nazaré out of my head. The ocean’s trying to teach me a lesson, but I don’t understand what it is. My tutu said that Kanaloa is unhappy with me because I’m not following my path.”

  Squeezing her hands, Dina replied, “You haven’t let me down. Don’t ever think that. With respect to the gods and your tutu, you’re going to have to figure that one out for yourself.”

  Chapter 6.

  Orbit

  Over the next few days, the blue dot grew until it filled the viewports of the Duke. Eventually, its small continent emerged from among the swirling clouds. “It’s so beautiful,” remarked Sage, crammed tight into the fish-eye porthole with Dina while staring at Thalassa. “It reminds me of Earth but with two stars.”

  Dina pointed out several large, tightly spiraled storm systems in the vast oceans. “Look at the size of those storms. There is definitely big-wave potential on the planet.”

  Byron overheard them. “Thalassa rotates faster than Earth—it has 18-hour days—so Coriolis forces are stronger, which causes higher deflections of the atmospheric winds, including clouds and storm systems, especially near the poles.”

  The next day, Thalassa’s moon came into view. It was small, slightly bigger than Mars’s Phobos, and Sage, who saw it first, named it Lona, after a Hawaiian moon goddess. Everyone began using the name, except Milo who called it a misshapen potato.

  As they prepared to enter orbit, Milo convened an early briefing. “OK, everyone, it’s showtime! I’ve sent the major networks and vloggers an alert to expect a high-priority broadcast in the next few weeks. However, nobody knows where we are or what the broadcast contains, except that it’s from me and I’m in interstellar space. I want it to be a big surprise.”

  “Is that safe?” Sage asked. “What happens if we need help?”

  Milo waved her off. “Cutten knows we’re in the system, and they expect an update within a few weeks or so. After we’ve scouted and surfed a few spots and we get a big swell, I’ll alert them with more specific information. The major goal of this mission is to break the news with the ultimate big-wave holoscreen broadcast. I don’t want to tell them anything until we’re ready to blow their minds. Then we’ll have the world’s attention. I can’t wait for the homecoming following that!”

  Sage smirked at Milo’s bravado and high expectations, but it was nothing new.

  He held up a softball-sized probe. “Before Byron establishes geostationary orbit above the planet, about 15,000 klicks out, we’ll send scanning probes such as this to the surface. One array will scan the ocean bottom to create a detailed bathymetric map of the seafloor; others will pan out and deploy on the ocean’s surface to measure a suite of environmental variables—wave height, period, direction, winds, and atmospheric pressure systems. Several others will be sent down to map the continent and the islands. Although these probes are pretty fast—they are made by Cutten by the way—it will probably take a week or more to complete an initial scan then months to fill in the details.”

  He walked over to the instrument panel, pushed a button, and the blue globe of Thalassa reappeared above the map table. “All the data we collect will be stored on the Duke and integrated into a cloud database linked to this holoscreen projection. When we have enough data, we’ll be able to select areas on the map to zoom in and pull up everything, including videos, scientific samples, reports, wave predictions, anything you want to view.”

  Georgia brightened at the mention of wave data. “I’ll have probe buoys positioned all over the ocean plus an array around the Bulge. In addition to monitoring oceanographic and weather conditions, they have integrated sonobuoys to record sound.”

  “Why is sound important?” asked Dina.

  Sage knew this one. “Lots of marine animals make sounds on Earth, like fish and shrimp and whales, so it’s a great way to monitor sea life.”

  Georgia cleared her throat like she didn’t appreciate the interruption. “After we receive the oceanographic and weather data, I’ll upload everything into my wave model and generate predictions for wave heights, period, and directions anywhere on the globe. A basic model will be ready in a few days; a full model in a few weeks or a month. In between swells, we’ll explore the planet’s oceanography, geology, and biology, if there is any. Milo, Sage, and I have discussed scientific missions to the continent and all major islands, and we’ve planned submersible dives in major habitats, starting with the Bulge. Hopefully, we’ll get started soon. I can’t wait!”

  Milo gestured to Moshe, who spoke with a soft, low voice for the first time in days. “With Byron’s
help, I’ll be shooting and editing a hyperview video for a holoscreen broadcast. The first one is a short introduction to the mission and its objectives along with our initial findings, which will be followed by Milo’s big news.” Moshe held up a button-sized black object. “I’ll install these small cameras that will film and upload an integrated data stream to the lander while you’re surfing. Your surfboards already have built-in cameras, and I’ll launch some microdrones for additional perspectives. The holoscreen projection requires a minimum of 27 cameras for a full experience, and we want to document everything in HD VR for the historical record.”

  Sage smirked at Moshe’s words. The holoscreen had helped her achieve fame but constantly reminded her of past mistakes. It had also played a major role in Milo’s ascension into stardom. Given the Earth’s rapidly deteriorating environment, near-constant wars and riots, and failed governments, most people plugged into their holoscreen units to escape reality for fleeting moments of personal pleasure. Thus, the holoscreen was front and center in most people’s lives, and the focus was on “big news”—events that grabbed everyone’s attention—while the small, daily crises that slowly destroyed the planet and humankind were background noise. But, it was very useful if you had something important to say. Sage knew Milo had learned that lesson well.

  “Yes, 27 cameras. You don’t want to miss a thing, right?” added Sage, winking at Milo.

  Milo turned to Byron and Moshe. “And remember, we want to get as low as possible for the best shots. Da Bull is built to handle it.” Moshe nodded while Byron started blankly back at him.

  “Continuing on,” Milo said. “After we’ve received some preliminary probe data, we’ll move the Duke into low orbit, and Byron will pilot the lander down to the surface. Our first goal will be to take a look at one of the islands and field test Da Bull. Next, we’ll launch the submersible for initial underwater explorations. We’ve planned a shallow dive to test the sub’s instruments and look for the presence of microbes. Given Thalassa’s history and Procyon’s intense UV, the best place for life will be in the ocean. If everything goes as planned, we’ll be on the surface tomorrow.”