by Brian Kayser
“Oh my God… I think this thing, I mean Betsy, wants me to climb on her back,” Evans declares between heavy breaths. “Jeez, I’m… I’m not so sure about this!”
Then Betsy extends her hand, wiggling her fingers. Evans grabs her hand with much trepidation and follows its pull. Using both tentacle arms, Betsy hoists Evans onto her back; Evans wraps her arms around Betsy’s neck in disbelief of what she is doing. Then suddenly, Betsy springs up and starts to swim away at breakneck speed; Evans grips tighter to avoid falling off – gasping slightly. Bud is following alongside, with his arms moving like someone doing the breast stroke, the flipper on his tail vigorously flapping up and down, and his colorful dorsal fin fluttering like a sail. The moment is surreal to her and reminds her of the story she and Turk had read before leaving on their mission. It was the Greek Mythology story of Europa, where Europa hops on the back of a white bull that carries her off to the island of Crete. The white bull being Zeus, the King of the Gods.
Evans glances down at the sea floor, which is really the summit of the underwater mountain she had located, and she sees countless hydrothermal vents. She tries to shine her flashlight down without losing her grip on Betsy. They swim for almost five minutes before Betsy slows down. Up ahead the mountain goes up even higher, but at the base of the mountain she sees hundreds of lights, all moving around. As they get closer, she can clearly see hundreds of similar Europian Mermaid creatures; she has been taken to a Europian city, or nest, or habitat, or whatever you may want to call it!
The glow from all the Europians pretty much eliminates the need for her to use her flashlight. As they approach, many of the new Europians take notice and seem a bit uneasy to her grand arrival. The soft glow from the numerous Europian Mermaids now turn into a firestorm of blinking and flashing light, spreading out like dominoes. Obviously, their own rumor mill announcing to all, that Betsy and Bud have found something strange. Evans’ fears of hostility return, as she watches all of the hyperactivity from all of the Europians, probably wondering what the hell she is… she is an alien after all! She glances at her oxygen level which now reads 25 minutes, reminding her that she is going to die soon anyhow so what is there to be afraid of?
As Betsy nears the group of others, they all look very similar; the main differentiator being their floppy dorsal fin. Some have colorful stripes, some have colorful spots, and some have both, like Betsy has. None that she can see are the same. Most Europians are the size of Betsy, with just a few slightly larger. Most Europians, that are the size of Bud, or smaller, seem to ride on the bigger Europians’ backs; most likely the little-ones mothers, or possibly the fathers.
She slides off Betsy’s back and then slowly floats to the sea floor as hundreds of Europians gaze upon her. They are all still chattering, as she is bombarded with constant flashes of light, almost as if she were a movie star and everyone is taking pictures of her.
Turning to look at the new mountain top, she sees that it is full of holes, and some Europians are swimming in and out of the holes. “Jeez… this must be where they live, maybe a nest of some sort,” Evans comments into her com.
Then, her eyes widen with sudden amazement and she takes in a deep breath, “Oh jeez, would you look at that! Did they build this? This – is – amazing!” She notices large columns of stacked rocks at the base of the caves; well over 100 of them spread equally apart like a fence. There are very large rocks at the base of each column, then a slightly smaller rock on top of that, and then slightly smaller rocks (and successively smaller rocks) continuing up about 4 meters high. All of the columns are all roughly the same height, each spaced about 2 meters apart. As she approaches the columns, she can see that there is some sort of clay packed in-between each rock, helping to secure the structure. Poking her finger at it, she can tell that the clay filling is actually very hard.
“This is absolutely amazing! These creature’s mannerisms remind me of primates, but look at this. Not even the smartest primates we’ve studied on Earth would be capable of the cognitive thinking necessary to construct such structures. Sure, animals build nests, but nothing like this. Look at the geometric consistency! Each column is roughly the same height and they are each spaced almost the same distance apart. Also… look down at the last few columns; they curve inward to the base of the mountain top. It is almost as if this is a fence or a wall… some sort of barrier.”
She looks at Betsy, who has been watching her study the columns. Evans gestures to the bottom of one of the structures, and then waves her hand from the bottom, upwards to the top. She is trying to show Betsy that she is impressed; not really knowing what to do next, she just claps her hands, as best as she can underwater, and nods her head. Betsy looks at her for a long second and then returns the gesture, with a clap of her own tentacle hands; looking strangely at them as if it was a weird thing to do. Then, a few of the other Europians that have been watching ‘the show,’ try it out as well. Eventually all of the Europians around them are silently clapping their hands, smiling, and nodding their heads.
Then suddenly, the clapping stops. All of the Europians turn to look the other way - behind them. Just as suddenly, all of the Europians frantically scurry away in all directions, their bioluminescent appendages flashing very fast and very bright, as if they were screaming. Many Europian creatures bolt directly at Evans, knocking her over as they scamper through the gaps between the columns. She is flat on her back on the bottom of the sea floor. As she sits up slightly, she can see it; she can clearly see what they are fleeing from and she can understand why. She gulps hard and tries to move, but she is frozen with fear; maybe Turk wasn’t joking after all, about swimming dinosaurs that is.
Chapter 23: Top of the Food Chain
Swimming directly at her, gliding just a meter above the sea floor, is a humongous creature; it is at least 15 meters long from the tip of its long beaked mouth to the end of its tail. Turk had joked about finding swimming dinosaurs that Evans quickly laughed off… she isn’t laughing now. If there ever was something that looked like a dinosaur, this was it! It is more like a huge thick eel than a fish, with yellow eyes and two thick fins, just below the neck. There are two smaller fins about midway down its long black-and-gray body, which tapers off into a fin to help it swim.
Inside the mouth of this huge monster, is one of the Europians’ that it must have scooped up; its head is sticking out of the left side of the monster’s mouth and its tail is sticking out of the right side. The terrified Europian that it captured is using its arms to try to pry itself out of its grip, but it is hopeless with all those teeth. This monster does not have human looking teeth, far from it. It however, has more than 100 pointy fangs, similar to a great white shark. The 20 centimeter long teeth are digging into the poor creature and extremely dark red blood is oozing out into the water, as it starts to chomp down.
This scene is eerily reminiscent of when she first saw Bud, as he was eating the glow fish in front of her. However, there’s not a bone in her body that tells her that this thing, this hideous monster, is friendly in any way shape or form. If this thing wasn’t the top of the food chain, she’d hate to see what was!
The Europian is no longer putting up a fight, its arms are now just dangling down limp and its face is no longer emanating fear; it is now just a blank lifeless stare. Probably the only thing keeping the monster from grabbing Evans at this moment is that it is busy eating its first victim.
Evans watches in disgust, as the monster rips the Europian into tiny bits, as it chews and swallows it within just a few seconds; however those seconds seem like an eternity. But now, unfortunately, that eternity is over and the monster turns and looks at Evans with its yellow eyes that seem to be glowing. Her mind is racing as the monster is looking directly at her, through the fog of blood and shredded tissue fragments.
She shines her flashlight directly at the creature, perhaps hoping that the light will blind it. She knows it is a futile effort, but it is all she can think to do. She knows she i
s going to die soon anyhow, but she doesn’t want to go like this. She didn’t have a chance to transmit what she found to the ship. If this monster rips her to pieces, then the discovery of this wonderland, and of all these creatures, even this monster, dies with her.
The massive monster flaps its fins and it gives its tail a few flicks to start it moving again, heading directly towards Evans, staring her down with those evil lizard-like yellow eyes. Evans is still frozen; she swallows hard, closes her eyes, and hopes for a quick painless death. As much as she wants to move, as much as she wants to get away, her brain just can’t seem to send the correct signals to her body. Then, she feels something slip under her arm. It moves up and around and then locks onto her shoulder – then yanks her backwards with a jerk. Then another jerk, and yet another; as she is dragged backwards by Betsy. The monster opens its huge mouth and lunges at Evans, just as Betsy pulls her through an opening between the rock columns.
The monster’s snout crashes into the columns, causing it to withdraw in pain and shake its head. A few of the upper most stones from one of the columns breaks off, and falls down to the sea floor. Betsy pulls at Evans again, swimming towards one of the cave openings. The monster swims up and looks over the top of the row of columns, but there is not enough room between the columns and the face of the mountain for it to enter. Evans looks up and can see the monster’s yellow eyes, glaring down at them over the columns, seemingly wondering what to do next in order to get at them.
It turns around and whips its massive tail at the columns, causing a few more rocks to crash down. One of the bigger rocks smashes into Betsy, pinning her tentacle tail to the sea floor; an obvious expression of pain explodes onto her face and she releases her grip on Evans. The monster takes another swipe at the columns, knocking a few more small rocks over, but the columns are holding.
Evans rushes over to Betsy and pushes on the huge rock, but it is very large and doesn’t budge. The monster is now swimming back and forth in front of the columns, like a prison guard keeping watch. It swims up and peers over the top of the columns again, and then swoops back down, frustrated. It randomly swats at the columns, again and again with its tail, but nothing happens. It swats a few more times to no avail. Whatever they used to build the columns, whatever they used to bind the rocks together, it was holding.
Evans pushes harder on the rock that is pinning Betsy down but she still can’t get it to move. It doesn’t even budge. Betsy shakes her head as if saying it is of no use.
The monster decides to perform another head butt, this time on purpose. It swims a few meters back, turns around, and then swims back at them, slamming the butt of its boney head into two of the columns. The columns hold and the monster shakes its head in pain. It paces a few more times and then swims out a few meters farther; obviously, its appetite is overriding its disdain of pain. It viciously kicks its tail, thrusts its body, and propels its fins to pick up speed, swimming as fast as it can. The monster bears down and smashes its head into the same two columns, the inertia causing its whole body to come crashing out of control, into the columns like a derailed train. One of the columns tilts forward and a few more rocks tumble off the top of both columns.
The monster is slowly recomposing itself from the impact, shaking its head again, and trying to figure out which way is up. A few more rocks fall off the column that tilted and then suddenly it starts to topple completely over, narrowly missing Evans and Betsy as it collapses to the sea floor.
Evans is still desperately trying to move the huge rock on top of Betsy. It is no use! Betsy grabs Evans’ arm again and shakes her, then points and gestures for her to get into the cave. But she can’t just leave! This creature… Betsy… saved her life just a few moments ago. If she hadn’t done so, she would be safe herself inside of the caves.
Evans looks over and sees some of the other Europians peering out of the caves, watching the action. She waves her arms up and down frantically and then gestures for them to come out and help. “HELP – PLEASE! I need help down here to move this rock! Jeez, don’t any of you CARE?” she yells out hopelessly, as if they could hear her – as if they’d understand. Most of them just keep looking out; a few turn around and go deeper into the caves, most likely understanding her plea after all, but yet unwilling to risk their lives to help.
As Evans is pondering what to do next, something smashes her in the back, hurling her forward towards the caves onto her hands and knees. As she flips around, she sees that it was the snout of the monster that pushed her. It has obviously recomposed itself and is resuming the attack. It is poking its snout in through the wider opening it created between the columns. She is out of reach now, but not Betsy! Betsy is ripe for the picking; and this thing still looks mighty hungry.
As she gets back up she feels the bulky pouch on her suit, and wonders if there is anything in there that would be of any use. ‘The flare gun!’ she finally remembers. It still has one shot left and it is already loaded. It is not intended to be used as a weapon, but it may just work in this case.
The monster’s jaws start snapping at Betsy; plucking at her like a pair of long nosed tweezers, trying to latch on to something – trying to latch on to any part of her it can. Evans pulls the flair gun out of the pouch and half-runs, half-swims towards the flapping jaws, with adrenalin rushing through her body. She only has the one shot and she intends to make it count. When she is just centimeters away from the huge mouth, the huge teeth, snapping like a crocodile, she aims and waits for it to open wide.
“HERE… EAT THIS YOU UGLY SON OF A BITCH!!” she screams as she pulls the trigger.
Evans just watches in amazement as flames shoot out of the gun as the flare is released. The flare rockets directly into the monsters mouth, and then rockets part way down its throat. It instantly pulls back and shakes its head, crashing its head into more of the columns, causing another one to topple over backwards.
The monster squirms and flips around violently as its neck begins to emit a bright yellow glow. A blinding array of light beams shoot out of its neck, like a laser light show, as the flare burns completely through its skin. Then instantly, the light show stops as the flare runs out of fuel. The monster continues to squirm and flail around brutally for a few more seconds. It swims up and does a few circle flips, and then just starts to float down towards the bottom, with a few random convulsions. It lands upside down on the sea floor, one of the large side flippers still twitching; a cloud of red blood and burned skin fragments seeping out of the gaping hole in its neck.
Betsy just stares at the conquered monster in amazement and disbelief. What Evans doesn’t know, is that this one monster has been feeding on, and terrorizing, the Europians for decades. It was always this same one every time, as if this was its territory; or possibly there are no other ones, they really don’t know. All they know now is that a huge veil has been lifted, thanks to this stranger, this alien with strange skin and an even stranger head. An alien that can lob magic light balls of death and may even be intelligent enough to communicate at a basic level. It can at least repeat “hello” on its strange light source, that isn’t even connected to its body; and perform the greeting gesture. It can’t swim very well, but does seem intelligent, maybe even close to their own intelligence level, some of the Europians deduce.
Some of the other Europians are now coming out of the caves, now that it is safe. Evans turns to look at Betsy, and then to the large rock that is still pinning her tail down to the ground. She motions again for help and this time she gets it. About five of the larger Europians wrap their tentacle arms around the rock and start flapping their tails; then two of them actually dig their tails into the ground and push. This tips the rock just far enough for Betsy to pull herself out, using her arms to crawl on the sea floor.
Betsy tries to move her tail, but it is obvious that doing so causes considerable pain. Evans rushes over to Betsy and holds up her hand for the greeting gesture, hoping that this gesture may also let her know that she is t
hankful. Betsy places her hand to Evans for a few seconds then gives her a nod, then she grabs Evans’ hand and shakes it up and down a few times with a big smile.
Bud zooms over and latches onto Betsy’s back, tightly wrapping his arms around her neck. Betsy reaches around and strokes his back. Evans watches the touching moment in astonishment, knowing for sure that these creatures are not only intelligent, but compassionate, and loving. They are also fearful and self-preserving, as she witnessed from the lack of help she received in moving the rock. But yet, in Betsy’s case, she knowingly risked her life for Evans, and tried to get Evans to leave her behind, and urged her to head into the safety of the caves.
Evans checks her oxygen level and panics as she sees that she is down to only 11 minutes remaining. She needs to connect the antenna now and start transmitting the last hour of her life to the ship, her final hour, but oh what an hour it was! She sits on the sea floor facing Betsy who still has Bud on her back. They watch Evans intently as she carefully slips the backpack off and gently sets it down next to her. She grabs the antenna that is still dangling by the wire and pushes it into the slot and waits for a com-link.
Chapter 24: Take Care
Just a few seconds after connecting the antenna, Evans gets a com-link connection with both ships and calls out, “Eagle-2, Eagle-2, do you copy? This is Doctor Evans, do you copy?”
She doesn’t have to wait long for a reply, as Turk has been staring at the radio display for the last 10 minutes. He instantly blurts back, “JULIANA! Thank - God! We were getting worried! Are you okay?”
“Yes, I’m fine… for now anyhow,” then utters out a frail laugh; knowing that she won’t be able to say that for long. “Can you guys hear me okay? Have you started downloading my video recordings?”
