The Curse of Europa (18 page)

As she approaches, she sees a new species of fish that she has not discovered yet. This one more closely resembles a fish that may be seen in an Earth ocean. It has a familiar fin layout; seven of them, with silver and gold scales. The head is all silver and the eyes are yellow and very large. The mouth looks like, well, a fish’s mouth under a long snout. It is a much more attractive specimen than those angler type fish she saw earlier. As she gets close enough, she can actually see that there is a small school of these fish, with the largest one being about 60 centimeters long.

They don’t seem to notice her approaching or they don’t care. But, now she can see something else, a soft glow from underneath the fish. These fish are bioluminescent! They have a series of small light producing organs on their underbodies. This isn’t unexpected; in fact, Evans is surprised that these are the first creatures she has encountered with bioluminescent organs, as there are many species on Earth with this ability, especially in the deep ocean where there is no light.

What troubles her is that she doubts the soft glow, that these fish produce, would have been visible 20 meters away. Unless they can, at times, emit brighter light, she doubts that this is the flash that she keeps seeing. If these fish are bioluminescent, there are bound to be other species as well that have this ability. The fish that produced the light she keeps seeing must be much bigger.

As she is watching the school of about 30 of these fish troll the bottom with their lights, undoubtedly searching for food, she notices the sandy bottom shift slightly.

“Oh jeez, look at that! There must be one of those ugly angler type fish, hiding in the sand, looking to prey on one of these glow fish. There, see, look at the sand… right there, it is moving around just like before.”

Just then, Evans’ eyes widened as she gasps; shooting up out of the sand is not one of the angler type fish she was expecting to see. Instead, shooting up out of the sand, is a long gray tentacle! A long gray tentacle that grabs one of the glow fish with what looks like three long fingers at the end of it; wrapping around the fish’s squirming body.

Then, a second tentacle shoots up out of the sand, and one of the ‘fingers’ appears to be poking the glow fish. Sticking out of that finger is a small stinger or barb, which must contain some sort of poison as the fish goes limp almost instantly.

As the rest of the glow fish quickly scurry away, a large portion of the sand starts shaking vigorously again, as Evans just watches; frozen with fear.

Chapter 22:
The Creature

O
ut of the sand, the head of some sort of weird fish emerges. It has a floppy dorsal fin on the top of its head that has streaks of red, blue, and brown in it. Other than that, the rest of the skin is a dull gray. As more of it emerges, there are no other fins visible yet, not even a tail. She is not sure if the tentacles belong to this fish, or if there is something else down there.

“I hope you are picking this up,” she whispers into the com as if afraid to speak to loudly.

The fish is actually shaped more like a large football. It is looking at the glow fish it just captured, a dull light is still emanating from the belly of the unfortunate casualty. Then, the football shaped fish quickly turns and seems to be looking directly at Evans, perhaps noticing the illumination from her flashlight. Her eyes widen, and a cold chill runs through her whole body. She is afraid to speak at all now.

Now that it is looking directly at her, she can clearly see its features. Features that have her a little freaked out. It has an almost human looking face, with two eyes, a brow like a Neanderthal, a slight bump for a nose, and a mouth with lips. The fish opens its lips slightly, revealing almost human looking teeth. Very straight teeth. Teeth a dentist would be proud of.

The eyes are slightly inset and more on the side of the head versus the front. This probably gives it a very wide range of vision. The bumpy brow on the forehead hovers above both eyes and then slopes down around them as it tapers off.

The sand is shaking again, as the fish starts to rise up; but there is something else attached to the fish. As it comes completely out of the sand, it is revealed that this football shaped fish, maybe isn’t a fish. It is a head… attached to a much larger body. The body rises out of the sand and shimmers slightly to shake the sand off of its smooth gray skin. The tentacles do belong to this fish, or… creature.

Evans moves back slightly; the chill racing through her body again and her hands are trembling, making the beam of light she is shining at the creature shake. It tilts its head slightly, and the long straight unibrow over its eyes crinkle to more of a ‘V’ shape, as if it is trying to see what is making that light. She tries to continue her commentary, but all that will be heard is her heavy breathing, some gasps, and a few “oh jeez, oh my God” statements.

The entire body of the creature can now be clearly seen. The fin that is on top of the long narrow head goes all the way down the back of the head and part way down its body. The fin is the only part of the creature that has colors other than gray. The floppy dorsal fin is more like a flag than a fin and doesn’t appear to have a useful purpose. But then the same could be said for the hair on
human
heads. The eyes are very dark, but she can actually see pupils. The slight bump of a nose has what appear to be four long nostrils, but they actually may be gills as they open and close with consistent regularity.

On the front of the creature is some sort of bubble type appendage. It appears to be slightly translucent, like a jellyfish, but maybe a bit denser. The body of the creature is sort of bell shaped, with a third tentacle protruding from behind. This third tentacle is slightly longer than the others, and is more like a tail. Instead of fingers at the end of it, it is more like a caudal fin, or a flipper. As for the other two tentacles, they are almost like arms, with long ‘sub-tentacle’ fingers at the end. But the arms, and even the fingers, are fully flexible. They don’t have any joints and are more like the tentacles of an octopus, or the trunk of an elephant.

The creature raises the glow fish up to its mouth and takes a bite out of it, using both arms and fingers to handle the meal; shaking its head back and forth to rip off a bite. It is sort of like watching someone eat a large turkey leg at a baseball game. The human looking teeth are even more visible now as it eats. It eats the entire fish except for the tail which it flings aside like a Frisbee. The mannerisms of the creature remind Evans more of a primate than a fish.

Now, the creature inches a little closer to Evans, examining her light source. She tries to quietly continue her commentary as she catches her breath for a slight moment, “I… I hope the camera is picking this up… and I… I hope this thing doesn’t harm me, so I can actually transmit this back…” With a tremble in her voice she slowly squeaks out, “Jeez… it is approaching me…”

Then all of a sudden she has to shield her eyes from a blinding light. A blinding light that is emanating from the torso of the creature; from the jellyfish type appendage.

“Jeez! This creature is bioluminescent also, obviously, but on a much grander scale…” she cries out, now with a strain in her voice.

Evans’ diverts her beam of light away from the creature’s head, shining it off into the abyss. The creature lowers the intensity of its light source in-turn and now Evans can look upon it again. The creature is definitely examining her, studying her with some intelligence. It swims around her, looking her up and down. Evans is frozen with fear, her heart thumping; not sure what this thing may do to her. She saw what it did to that glow fish. She saw the stinger in the finger that immediately immobilized it. Is it circling her waiting for the opportunity to strike? Waiting for the opportunity to go in for the kill?

“The creature is circling me. I’m not sure what it’s doing, or what it’s about to do,” she says, but then decides to quit talking, figuring no one is going to hear this anyhow. Then she sputters out a few obscenities.

Now the creature stops, and the bioluminescent appendage starts to flash at various intensities and intervals. It is sort of like a weird strobe light that forces her to look down to the sea floor, as it is too bright to look directly upon.

She decides to speak into the com again, in the unlikely event that she can actually transmit back to the ship. She says, with a tremble still in her voice, “The creature is pulsing bright light from that thing on its chest, practically blinding me. Oh shit, is this some sort of attack strategy of this creature; blind their victim… then strike?”

The flashing stops, but she is still partially blinded with sunspots. She is still looking down, blinking her eyes to try to clear the streaks of white etched into her pupils; bracing herself for the inevitable attack. Now she sees her own shadow faintly cast in front of her on the sea floor, it is appearing and disappearing with a similar pattern. She looks up. Through the waning sunspots she can see that the creature is still in front of her treading water; gently waving its tentacles as if doing a hula dance. But what is causing her shadow? Obviously the light source is behind her and not coming from this creature.

She timidly turns around to find the whereabouts of this new light source. It was behind her quite a ways, but appears to be drawing closer with each blink and flash. She points her flashlight in that direction to reveal another, similar creature, gliding gracefully through the water. As it approaches, she can see that this one looks almost identical to the other (to her anyway), however it is larger; it is slightly larger than she is. Also the dorsal fin, flapping like a flag, is a deep green and yellowish color, in wavy patterns, and has a single spot of purple that almost looks like an ink blot. It approaches the first creature and they both raise a ‘hand’ and press their hands together for about two seconds, sort of like a slow motion high-five, although in this case it would be a high-three.

This second creature then looks directly at Evans, with what almost looks like a curious expression on its face. Then it turns back to the first creature and blinks out a few more blasts of light at it; the first creature then blinks a few more back. This goes on for about a minute as they look at each other, and then look back at Evans. They occasionally even seem to gesture with their arms/tentacles and she can swear they point towards her a few times.

“This is amazing,” Evans speaks into her com unit now with excitement, continuing her commentary, “I think these creatures are communicating with each other using their light source. Every blink and flash is of a different length and intensity. While they are doing this, they are moving their tentacles as if gesturing. There, look at
that
, the new creature basically just pointed to me and then looked at me a second later!”

The second creature turns and now starts to approach Evans; she quits talking and swallows hard. It blinks out a few blasts of light at her. After a second or two, it seems to blink out the same pattern again, but slower. It is a pretty simple pattern. Three quick blinks, one long, then two quick again.

“Jeez! I… I think it is trying to
communicate
with me,” Evans exclaims with excitement into her com.

Evans turns off the main switch to the flashlight and then, pressing the quick on/off button, attempts to repeat the pattern. She does three quick blinks, one long blink, then two quick blinks.

The creature jumps back a bit, then turns to the first one and flashes a whole slew of light blasts at it, while definitely gesturing intensely with its arms. The original creature returns fire just as fast; the two put on a spectacular light show.

“I wonder how fast these creatures can communicate! I can hardly differentiate the short and long bursts and the differences in intensity that seem to make up their language!”

The second creature turns again to Evans and blasts the same code. Evans returns the greeting. The creature seems to be… smiling now. Next the creature blasts out a slightly different code, a little more complex. Evans does her best to return the same pattern, reminding her of a game she used to play as a kid.

“Maybe these creatures are not hostile. They obviously are intelligent and have a structured language, a structured language of light.” Evans comments into her com.

The creature seems to smile even larger and turns to the first, flashing something and then quickly gets a reply. The original creature also seems to be smiling now.

Doctor Evans hopes her beliefs that these creatures are not hostile are true, as the second creature inches even closer. Her body, however, doesn’t seem to be a believer yet, as it is trembling. Her pulse is also racing and she is finding it hard to catch her breath. She is standing on the sea bottom, staying as still as she can, as the creature examines her closely. She gulps hard, as now she is literally eye-to-eye with the second creature, about one meter away. Evans slowly raises her hand, palm facing the creature. It inches back slightly, perhaps equally apprehensive, then looks at her extended hand. It looks over at the original creature then back at her hand. The creature slowly raises its hand to meet Evans and presses its hand to hers; both of them staring at each other.