CH3

Chapter 3: To Be Phocid [WIP]

Following these events, and at Maris’s insistence, Ishmael began to keep a journal. To the delight of this author, his writing was deep, introspective, and highly detailed. From now on, I no longer had to rely on pieced together scraps and reports, but from a primary source. As such, the way these events are related will shift a little, but that is only for events concerning Ishmael.

Cherta, unfortunately, did not keep a journal at this time and remains frustratingly opaque, given Ishmael’s somewhat biased recounting of their activities. Although one must concede to the difficulties of keeping a journal underwater, before the age of sub-aquatic writing systems, and with eighteen other overambitious adolescents in relatively close proximity.

Ishmael’s journal was recorded on a computerified device and was not written by hand, though his deep dream education had serviced to educate him in handwriting skills. This was tested when he was younger, as part of an evaluation to determine the extent of his dexterity. Although the notion of a form of writing which is stored in a purely hypothetical space is very odd, especially in its permanency, it has enabled us to access his thoughts at this day and age, whereas traditional aquatic knot-writing would have long since rotted away.

He wrote in the language of the Predecessors, which I believe to be the root of all air-speaking language families. The translation of these texts is what has taxed me more than any other part of this process, aside from the grievous bodily harm, and it has taken a fantastic span of time to achieve this translation. I cannot credit my sources for fear of implicating them but you can be assured that the finest minds of the Spire collaborated on this project. This Predecessor tongue is what is spoken in all of the videos, enabling me to learn it to a conversational level, though I am hardly fluent.

Some of the journal is rendered untranslatable due to it referring to objects or concepts which were considered common knowledge at the time, requiring no additional definition. These concepts or objects will be clearly marked. However, I believe much of the text to be familiar to many people, telling of the frustration and longing common and recognisable today. That said, I believe it is also important not to take for granted the relatability.

Ishmael is not always familiar to us and existed in a time we would find nigh incomprehensible. Do not take this as reason to doubt his interiority or personhood, and do not fall into the trap of believing that you would have done better in his place, that you would have seen clearly what he obviously did not (and had good reason not to). They may have been phocids, or the predecessors of phocids, but they were new. If you were the first of your kind, could you do better?

I will now present the text in chronological order, starting from the eve of his sixteenth birthday:

Entry 1 – I hate seeing that baby siphonid. It’s still moving. It drags itself around on the leg the researchers didn’t take. Now I’m just going to remember this forever, since I wrote it down. Great. I hate that fucking noise. Why can’t they just get it to shut up?

Thank [deity]. They took it away.

Update – it didn’t even taste good.

Entry 2 - Maris told me to talk more about my feelings. What does she know? Nobody understands me anyway. I don’t think they can feel it on their face like me. The sipho noise kept touching me. The researchers are always talking about hydrofoils and antennae but I bet they don’t know what I do - how the siphos talk to each other. I told Callum and he didn’t know what I meant, even though he has a beard.

Talked to Lee again about sex since Dan said he wouldn’t tell me himself. I don’t think he’s telling the truth about a lot of that stuff. I don’t think it really grows a bone when it gets hard.

Dan shouted at me for asking but now I have proof Lee was wrong. There’s no bone in there.

Entry 3 – The phocids click at each other underwater with their tongues.

Dan got so angry after I pulled my face hair out. He made the interns [untranslatable] search my room for it and they actually found it. They didn’t even do anything with it, just put it in a bag and sealed it away. Looks like nobody wants it at all. Dan says Atom spent 120 billion nua making me, so I think one face hair is worth a few million. If I started selling them to the people outside the lab, I could buy my own stake of land on Siren just like them. I wouldn’t let Lee in. My fingers are probably worth a couple billion each.

Entry 4 – Emer (the intern) looked at me like I did something wrong when she changed my pillowcases.

Spilled bile EVERYWHERE when they were testing me. I keep thinking about somehow saving it and trying to sell it. I’m supposed to be a digestive model for Siren food, so my insides are probably worth a lot.

Callum came around to talk to Dan again. He’s getting really tall, he’s taller than me now even when I stand up straight. He’s so skinny, like the baby siphonids they keep making me eat. When Callum was there, he didn’t want to look at me, but I understand why. They didn’t even cook the siphonid this time, it was raw and with the shell on. His leg is the same width as one of them. I don’t know why I thought about his leg in my mouth, too. Not in the sex way but like I was eating his leg, crunching on the bone. I think it would feel good.

Emer won’t stop changing my pillowcases. Is there a way to prevent them from smelling like that?? Callum hasn’t been around so I can’t ask. Maris thinks it’s just because people my age start getting sweaty but Dan specifically told me he made me not have sweat glands anywhere but my hands. Then he said the phocids do have sweat glands. I still don’t get the point of sweating if you’re already a stupid wet rat.

Entry 5 – I’m seventeen now. Since I’m an adult, I decided to stop being reticent around the phocids. I want to know if they found a comfortable way to walk without the skin coming off their tails. So I went to talk to them today for the first time. There is a window where you can do it, they let it open ever since the climate control got busted again last month. Cherta is really weird. I knew they couldn’t stay in the pool for very long because they might have a seizure but apparently it can happen any time, not just underwater. They have a button implant that makes their muscles relax. Anyway, their tails have thicker skin than mine so that was useless. But it is still worthwhile, I think, to meet with the phocids. They remind me why I am a human, and they are not.

Cherta told me that one of the phocids died a year ago. I don’t remember Dan ever talking about it to me, but they said it was a big deal. Apparently they got pressure sickness when climate control broke the first time. I think Cherta broke it the second time, they sounded too proud to mention it. I don’t get it. Anyway, breaking stuff in the lab is against the rules and I think I’m going to tell Dan about that.

Entry 6 – I made the right choice. Cherta got so angry when they found out I told on them that they had another seizure. The other phocids had to pull them out of the pool. Dan thought I did the right thing but I don’t think he liked me going to tell Cherta about it afterwards, told me no one likes a snitch. Well, then, what am I supposed to do? Just let it happen? I hope Cherta chokes on that gross pool water next time.

Dan suggested I go do something other than visit the phocids and I agree, they’re clearly not worth my time. I went to see Callum instead but he wasn’t in. He has a games console, I saw him show it off to Lee the other day. I wonder if he’d let me try it.

[End of Journal Entries]

It paints an interesting picture. As Ishmael mentions, Cherta suffered permanent neurological issues as a result of their birth mishaps. This was a point of contention within the lab, beyond Ishmael’s knowledge; the finance manager of the settlement questioned the wisdom of keeping a test subject in an aquatic locomotion study group who could not spend much time underwater. Every time, however, Dan Loris would respond that Cherta now provided essential information about phocid neurology and drowning mechanisms.

The phocid whose death Ishmael mentions was number seventeen, Ambla. It is highly likely that number seventeen’s death was accidental, but the circumstances were not caused by a failure of the lab’s climate system.

I have found the experimental notes from that day; Ambla was brought to an isolated chamber which was controlled by the climate system, with its own test pool, and the quality of the atmosphere was changed to match that of the Precursor home planet. The force of gravity was thus increased. What the Humans did not expect was Ambla’s sudden inability to swim to the surface. They inhaled water, which settled in their lungs and caused them to drown even after they had been pulled out of the pool.

Dan expressed grief in his notes, and surprise. He did not understand why such a thing would occur and blamed the climate system for somehow altering the test beyond his parameters. This is likely what led to Cherta’s misconception that the climate system had killed one of their friends, and their subsequent sabotage of the climate system every few months after that.

But any phocid or selkie reading this will intimately recognise the problem, and I believe the mystery of Ambla’s death may now be solved. The water taken to fill the pool was likely Tel!am’s Blood, a phenomenon all sea-faring people will know about. The Precursors, it seemed, were unfamiliar with it, and had pumped water in to the pool which nobody could swim in. But with the increased gravity, even the fittest phocid would struggle to rise in shallow water.

Regardless, there exists a substantial gap between that last journal entry and the next. Almost a year, in fact, when Ishmael did not write at all, and neither did he participate in Maris’s therapy sessions. I do, however, have a copy of Callum’s journal with me which provides at least half of the narrative, incomplete as it is.

It appears that Ishmael might have gotten a little too forward with his friend, and invited a tremendous backlash from all his peers. Now, this sort of physical closeness is not unusual among my fellow Spire citizens, but I must remind you that this was a very different culture, where intimate touch was absolutely not acceptable under these circumstances, and between these two types of people.

Ishmael, maladjusted and desperate for approval, might have done anything to earn Callum’s attention. I hesitate to share Callum’s observations, as they are quite hateful, but I suppose it is not my job to editorialise the past. His journal entries were auto-transcribed into text form from the spoken word, it seems.

34^th of February, 2388 - Callum Loris

Today was so fucked up. I already asked dad not to let that creep into my room but he never listens. I’m just sitting here, okay, I just wanted to play Arcana 12 on my video-set, but dad comes in and sees that there’s a two-player mode. I just wanted to go through the campaign, anyway, why the hell would I want to do multiplayer first? But he’s all like “you should invite someone to play” and “it’s good for your social functioning here in our new home”, same old bullshit. I’m already ready to get Lee but it’s Ishmael on the other side of the door.

It’s always Ishmael, every day, every fucking day Ishmael Ishmael Ishmael and dad doesn’t seem to realise he’s so fucking gross. He comes in and won’t stop talking about those bugs they make him eat, all these scientific names like we’re in biology class. So I think, okay, he’s a freak but maybe if I let him play one round he’ll shut up and be happy for once. He already gave me the creeps before but it was different now, he was looking at me more than the video-set. I wish he’d shave, all that shit on his face is disgusting he’s like some old fucking pervert. Man I know he’s back in his room now probably touching himself to what just happened.

Anyway, whatever. He sucked at the game, wasn’t paying attention. Staring at me instead. I ask him what’s his problem, he says nothing, I’m like telling him to get on the objective in the game and he asks me – right there, he asks me if I like him. If I like like him. I’m so fucking embarrassed, man, I wanted to jump out the window – obviously I said no. God, what have I done to make him think that?