Gregory Bennett - Fish Tank

This time, he returned with another cargo net filled with more sample tubes, and each tube contained a different species: fish of several types, tiny urchins, starfish, baby eels, and even one minuscule jellyfish. The only repetition was in a series of eight vials, each of which had a baby lobster stuffed inside. Jeanette chuckled. Oscar always did have a yen for lobster!

As if in response to her laugh, Oscar released her arm, rolled all eight tentacles into tight coils, and then quickly unrolled them like a circle of party whistles. He repeated the coiling and uncoiling motion several times, until she laughed again. Jeanette remembered seeing him do that before, especially after he had played a particularly nasty trick on a jellyfish.

The silliness of it always drew a chuckle from her, but for the first time she realized this tentacle play just might be Oscar’s own version of laughter. She tried to imagine what it would be like to have tentacles; it seemed the action would be quite a tension-reliever.

Pop! Whoosh! Her ears suddenly filled with cotton. She could hear a distant whine, like gas moving through a high-pressure line. The lab was losing pressure! A dense funnel cloud appeared a few meters away from her, pointing to the open puncture where there precious air supply was leaking to space. The hole was too small to see through the tiny hurricane it created.

Abruptly Oscar jetted off again toward the wet lab. He returned in seconds with the long stinging tentacles of a jellyfish trailing behind him. With a sickening splat, he slammed the jellyfish down in the middle of the vapor cloud, and the whining stopped. She stared dumbly as the octopus spun in the air in front of her, joyously party-whistling his tentacles. He tagged her arm briefly, filled his cargo net with her remaining empty sample containers, and then just as suddenly launched himself back into the fog.

Again, Jeanette was left with mouth agape. Realization of how the holes in OceanLab got patched pushed her mind past concept shock. She had seen it with her own eyes; she had to accept it. Somehow Oscar had figured out that the holes needed to be patched and used the most convenient material available to him to do the job. She tried to think like an octopus, wondering what would lead him to decide to patch the leaks, but found she just didn’t know enough about how cephalopods thought to make the transition.

Her painful wounds were beginning to demand as much attention from her as she could devote to Oscar and the sample-collecting process. The sudden drop in pressure seemed to make it even worse. She feared that in her weakened condition she was even more susceptible to the urchins’ venom that she normally would be. While Oscar was off on another hunting mission, she considered just staying at OceanLab for a few weeks to recuperate. It would be fun just watching Oscar jetting around. I wonder what a real hug from an octopus would be like?

The octopus interrupted her daydreaming when he returned with more samples. He was a little parachute, falling toward her, tentacles spread wide in a braking maneuver in the air. It was nice to be flying in the lunar caverns with her boyfriend, Oscar.

She shook her head violently, trying to clear it. It made her dizzy. “Oscar, what have I been thinking? We have to get out of here! OceanLab is leaking, and I’m losing it. I need medical help, and fast. Let’s get to Flutterbye while I can still pilot.”

With Oscar clinging to her left arm, she towed the nets full of sample containers into OceanLab’s command module. The air was still reasonably clear in the command module, but shining spheres of water had collected there. She wiped a film of water from the environmental control displays to see that the laboratory’s leak rate was increasing; Oscar’s makeshift jellyfish plugs had been effective for a few hours, but were failing. Faced with a medical emergency, she dared not take the time to use the few mechanical patches she had at the lab. There was nothing to be done but to abandon the laboratory to its fate. Perhaps the Seattle Aquarium would give her a contract to come back and fix it, if they could afford the tons of water needed to refill the fish tanks.

With a wistful sigh, she dogged the laboratory hatch closed for what might be the last time. Its valves closed within seconds, maintaining pressure in the command module as the lab continued to leak its precious atmosphere and water.

Pulling on her underwear put more pressure on her wounds, and her leg increased its protestations in response. She slipped her right arm into its sleeve and tried to coax Oscar to move there so she could finish donning the underwear. The octopus tested the fabric with his tentacles, but was reluctant to release his hold on her left arm. His suckers could gain no purchase on the slippery fabric of her underwear. Talking to him about the problem produced no discernible results, but she finally got him to budge by stuffing her left arm into its sleeve even while he was still clinging to it. He moved ahead of the encroaching fabric to her upper arm and, when that location was obviously no longer safe, snaked out a tentacle to her rib cage and latched on.

Jeanette felt her skin crawl. All her phobias rushed back in response to tickling, itchy sensation from his suckers. Mentally, she throttled her panic, fighting an incredible desire to bat the creature away, to grab it and tear it off her skin. She thought of his beak, the jagged instrument Oscar used to crack open lobsters and crayfish, pressed against her own delicate hide, and shuddered. It was too much, she had to get him off of her.

“Oscar, you have to let go,” she cooed. “I can’t put on my space suit while you’re holding on to me.”

The octopus returned her gaze, his huge black-and-gold eyes imploring. He held close to her, tentacles giving rise to squirmy sensations as they encircled her torso beneath her underwear. Her heart was touched by this. He was behaving like a baby, clinging to its mother.

Or was he? Was he afraid to let go of her, or was he trying to tell her something?

She stared at him. He stared back.

Reality dawned in her mind. Despite her weariness and the progressive influence of toxins in her bloodstream, she suddenly felt quit lucid. “On, no. You can’t possibly understand the problem. You’re an octopus, a slithery, playful dumb animal. A water-breathing mollusk.”

He snuggled even tighter against her, and squeaked with his breathing tube. Again, she swallowed her revulsion, took deep breaths to calm her shudders. She closed her eyes for a few seconds, unsuccessfully trying to make her heart slow down.

“Oscar, you won’t fit into one of these little sample containers and I have nothing else to carry you in.” The animal just looked at her. “Uh uh. No. It won’t work. You cannot ride home in my suit. There’s no room! I don’t care how small of a space you can hide in, you’d be crushed as soon as I inflated my back bladder, and I can’t get my hands into the gloves without doing that.”

Oscar rotated his eye turret toward the donning rack and examined her space suit. He looked back at Jeanette. An inquiry.

She shook her head. “Oh, this is ridiculous! There’s no way you can understand me, but just forget it. You’re not going to ride in my helmet. The very thought is disgusting, and besides it’s dangerous. If you blocked my vision at the wrong time, we both could be killed!” She saw that same insistent gaze. He relaxed his grip slightly, and then again snuggled against her, sending more crawlies through her nervous system. This time he squeezed her so hard she had difficulty breathing, but a few quick breaths pulsed her diaphragm enough for Oscar to get the message. He relaxed his grip, slightly.