FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Tell me your secret, Val thought.

The otter's tail switched back and forth eagerly, but his voice came out as calm as ever. "I have visual contact on the novel organism."

A scoff from the other end of the comm. "Don't sound too excited there." The kilometer of water that separated Val and Opiter left the tiger's voice muffled, but his derision was unmistakable.

Early on in the expedition, Opiter had decided that Val's affect was worthy of ridicule and, three days in, it was getting old. Val would have muted himself and sighed, if only safety protocols didn't force his end of the comm to stay open. Instead, he took a moment to center himself.

Seven kilometers of salt water overhead, two kilometers of ice above that. Atmospheric diving suit pressurized to one atmosphere, hugging his body like a sleeping bag. Interior temperature: twenty degrees. Ambient temperature: one degree. Low whir of actuators in articulated limbs and soft hiss of breathing gas like a white noise machine.

Despite the annoyances, there was nowhere he'd rather be. And at the bottom of the cliff before him, resting on the seabed-

"Val?" It was Kelda this time, sounding concerned.

"I'm fine."

"He's just in space cadet land again," Opiter said. "Val, can you describe the 'novel organism' for us?"

Once more, the otter looked over the labyrinthine corpse below. Try as he might to take it all in, his mind fixated on the details. Ragged frills wafting in the slow current, weaving thready lines down serpentine arms. Bruise-colored nodules dappling curtains of pale flesh. Mouths, or what might have been mouths, gaping at odd intervals. It was beautifully alien.

"No," he finally replied.

It was only after Opiter began laughing that he realized the inappropriateness of the response. "What do you mean, 'no?' Aren't you the scientist?"

"Let me handle the comms, Opiter," Kelda's voice cut in. "Go and prep the specimen bell."

"Sure thing, Kel." As he stepped away, Val heard him mockingly repeat 'No'" in an exaggerated monotone and chuckle to himself.

"Are you okay, Val?" Kelda asked anxiously. The mouse's voice grew clearer as she settled into the comms seat.

"I'm fine."

"Maybe you should tell him about your neurotype."

"It's not worth getting into it." Who knew whether it would even make a difference? "Let's just get on with the mission."

"As long as you're sure." She sighed. "Back to preliminary observations, then. Can you estimate the size?"

This trees-over-forest approach made more sense to Val than a request for a blanket description. The otter switched on his suit's laser scalers and aimed them down at the specimen. Those two green dots, 75 millimeters apart, provided the onboard computer a visual reference point and it soon projected its extrapolated measurements onto the HUD.

"It's highly irregular in shape, but its longest dimensions are 6 meters by 20 meters."

"That corroborates the drones' estimates. Hm." Val could imagine the mouse's round ears flicking as she considered this. "It should fit in the bell, but it'll be tight. By the way, it is dead, right?"

"Its position is unchanged from the initial drone observation."

"Sounds like a 'yes,' then. How about decomp?"

"Pristine." Given the low temperatures at this depth, this was expected. However, there was one odd detail. "I don't see any benthic scavengers."

"It must have only just fallen."

"I suppose." If so, their find had incredible timing. Such a rich food source entering this desolate environment would take very little time to attract notice.

"Does it look related to any other recorded species on this planet?"

"None that I can think of."

She whistled. "This is a hell of a find, Val."

An incredible find. He suspected he was looking at the first entry in an entirely new phylum. "Yes," he agreed.

In the brief pause, Val sensed her disappointment at his failure to audibly match her enthusiasm. It doesn't matter, he told himself as usual. I'm not down here to socialize. "Alright, I think we're ready to collect," she said. "Standard procedure - you'll do the superficial examination here in the hab and then we'll take it back to the arcology for full analysis. Stand by while I send the collection drones."

"Wilco," he said. Kelda closed her end of the comms channel with a mechanical clack.

Tell me your secret, he thought again. What was this creature? How did it integrate with other life in the ecosystem? Above all, impossible as it was to answer this question - what was it like to be it?

Twenty long minutes later the drones arrived, their lights a constellation in the blackness. They deployed a trawling net and, with Val's help, rolled the awkwardly-shaped cargo on top of it. When the long, flopping limbs were as secure as could be managed, the drones lifted the mysterious carcass away and melted back into the dark.

All that existed now was the flimsy disc of seabed revealed by Val's dive light, and even that was obscured by the glare of marine snow, kicked-up sediment, and the steady stream of bubbles from the CO2 scrubbers. It was a calm, clean world - an unseen universe.

Rather than walk, Val decided to burn his built-up energy with a swim. The exertion would be a waste of O2, but with over an hour remaining in the tank and the hab so close, it was a risk he could afford. He pushed off the seabed with his footpaws, turned streamline with a flick of his tail, and engaged his suit's thrusters. Shooting through the water like a spear, it wasn't long before the mobile hab's exterior floodlights came into view.

The hab was a collection of interconnected modular domes, among them a laboratory, hydroponics, and infirmary. Besides these work areas, there were spacious quarters for each of the three crew members, a lounge furnished in wood and leather, and even a swimming pool included at Val's request.

This complex was currently parked beside a hydrothermal vent, whose heat reduced the amount of power needed for temperature control and provided a steady stream of extremophilic microbes for analysis. Just beyond the vent, a dark cliff plunged a hundred meters down.

"I'm within visual of the hab," Val said.

"Welcome back," Kelda answered. "The specimen bell is open and ready, but the drones are having trouble squeezing our big fish inside. I sent Opiter out to help them. Are you comfortable giving him a paw? If you need space from him, I understand."

Val suppressed another sigh. He could handle himself without Kelda worrying over him. Besides, the tiger was perfectly tolerable with a task to collaborate on. "I don't mind."

On the cliff-facing side of the hab, Val saw Opiter floating at the specimen bell's open hatch. As Kelda had indicated, he and the drones were struggling to wrestle the creature inside, folding in limb after limb only for others to furl back out.

The tiger glanced up, his orange and white face faintly visible through his visor. "Hey, Val."

"Hi."

"I just want to let you know I, uh, respect you and enjoy working with you. I apologize if you were upset by anything I said earlier."

Val was confused. What had brought this on? "It's no problem. Can I help you with that?"

"Yeah, thanks."

The hab provided enough illumination to work by, so Val turned off his dive light before joining Opiter. As they worked, Val noticed that Opiter's movements were ginger, as though he wanted to touch the specimen as little as possible. Nonetheless, they managed to hold it in place long enough for Kelda to remotely close the hatch, sealing them inside the flooded compartment.

Remembering his diminished O2, Val pulled a breathing gas umbilical from the wall and plugged it into the airlock connector on the back of his suit. The outer chamber pressurized with a pop and then cool, fresh air flowed into the tanks. The meter stabilized at forty minutes before beginning to tick upward.

With that out of the way, he turned to the specimen. In line with the measurements Val had taken, it filled most of the bell, leaving little space to move and obscuring most of the otter's vision with its scaly folds.

"Have fun with your abomination," Opiter said. "Can I get out of this walking coffin now, Kel?"

"Yeah, one sec," the mouse replied. "Gotta repressurize the airlock and then prep for decontamination."

"'Walking coffin?'" Val asked after her comms quieted.

"The ADS," the tiger explained. "Being in this thing freaks me out."

Attempting to reciprocate Opiter's newfound friendliness, Val reached for words of comfort. "Statistically, you're safer in an atmospheric diving suit than you are in an arcology swimming pool."

"Great." The earlier derision crept back into his voice. "That's really helpful, Val."

Kelda cut back in. "Is there a problem?"

"No, Kel," Opiter grumbled.

With a sinking feeling, Val realized that the mouse must have reprimanded Opiter while he had been away. Before he could decide how to address this, Kelda spoke up again. "Hang on, I'm reading a pressure increase inside the bell."

Val frowned. "That shouldn't be happening." The entire point of the bell was to preserve specimens at the same pressure from which they had been collected.

"That's for sure," she replied. "I'm going to re-open the hatch and get you both out of there."

Opiter groaned. "Can't you just open a drain valve? We just got this thing in here."

"I'm not taking any risks until we run a diagnostic. Not to save ten minutes of work. Hang on to something, boys - I'm opening it up now." The hatch reopened, and Val had to whip his tail to remain stationary as compressed water from the interior rushed outside.

Just then, he saw the cause of the pressure increase. The center of the organism - one of its fleshy centers, at least - had swollen to twice its original size. Gas buildup, like a beached whale? But how would it have-

ready 2 roll :-)

The text had flashed in his mind like a neon strobe before fading just as quickly.

Opiter groaned. "What the hell was that?"

He turned toward the tiger. "You saw it too?"

"What's going on?" Kelda asked.

He didn't know how to explain to Kelda what they had just seen, so he focused on the immediate problem - the swelling mass, which was now so stretched that its skin was translucent.

"Opiter, we need to evacuate."

"You're telling me."

The tiger braced his suit's footpaws against the wall, then kicked off and fired his thrusters at max power. The tips of his suit's ears had nearly reached the exit when the creature split open like a ripping seam and burst, blasting Opiter and Val against the walls. Blood poured from the rupture and filled the bell with opaque blue smoke.

"What the hell are those things?!" cried Opiter.

All the otter saw was blue. "What things?"

Opiter's response was incoherent, and he thrashed with such frenzy that the whirring motors were audible through his comms.

"Kelda," Val said, raising his voice over the tiger's sounds of panic. "What's the damage to the hab?"

No response.

"Opiter, calm down. You're going to use up your O2," Val warned, to no effect. "Kelda, respond," he tried saying again. Still no response.

The blood dispersed enough that Val could almost see to the far wall. Inside the pale mist, slippery shadows moved around and between ribbons of torn flesh - surely the "things" that had so terrified Opiter. More pressingly, he saw three more swollen masses ready to burst.

"Opiter!" he yelled.

He swam through the gore toward the tiger but the explosions roared in his ears before he could reach him. Their combined shockwave slammed into his chest and acceleration ripped consciousness from him.

[center]-[/center]

r u gonna wake up :o

Val opened his eyes to find his depth gauge flashing the words UNCONTROLLED DESCENT. Startling awake, he clawed wildly at the water, slowing his fall just enough that when his back crashed down on the seabed it only knocked the air from his lungs.

He lay in the silent dark for nearly a minute as he waited for each breath to stop hurting. It didn't, so he stopped waiting and rose shakily to his footpaws.

"Kelda," he said weakly between pants. "Opiter?"

No response. A diagnostic told him the comm was still functional, which meant the issue was on the other end. Either in a technical sense, or...

He couldn't let himself worry about the other possibility. Instead, he assessed his situation. His remaining O2 had dropped to thirty minutes amid the chaos; a medscan showed two bruised ribs; and his depth was nearly 100 meters below the hab's. The force of the explosion must have flung him off the cliff.

Craning his neck, he saw the hab's floodlights spilling over the edge. That was a good sign - if the explosion hadn't knocked out the lights, it couldn't have compromised the hull.

Oddly, the lights were flickering. Power drain? That seemed unlikely - the engine case was nigh-indestructible so, again, any force that could damage it would have destroyed the lights altogether.

He let curiosity supplant his rising terror. Focus on this question, he told himself, rather than worry about finding Kelda and Opiter dead, or getting locked out of the hab and running out of oxygen, or all that blood overhead attracting predators. Just get back to the hab and investigate. Preparing to ascend, he reached for his thruster controls.

Then he paused. With a shift in perspective, he realized that the hab lights weren't flickering at all. Rather, something was intermittently blocking them from view. Switching his dive light back on, he found with a start that dozens or hundreds of shapes were swarming around him - slick and black like eels, with geometric bodies like macroscopic virii. Each was the size of a football, but as weightless as jellyfish as they bounced blindly off his suit.

hi mr otter :-)

He shook his head and waited for the burn-in of the neon text to subside. "Who's doing that?" he asked.

we r dummy :p

The things must have been communicating telepathically. He opened his muzzle to speak again, but found he couldn't settle on what to ask. Were they a hive mind? How intelligent were they? Why did they talk like that?

Tell me your secret, he thought about saying. He had never expected to be able to say this to an alien mind and expect a response. This changed everything.

One thing at a time. "I very much want to get to know you," he said. "But right now my friends and I are in serious danger, and I need to focus on that."

ya nbd

"My name is Val. What can I call you?"

ummm we like the name val. u can call us that

"Won't that be confusing?"

no? ur mr otter

"Alright." He found this surprising, but was happy to respect their preference. "And val is...all of you?"

ya ur talking 2 all of us

"Understood. It's nice to meet you, val."

u 2 mr otter :-)

Doing his best to ignore val's dizzying orbits around him, he planted his footpaws, kicked off the seabed, and engaged thrusters.

A wet munching sound followed. The HUD alerted him to a mechanical jam, and he fought to remain upright as he dropped back to the seabed. He stumbled when he touched down, jostling his bruised ribs.

When the shooting pain settled to a dull ache, he examined the thrusters to diagnose the issue. It wasn't hard to spot. One member of val lay shredded in each one, their mangled bodies gumming up the propellers.

"Oh no," he said with a gasp. "I'm so sorry."

about what >_>

"I accidentally...killed some of you."

well ya, we wanted u 2. cuz now u can't get away :D

He froze. They had deliberately sabotaged his suit? "Why would you do that?"

duh we wanna nest inside u and lay eggs

Val realized that val's frantic circling was a procedural prodding for weaknesses in his suit. Though intelligent and capable of communication, it seemed they were amoral predators. Then again, many people back in Val's backwater homeworld had accused Val of lacking empathy, so perhaps he should give val a chance.

His mind made a connection. "You came out of the other creature we found, didn't you?"

ya we hatched inside that guy

That must be val's reproduction method - injecting themselves into other creatures and exploding into exponentially more copies, just like actual virii.

As much as the otter wanted to speculate further, he forced himself back on track. Without functioning thrusters, he would have to ditch ballast. It was always unfortunate to leave litter on this untouched planet, but Val didn't see any other way to scale the cliff.

After disconnecting both broken thrusters, he was already buoyant enough that his footpaws began to lift. Next went the emergency lead weights, which hit the seabed in a cloud of sediment, and he began to ascend at a steady 3 meters per second.

The swarm coalesced around him, hugged his suit tight, and pulled him down. Velocity dipped below 1 meter per second.

Rather than appeal to val's nonexistent morality, Val tried reasoning from their point of view. "There's no point keeping me here. Even if you did manage to breach my suit's hull, it would just implode, destroying my body before you could nest in it."

hmmm

A rapid sequence of images strobed across his vision - technical diagrams, classroom instruction on diving safety protocol, memories of so many journeys beneath the ocean. They were rifling through his mind like a filing cabinet. When it finally stopped, val spoke again.

ur atmospheric diving suit (scout-class, lutriform) is fitted with an airlock connector 4 a standard 9.5mm bore breathing gas hose. we can fit thru there

He blinked, eyes watering. The psychic scan hadn't been painful - only jarring and uncomfortable. More disturbing were its implications. "You understand how my suit works?"

no but u know how to get in so now we do 2 :D

He considered this. "Technically, you're correct - you could get in through the airlock connector. But it can't be opened from the outside. You would need me to open it."

do it

"No."

:/

Val checked his depth gauge: sixty meters to go. Enough time to indulge in a bit more conversation. "Why would you tell me you want to nest in me?"

wdym?

He paused, wondering how to explain this. "You must know I don't want you to do that, and would try to stop you if I knew. So why didn't you lie about it?"

???

Perhaps they didn't understand the concept of deception, or lacked a theory of mind altogether. But then why communicate at all? Val considered this for a moment. As a hive mind, telepathy was surely necessary for val to coordinate its members. Was inter-species communication only a side effect of this?

ya we're all always asking the group 4 info. if u ask us stuff we have 2 answer like ur 1 of us

Val wondered whether the creature from which val had spawned had also received psychic messages from them. What would those have been like?

Nearly at the top, Val addressed them one more time. "Me and my kind are here to learn about you. If you need to nest in other organisms to survive, reproduce, and be comfortable, we can provide that in an enclosure back at the arcology."

???

Val realized he was asking val for delayed gratification, which was perhaps too much to expect from a creature less than an hour old. There was so much more he wanted to talk about, but just then the floodlights emerged from the top of the cliff like a sunrise.

"Kelda," he called. "Opiter. Are you there?"

A crackle of static, and then Opiter responded. "Val! It's good to hear your voice! I thought you died."

"Nope."

The tiger chuckled. "'Nope,' he says. Well, you're insanely lucky - that blast shot you right off the cliff and you dropped like a rock - you didn't even fire your thrusters."

Val didn't want to think about what would have happened if he hadn't woken up in time. "What's the damage to the hab?"

"The specimen bell was totaled, but everything else is fine."

As designed, the adjacent bulkheads must have sealed before structural integrity failed. "We'll have to come back for the wreckage so we aren't leaving litter on the seafloor."

"Yeah, sure," Opiter said dismissively.

"Is Kelda okay?"

"Kel took a knock to the head during the blasts. Medscan says it's a minor concussion. She's resting in the infirmary now."

what about val? :o

It was actually a good question. "What about v-I mean, the organisms?"

"Dead. I made sure to stomp every single one."

:-(

Val was about to protest this unprofessionalism when his O2 meter flashed urgently: fifteen minutes remaining. Between the moving, talking, and stress-induced increase in respiration, he was far outstripping the projected capacity. "I should get inside. My thrusters are broken, though - can you come to me?"

"Yeah, I'll let you in through navigation. Give me one sec."

"Wilco."

The hab extended its legs and slowly scuttled down from its perch. Once on level ground, the legs tapped out a rhythmic pattern that swung the hab around in a half-circle, kicking up towering swirls of sediment.

Another flash of images ran through Val's mind as val scanned him again, and then:

hey mr otter, don't go thru decontamination. that would kill us b4 we can nest in u

Another good point, though not for the reasons val thought. "Actually, leave the airlock flooded. I'll attach my suit to an umbilical and ride back to the arcology inside."

"Huh? Why?"

"I have specimens to bring back."

"What are you talking about?"

The hab completed its arc, revealing Opiter's face in the nav room window high above. When the full brunt of the floodlights fell across Val, they revealed the answer to Opiter's question. Even through clouds of sediment, Val saw the tiger startle at the sight of val swarming around his suit.

"What the hell, Val?! Kill those things!"

"They're not going to hurt us."

"They said they wanted to...to..."

"Nest in you. They said the same to me."

Opiter only shuddered.

Val hadn't anticipated such a strong negative reaction. Hadn't they come all this way to experience the unknown? Attempting to comfort the tiger, he said, "They can't get into the suit, let alone the hab."

"They were inside my head!"

"They're telepathic, yes. But they have no capacity to induce suggestibility as far as I can tell."

"Huh? What does that even mean?"

"They aren't hypnotic," he rephrased. "Right, val?" he added quietly.

Not quietly enough. "Who are you talking to?" Opiter snapped.

we can control u when we're inside u but not b4 then. that would be so cool tho :-)

"They're safe," Val emphasized.

The hab, once a sight representing warmth and safety, turned menacing as it towered over the otter. Its hull was the shell of a colossal predator; the empty windows along its length were glassy eyes; and the floodlights glaring in the blizzard of sediment were beacons of divine judgment.

"Prove it," Opiter demanded. "Prove you're not being controlled."

"What? How?"

"How about you show some emotion for once? Show me you're afraid of those parasites. You know, like a normal person would be?"

Opiter had thought he was emotionless before, so wouldn't "showing emotion" now be more suspicious? Val knew from hard experience that pointing out this irrationality wouldn't help.

The otter also knew that pausing to consider one's words was often taken as a sign of dishonesty so, rather than risk another second, he blurted out his first thought. "There's nothing to worry about, Opiter. val just wants to survive like any other organism."

He realized his mistake in the deathly silence that followed.

"'Val?'" There was no humor in his repetition this time.

"val is the name of-"

"Val is the name of the person you infested, you freaks!"

The minutes were ticking down. "Let's say I was being controlled," Val said. "What you would need to do is tell the computer to enable quarantine protocols and then let me on."

"Even in quarantine, you'd try to get inside my head again. I'm not letting that happen." The hab took several steps back, the tiger's face fading into the snow. Opiter was going to leave him behind, Val realized in panic. "Val, if you're in there, I'll send someone from the arcology back for you."

"I only have ten minutes of air!"

A long pause. Then, "I'll send someone for you."

"Opiter!"

The hab turned away, abyssal shadow swallowing everything outside of Val's small dive light. He jogged after it, pumping his legs as fast as he could through water that felt thicker than ever.

u should kill him

Val didn't respond. He needed to conserve O2, especially with how fast his chase was consuming it. The hab picked up speed, and would likely leap into propulsion mode in moments. Once it jetted away, it wouldn't be long before Val was reduced to yet more litter on the seafloor. If only he weren't so socially incompetent, he thought bitterly, he might have known what to say to Opiter to avoid this.

"I knew Opiter was an ass," Kelda's voice broke in, "but I never thought he would do something like this." An indicator on the HUD showed it to be a private comm.

"Kelda." He wanted to shout it, but kept his voice low for the sake of the urgently flashing O2 meter. "You have to do something."

She paused, and Val worried his decision to keep his voice steady had made her suspicious as well. But it was only a moment before she responded, "I've got you. I'm going to launch the infirmary's emergency umbilical - grab on!" Val heard the clack of a control and then saw the long, snaking hose shoot out from the infirmary dome high above.

"Kelda, what the hell are you doing?" Opiter demanded.

"We're not leaving without-" she started, then cut out. Opiter must have muted her comm.

The nozzle of the umbilical hit the seabed just at the edge of Val's dive light and dragged, disastrously quickly, behind the ambling hab. With one minute of oxygen left, this was Val's only chance.

He sprinted, dive suit tearing through the water faster than he thought possible, and stretched out his arm. He had just brushed the bouncing nozzle with his grasper when the actuators in his legs jammed with a shuddering stop. Looking down, he saw that val had wedged their bodies into every joint they could find.

don't leave :-(

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When the decontamination cycle completed, the otter re-racked the dive suit on the boarding platform and stepped out.

Kelda was already at the door to the infirmary. "Val!" the mouse exclaimed. She ran forward and embraced val, who stiffened at the sudden contact. So many unfamiliar nerves, feeling so much.

"Oops, sorry," she said before breaking the hug and stepping back. "You must be really overstimulated right now."

"It's alright."

"I don't know what I would have done if we left you out there. Opiter nearly killed you! What are we going to do about him?"

what should we say 2 her?

val felt mr otter inside, fully intact despite their grip on his body, but couldn't force him to answer. They would have to work this out for themselves.

When mr otter let val into his body, it had been with the expectation that Kelda or Opiter would be able to tell he was being controlled and put val in quarantine. val couldn't let that happen. If val were to make it to the arcology, a place full of warm and waiting hosts, they needed to use "deception" - a concept only legible to them thanks to borrowing mr otter's brain.

val now scanned that brain for clues. Kelda, according to mr otter, saw mr otter as stoic and patient. She admired this, but thought he was too patient with people like Opiter - or perhaps too conflict-averse. Therefore, in this situation, Kelda might expect mr otter to say something to try to make Kelda forgive Opiter.

this is going 2 get rly complicated :/

val said, "It's alright. Opiter was just afraid of those...parasites."

"That's no excuse," she insisted. "He was out of control! You should have heard the things he said about you after he cut comms."

val decided to repeat themselves; maybe this time the words would settle her down. "Opiter was just-"

The door to the infirmary opened. The tiger stalked inside, tail switching, and stabbed a digit of his paw through the air at val. He opened his muzzle, then glanced at Kelda and hesitated. His ears drooped. All of this happened far too quickly for val to interpret. Finally, he said, "Are you alright, Val?"

Thankfully, this was a simple yes-or-no question. "Yes."

"Good, good." He ran a paw over the top of his head. "I'm sorry about what happened there. It was a scary situation and I may have acted rashly."

"'Acted rashly?'" Kelda repeated. She strode toward Opiter who, though larger and likely capable of killing her, backed away until he flattened against the wall. "You were going to leave Val for dead because you were afraid of some...some worms!"

"Those worms got inside my head!"

Kelda's ears pinned back. "You've got shit for brains, so no wonder."

"Hey!" he protested. "This is a horizontal command structure. I'm sick of being disrespected just because I'm your guys' junior."

"We don't disrespect you because you're our junior. We disrespect you because you're a total incompetent who refuses to learn."

The words were flowing faster and faster. val would not be able to keep up for long, so they needed a way out. Scanning mr otter again, they found that Kelda thought of mr otter as delicate and easily overwhelmed. They could work with that.

They held up a paw, a small gesture which nonetheless made both crewmates fall silent. "I can't handle this conversation right now."

Kelda's eyes widened and she nodded. "Sorry, Val. You've been through a lot today and you shouldn't have to come back to all this loud arguing. Why don't you go to the pool and have some alone time?"

This was exactly what val hoped to hear. "Yes. I think I'll do that."

"Hang on," Opiter cut in. "Has Val been through the medscanner since boarding?"

A medscan would show val inside mr otter, so they had to make the crewmates think one was unnecessary. "I already conducted a scan inside the diving suit," they said. "It showed two bruised ribs. I'll have a drone bring ice and analgesics to my quarters later." This "deception" thing was getting easier.

Opiter turned to Kelda and lowered his voice. "He says that, but how do we know he's not full of bugs?"

"Stop it, Opiter."

"I'm serious. How do we know?"

She sighed. "For one thing, the parasites couldn't have gotten into the dive suit. Right, Val?"

Opiter replied before val could even try. "He could have let them in through the suit's - the thing that the hose connects to. That's how they told me to let them in."

"And why exactly would he have done that?"

"Some sick curiosity, probably. It's always freaked me out how he loves touching disgusting sea monsters."

"Don't talk about Val like that!"

Opiter's tail slumped. Instead of continuing to press Kelda, he turned to val. "The medscan will only take a second, Val."

val looked back at the tiger. "I'm very tired," he said. "I would like to go now."

They hoped this would play on Kelda's sympathies again, and they were correct. "Go on, Val," she said. "Take all the time you need to recharge."

With a rush of relief, val turned and left. Before the door closed automatically behind them, they heard two more snatches of conversation:

"He's acting weird, Kelda, can't you see that?"

"I told you about his neurotype. Stop being an ass and just leave him alone."

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val trailed mr otter's webbed footpaws through the water, enjoying the signals that this pulsed through his nervous system. This species was so complex - far more complex than any generation of val had nested in before.

So many new sensations. Soft, thick fur; air filling lungs and stretching skin; light in an exorbitance of colors, shades, and reflections. mr otter's two eyes alone absorbed as much of it as dozens of vals'. Were it not such a fundamental drive, val might almost think it a shame to burst out of mr otter.

The loudspeakers in the pool room pinged. "Hey, Val!" Kelda said. She spoke loudly and quickly. "I sent a couple drones to see if there was anything left of the specimens we collected - either the parasites or the big one they came out of. Guess what they found?"

val considered the possibilities. "I'm not sure. There are a lot of things they could have found."

"Right. I didn't mean it literally, but...anyway, they recovered remains! In fact, there's enough material that you might be able to perform a digital reconstruction. Interested?"

Imitating this procedure would require far too much work scanning mr otter's brain and coordinating his body. Fortunately, val had learned an easy excuse to fall back on. "I'm still recovering right now."

"Oh. Okay. Are you sure?"

"I'm sure. I'll take a look when we get back to the arcology."

"Alright, Val. Do what you need to do." She closed the channel, leaving val to their thoughts.

Speaking of the arcology, the return was going to be a problem. According to mr otter's brain, the decontamination scanners at the entrance were far more thorough than the compact ones in the hab - and even those had been fooled only because they had focused on the exterior of the dive suit.

Maybe val could take over Kelda and Opiter and use all three bodies to force their way in. More bodies was always better. Unfortunately, val needed time to mature inside mr otter's body before being able to spread.

Maybe val could buy time. Another scan told them that they could put the hab out of commission for at least a day. All it would take was a few flipped switches in the nav room. val exited the pool and passed under the fur dryer, using mr otter's thick tail for balance as they made their way there.

On the way, val realized that if Kelda or Opiter saw what they were doing, they would try to stop them, perhaps stabbing val with a knife from the galley or a scalpel from the infirmary.

No, that wasn't right. For a variety of complicated reasons, Opiter and Kelda wouldn't be willing to kill mr otter just to kill val. Instead, they would find some non-lethal method. Opiter, for one, could simply pin val to the ground and restrain them.

Kelda, however, was smaller and weaker than mr otter. Nearly to the navigation room, he considered what she might do. Perhaps she would use some tool to negate val's size advantage - maybe an anti-predator shock gun for the range it would provide.

When they opened the door to the nav room and saw Kelda standing inside, it was not without some satisfaction that they noticed just such a shock gun in her paw.

Should they act afraid, or would that be more suspicious? mr otter wouldn't hesitate before reacting, so val asked the first question that came to mind. "Why are you holding that?"

She didn't answer, only stared at them. Had she suffered a stroke? If so, that might leave her body unsuitable to nest in.

"Are you alright?" they asked.

"Are you?"

Stalling for time, val decided to keep asking questions. "Why do you ask?"

"You're acting strange."

"I'm tired and overwhelmed."

"I've seen you tired and overwhelmed," Kelda shot back. "What's really going on?"

Her suspicion reminded val of Opiter's suspicion. Actually, that comparison was useful - Kelda disliked Opiter's suspicion, and wouldn't want to imitate it. "You're acting like Opiter," they said.

The mouse's ears flicked, even though there hadn't been any unusual noises as far as val could tell. "Opiter doesn't know you. I don't claim to know you that well either, even if we have been out here a few times together. Still, I do know one thing." Worryingly, she took a step closer.

"I would like to go to my quarters now," val said. "I would like to take analgesics for my bruised ribs."

The mention of mr otter's injury did not evoke the sympathy he hoped for, and Kelda went on as though they hadn't spoken. "You know what Val says sometimes when he thinks I can't hear him? 'Tell me your secret.' He's said it to fish, rocks, and brine pools; I even once heard him say it to the pool filter after it got replaced with a new model." She smiled. "Honestly, it's really cute."

A compliment. According to mr otter, the way to respond was - "Thank you."

Her smile disappeared. "That's how I know there's something wrong. I've seen Val stay up until 0400 doing dissections, but you say you're too tired to study the specimens? No way." She raised the shock gun. "I want you to get in the medscanner."

"No."

As difficult as body language was to interpret, the way the mouse tensed up left no doubt that this was the wrong response. "What do you mean, 'no?'"

If only val was further developed, they could spit one of their bodies at the mouse and end this. "I would like to go to my quarters," they said. "I'm too tired to get in the medscanner."

The mouse narrowed her eyes. "If you're so tired, how about you take a nap?"

She fired a cluster of four shock bolts into mr otter's chest. Electricity - around 50,000 volts, mr otter's brain helpfully supplied - cavorted through his nervous system and made the sensation of the pool microscopic by comparison. mr otter's brain and body shut down, and val lost the ability to steer him.

:c

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After the arcology medics extracted val from his body, Val was asked to quarantine himself in his quarters. Even calls were forbidden in case of the possibility of psychic contagion.

The hardest part wasn't the painful recovery from multiple surgeries, nor did Val experience emotional trauma from his experience; everything that had happened to him while under val's control was like a low-resolution video in his memory.

Rather, what bothered him most was how long it had taken for one of his crewmates to take val down. When he had decided to let val take over, he had done so in certainty that Opiter or Kelda would be able to differentiate him from an alien lifeform with no empathy. That it had taken more than an instant disturbed him, and he wasn't sure whether it said more about them or him.

Val scratched his chest. The surgeons had had to shave large sections of his fur, which was now sensory hell as it grew back. The cool water of the pool barely touched it, and it was impossible to sleep without sedatives. Doing his best to ignore it, he scrolled through the arcology news feed for updates on Kelda or Opiter.

Opiter was leaving for the nearest hubworld. He was quoted saying, "I could never do what Val did, letting those things inside me. Not even to save my life. I still think they should all be destroyed. That's how I know I'm not cut out for this research stuff." Val agreed with this assessment.

The only quote he could find from Kelda was, "I regret that the situation went as far as it did, and hope that new safeguards can be implemented to prevent anything similar from happening again." He agreed with this assessment as well.

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The quarantine timer expired at 0600. Val stayed up all night and, the moment he was a free otter, boarded a tram to the Turquoise Sector biolab and located the containment tank labeled Hylobenus vali - "Val's leeches." A note underneath the label said the specimens preferred to be called "val."

During Val's quarantine, val had developed to maturity and been allowed to nest inside a new organism - a coelacanth, Val noted. val's bodies lazily circled the tank, with the large fish trailing behind.

The tank's anti-psychic shielding kept val's telepathic signals from reaching the general public until they were better understood. This was unfortunate, as Val had eagerly anticipated speaking with val under better circumstances. He would be sure to apply for a work cycle here sometime soon.

Instead of speaking, Val pressed a webbed paw to the glass. It was icy under his pads, and he automatically shifted his arm to soothe a patch of itchy short fur against it. Several of val's bodies swam up to him, probably drawn by the warmth. Sorry, he thought. I'll try anything once, but in this case once was more than enough.

Val was the only person in the lab at this hour, and the silence reminded him of his period of social isolation - a period which had begun long before the quarantine. "Tell me your secret," he might have said, but he suspected he already knew it.