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Marna's grasp on my hand tightens as the depths draw close. Rushing water resounds off walls, whispering. Rising. Roaring.

A collective gasp escapes us as the liquid abyss appears, ready to swallow us whole. I had thought it was cold before, but I stand corrected. The chill of a global ocean buried beneath 2 kilometers of solid ice pressed against the ship on all sides, breathing an arctic wind into the hull. I felt goose pimples beneath my fur. We're supposed to live in this? Swim in this, 24/7?

It occurs to me that "24/7" no longer applies. A day on Erebus lasts 57 hours, so the week I'm used to isn't even three days anymore. One more truth to add to the list of things forever changed.

The sting of cold sea snaps me from my musing.

"Shhhhhiiiiit!" Marna leaps up into the air reflexively. Gravity still exists, of course, and she splashes down a moment later. The ice water hits her a second time, and a small circumference of blue humans about us eyes her angrily. I shiver and smile--they still react as though an ocean weren't about to engulf us all. My tail goes rigid for a moment as the chill reaches it. Even now, it feels as though this thing is still mulling over being attached to me.

Yelps and shrieks echo around us. The water continues to pool, utterly indifferent to our discomfort.

"Now, now! If everyone would please calm down, you will adjust to the temperature in no time!" Commander Yang is a portrait of surety in azure, one open palm raised in steady confidence. Too bad some of us lost our rationale on the way here. I'm half-expecting another bloody cavalcade of crazed cosmonauts. I'm sure the commander is, too. Marna still holds my hand. The water caresses our shins with frozen needles.

"Everyone, PLEASE pay attention!" I stand ready for the water, for the feeling of drowning; to let my fear wash over me and awaken me to my new life. Here and there, people are clambering over one another, as though we were children again and the ground was lava. To what end? Even if they could break though the hull, the other side is ice, ice as thick as mountains. Our fates are sealed, friends. The ocean has us in its frozen hold, all too eager to enfold us--or entomb us. Much better to be its guest than prisoner, I'd wager.

"PLEASE! CALM DOWN AND PAY ATTENTION! You all trained for this, you fucking morons! You all knew this was going to happen!" Yang's patience has been exasperated. "No one made you come! You chose this! Remember your reason, your training... your sensibility, for God's sake!"

A couple of the more panicked furs regain self-control, faces flushed in embarrassment. A few others begin to soothe the unhinged with kind words and comforting hands. Finally, progress. I smile and nod my admirations towards Yang, who catches my glance as he sighs relief. Marna and I embrace, almost subconsciously. I feel her warmth through our coats, and the contrast of the water only intensifies its pleasure. Her chest is pressed against my own, and my little friend perks up. If Marna notices the budding erection, she keeps it to herself.

The sea is at our knees. I look down at the rising waves and am struck by pristine beauty: A few thousand lights in verdigris at various stages of submersion, cascading their candescence off the surface of pure, clear water. Our names flicker in and out of sight as we move, shine and shadow playing about the great hall, monikers showcased in neon lights. I hope I am not the only one capable of appreciating the show we're putting on. No spotlight from above, but we don't need it anymore.

The space around Yang clears, aside from two beefy types who are obviously his guards. "Thank you, everyone. Especially those of you who have maintained your calm. We WILL get through this. We have a responsibility to ourselves, to our ideals, and to the future of our species.

"Now then, you may already be noticing your bodies acclimating to the temperature of the water. This is completely normal. Your fur, blood, and cardiovascular systems are all perfectly designed for our new environment. In fact, within an hour's time, this will feel comfortable, and the way this room felt before will seem hot.

"As the water continues to rise, I encourage you all to practice moving your tails. Some of you may still be experiencing your new appendages as phantom limbs or alien grafts, but your tail is very much a part of you now, as much as your arms and legs. It will prove incredibly useful for navigating the environment quickly, while allowing optimal maneuverability. Let's try sweeping our tails side to side now, okay? This will simulate our swimming in open water, like a crocodile. Feel how the muscles attach to your lower back. Concentrate on moving your tail from the base to the tip. If you're doing it right, you should feel a small lift in your buttocks, one cheek at a time." One of his guards demonstrates for us, Yang lifting his tail so we can see the telltale flexing of ass. And I'll be damned if this fella doesn't have a fine one. He and Yang repeat their maneuver three times, facing the remaining cardinal directions. The erection returns and fades. I'll have to get to know his sexy little helper....

Marna quivers in my arms and pulls back. She's silently listening to him, trying not to look at my crotch. I look around, and the sight of several hundred blue-furred humans doing the ass dance makes me laugh. Marna eyes me sheepishly as she dutifully practices the move. Trying to stifle the chuckle with my hand, I feel the changes to my jaw and nose. The mouth feels wider, the nose flatter. I run my tongue along my teeth--they feel roughly the same shape, although they sit a bit differently. I feel a slight disappointment. I know it wasn't in the manual, but it would have been cool to have fangs. Cool, like this ship. My breath freezes upon exhalation.

"Good, good!" Meandering through the throngs of gathered people are security officers and, for lack of a better word, flight attendants, cooing us along with practiced kindness. One walks past us.

"Come on, sir!" She speaks to me. "Let's see you work that tushy!"

"'Tushy'? Lady, I'm not 5, and you're not 500. It's called an ass." I flex my hips, and my tail arcs sinuously through the waves behind me, creating ripples in the ghostly light. "I've got this."

She rolls her eyes in disdain and moves on. "Be nice," Marna chides. "She was just doing her job."

"Oh, I know... but who the hell still says 'tushy'?"

A couple minutes go by while we wait for everyone to master the ass dance. Marna and I pass the time chatting about what we think we'll find when Anu has reached its destination and we're all pressed out into open water. She's convinced the life forms will be fairly basic, like on Europa: food webs only a few chains long, with no hope for sentience, or even skeletal structure. I assure her that we will find a glorious civilization of aquatic aliens living in underwater skyscrapers... if the ice sharks don't get us first. She answers my jest with a playful slap on the shoulders. We both know the two satellites that successfully penetrated the surface found nothing so advanced. Then again, this is biggest ocean in the known universe....

Yang readdresses the crowd. "Everyone! Everyone, please! Look this way!" Yang steps aside, off of his own name. The plaque embossed in his kanji raises from the floor, becoming a cylinder two-thirds the commander's height. Lights glow from within, and the container's contents hum to life. "Now, form a single line and approach the vestibule. Simply speak your name, and the appropriate wristband and headset will swivel into place for you to take." He bends down to the cylinder and enunciates his moniker. Silently the storehouse turns on itself and spits out a little drawer. He removes the objects meant for him and continues. "As you can see, the headset fits comfortably behind both ears, and the wristband snaps on effortlessly. Make sure you speak clearly, and don't try to take someone else's. These objects are designed specifically for one person. They serve as a conduit to the chrysalis AI that brought you here, as well as our primary communication system. They constantly monitor your vital signs and hormonal changes. Each wristband is a quantum processor and homing beacon; each headset will record your experiences, while fine tuning the changes to your neural makeup. They will work ONLY for the bio-signature assigned to them. Please proceed." Odd that the medical staff should have their AI online already, and not the commander. Maybe Zhong's just a figurehead, a human face to talk to while Anu does all the real work.

We slowly shuffle our way into something resembling a line that winds its way around the great hall three or four times. Some try to cut, but are put into place by Yang's friends. They may be just as naked as the rest of us, but you can always spot security: built like ogres, and of similar temperament.

My knees buckle as the water reaches my balls. It feels like an industrial vacuum sucks my testicles back into my body, gently as a jet engine. My penis shrivels within my fur. I double over from the shock, and I rely on Marna to stay standing. Don't think my buds are coming out to play anytime soon.

By the time we reach the dispensary, about a third of my fellows are testing their equipment, talking to themselves. The ocean has reached my sternum.

I allow Marna to go first, and she wades toward the plaque. Her bosom bobs in the water. Something about the sight of blue-violet fur floating on her chest reminds me all of this is wholly unnatural, and the feeling of her tail flicking in the water does not help. I am astonished at how sensitive I have become. Every motion and current is like a note, and every hair on my body carries a different one up its length and into my brain, where the whole half-sunken ship is orchestrated into a symphony. I can feel the movements of everyone around me, the edges of Anu's hull, and even approximately where the vents are seeping liquid. Mesmerized and entranced, I forget all about my concerns. These bodies are amazing.

"Marna Reyes," she announces. A whir of machinery, and a moment later she has her things. She steps forward and out of the way as she fastens her tools.

"Jaffrey Simens." Beep, bloop, blop. Hello, new toys.

I watch Marna as I put my own equipment on, and she smiles. Her wristband is fairly inconspicuous, only a few centimeters wide and half-covered by arm fur. Her headset is rather garish, however: Two inorganic inserts behind her lobes with a shimmering electrical net passing between them, around the back of her skull. Still, she doesn't seem to be in any pain, and the headpiece somehow complements the beauty of her hair. I snap the wristband, and a small light is all that tells me it's active. I place one piece behind my left ear, where it seems to mold itself perfectly, and then the other--

There is a white hot flash that washes over my senses as the headset activates. I hear a familiar voice.

"Ah, Jaffrey! I see you've managed to figure out these little gizmos all by yourself! Good job!"

I chuckle. "Boris. I see you're still a smartass."

"Harsh words, my good friend! Harsh!"

"Oh, please."

He laughs this time, a tinny chortle that escapes him in a moment, no doubt measured to the microsecond for maximum meaning. "There's no escaping me now, Jaffrey. You and I are partnered until the end of our days. Well, your days, anyway. I will live as long as I have a processor core."

I visualize him, as he appeared to me during my long sleep. Pale skin and faded freckles, eyes like the winter sky, hair aflame. "Meh. I've had worse."

"I should think so! I represent the pinnacle of modern engineering. So how are you enjoying my handiwork? Did I do a good job? Are all your squishy mortal bits where they should be?"

"Yes. You performed marvelously. I keep finding new abilities, new ways of interacting with the world. It's... there aren't even words for it. I'd buy you a drink, if you drank."

"Duly noted. Now, I suppose you noticed the little groove on your left earpiece? That's how you put me into silent mode."

"Why would I do that? It's a big ocean out there. I'll need the company."

"Well, you may find yourself in situations where you don't want a robot recording everything you're doing and thinking. Excreting waste, for example. Thoroughly disgusting, and I'd rather not spend my energy playing bathroom voyeur. Just keep in mind that if the wristband detects any hiccups in your vitals, I will automatically come online and begin diagnosis. So don't shit yourself into an aneurism, please and thank you."

"I don't get any privacy, even in my own head?"

"Not if it means letting you die, Jaffrey. You're all lab rats in a rather valuable experiment. Any thoughts inferred from the electrocephalogram will be safely housed in my databanks, to be shared only between you and me. The only exceptions to this would be thoughts of self-harm, harm to others, or harm to the mission."

"That's fair, I guess. Does the street go both ways?"

"Excuse me?"

"Can I see what you're thinking?"

"As a general rule, no. But this decision was made as a safety precaution to you all. Do you have any idea how fast my processor computes?"

"... Not really." Queue the showing off in 3, 2--

"I will give you a quarter-second demonstration. That should be well within tolerable parameters."

Next thing I know, my brain explodes. In that quarter second, lines of numerical code longer than the ice is thick whiz through my skull. And they're stacked on top each other, crisscrossing, overlapping, constantly in flux, an information superhighway so blindingly fast that I can't possibly keep up. I catch only the vaguest sense of Boris feeling happy, as he communicates with me and every AI on this ship simultaneously. I feel dizzy, and want to lie down. Again, Marna is my crutch. She catches me deftly.

"You okay, Jaffrey?"

I look up into her eyes. "Yeah, I'm fine. Just bit off more than I could chew."

She looks at me quizzically. "Wha--" Before she even finishes her syllable, comprehension overcomes her. No doubt Boris and Delia are sharing a chuckle at my expense. "Oh. Boris is quite the prankster, isn't he? I'm glad Delia is sweet and kind. You should see if you can get him reprogrammed."

Boris's voice sheepishly returns in my mind. "Please don't."

"You're fine, Boris. I did ask for it."

"True. I nevertheless apologize. I noticed a brief spike in your heart rate. Sometimes I forget how delicate flesh is."

"Yes. And for all your big talk, a single EMP at just the wrong time would wipe your personality matrix completely."

"... I'm so glad we're friends, Jay."

It took well over an hour for everyone to get their devices strapped on. As more of us filed past, the cylinder rose in accordance with the sea level, higher and higher. The ones who'd lost it upon waking up were attended by medical staff; a reassuring touch with one hand, a subdermal tranquilizer at the ready in the other. Even the poor bastard who'd tried to remove his own tail made his way through the line. Looks like he got his wish: His buttocks were clearly visible, the small nub remaining not nearly enough to cover them. Tufts of fur were missing, and he looked completely miserable, shivering like plucked strings of a guitar. I'm sure where the water touched exposed skin burned like frostbite. He had a small blanket over his shoulders, and people parted for him like he carried plague. At the end, Commander Yang floated towards the apex of the empty obelisk, just visibly above the waves. Empty, save for one slot.

He placed his hand to his ear, and I pushed forward to hear his words.

"Anu... Enki... what are Patrice's wishes?" Patrice was Ella's AI, the only one of us who did not survive the trip. There was a moment of silence.

Zhang whispered something to himself, or to his AI, before continuing in a voice that demanded attention.

"Patrice's wishes are as follows: She would like her headset to remain with the body of Miss Abernathy until the colony is built, when we can bury her at sea, as was Ella's wish. When the gravestone has been erected and services complete, Patrice's headset will be deactivated and buried with the departed. Patrice will still be active, capable of interfacing with her wristband and chrysalis, and so she requests that one of us wear Ella's wristband. The level of communication between her and her new partner will be limited, but Patrice would be honored to join one of you."

"I'll do it!" A blue hand shoots out of the water, some fifty meters away.

"Thank you. What is your name?"

"I'm Christa Romelo. Ella, she... we were friends in college."

"I'm very sorry for your loss, Miss Romelo. Please approach the cylinder. Thank you for honoring Ella's memory." Christa gracefully paddles her way to the commander, surrounded by looks of sympathy. Boris chimes in to let me know that he has been talking to Christa's AI, and yes, they really did know each other.

I mutter under my breath. "Boris! What the fuck? Why would she make something like that up?"

"I don't know. I can't be expected to understand the entirety of possible human behaviors. I thought it would comfort you to know she honestly thinks fondly of Ella."

"Yes, well... it does, but... timing, man."

"Oh, my chronometer is accurate to within .000001 seconds every 32 Earth years."

I dismiss him mentally.

Christa wipes a tear from her eye. "Ella Abernathy," she chokes.

The contraption swivels into place and ejects Ella's belongings.

"Now, because you have different bio-signatures, Patrice will only be available for communication through your own AI. Your interface will be auxiliary, but you're the only one of us who gets to have two partners."

The sea level kept creeping up... or down? We are soon well off the ground, a good couple of meters of churning water keeping us afloat. Yang has us practice diving a few times. Then he instructs us on how to operate our lungs.

We are to exhale completely, dive to the bottom, and open our mouths for 10 seconds. Don't breathe in yet; it's just to get some water running over our throats to activate the oxygen filters. I close my eyes, do as I'm told, and experience the sensation for the first time. It feels like my neck has been turned inside-out and I've hiccupped. Weird as fuck, but definitely interesting. I rise to the surface, and note how close the ceiling is getting. I guess we have another hour or two before all the air is gone....

At the surface, Yang is continues his directives. Those who have yet to get it down are supposed to keep practicing until they do. Everyone who has felt their internal gills pump is supposed to dive and stay under for as long as possible. And, again, he drives home the importance of staying calm. Marna smiles at me.

"Did you feel that?"

"Yeah... it was bizarre."

"Are you looking at my breasts?"

"No."

"... Oh." She dives, as do I.

I open my eyes, and the sinking ship seems somehow safer. More programming, I'm sure, to make the water feel like home. Marna is still close, twisting and watching and swishing her tail. All about us are others diving and surfacing, the developing sea awash with bubbles and yellow-green lights. She glances at me, and we both look at each other in wonder.

We were told that our photoreceptors would be strengthened, but it doesn't feel like I'm looking at her with my eyes. Not really. I'm looking at her with my entire body.

The light coming from her--from beneath her eyes; from her chest, abdomen, and tail--swims through the water and kisses the edge of my fur. I feel her light touch the tip of my follicle; travel down its length and into my flesh, where it moves inside me, up my spine and to my brain. Instantly I intuit that this is Marna's light, that this is how her light looks and feels; and that each one of us has a slightly different wavelength. Astonished and excited, I begin a panorama of my environs, and I know this to be the case, even if my eyes are not yet adapted enough to see it. We are each blue candles of green flame in a black sea, and we write our names in light. My fur dances at the influx of information, even as it continues to monitor the currents and the flow. I feel everyone in the room, and the commotion of the constant diving is to my skin as a rock concert to my ears.

"Can you believe this?!" I shout to her underwater. Bubbles escape my mouth, and my words float away with them. A moment later she gets the message from Delia and does a happy little dance under the waves.

I take an autonomic inhalation. Seawater flows down my esophagus and I choke. It passes quickly into my lungs, and I feel them inflate--the coughing subsides. They contract and I exhale; the water flows back up my throat and out my nose. I raise my hands to my neck, feeling it in action. The musculature is thicker, stronger, but no hint of slits or piscine splicing.

"In through the mouth, out through the nose." This mantra is repeated several dozen times by Yang and the medical staff, who are all effortlessly accessing their abilities. Maybe they received more thorough simulations before departure? I notice a few of them are carrying rebreathers for people who can't master the technique.

Marna gets it easily enough. In fact, the act of breathing water comes surprisingly naturally to most of us. As the air pockets diminish, the strugglers are corralled towards them, staff at the ready to apply the artificial lungs. We are told we are the only generation who will have to re-learn this; our children will be born from their liquid-filled placentas and know what to do.

That's right. I'm meant to become a father. The fact was known to me all along, but its reality was coming into focus. I am to mate with at least one, but preferably three, of the females on board and produce offspring. As wild as our physical transformations were, the vast majority of our DNA remained untouched. Cross-breeding was essential to give future colonists access to the various immunities and abilities carried by the races represented in our genetic makeup. One to three kids....

Above me, I see the tail-less man struggling with others, gasping at the little remaining air left, while the medical personnel are urgently insisting they put on their rebreathers. Every so often, one peels off from the crowd, happy he or she is breathing easily again. Yang is still speaking, only now we're hearing it secondhand from our AI's. He isn't saying anything I haven't figured out already. My mind wanders back to my imminent new life.

Obviously monogamy was not to be expected. Neither was heterosexuality; we had all been screened and purified of any STD's, so we were free to take as many lovers of either gender as we wished--provided it didn't cause the whole experimental colony to implode in a jealous rage. Polyamory was probably a new concept for many people here, but they were told of this beforehand. I could only assume everyone on board was okay with it, at least in theory. At least our little society wouldn't have moral and religious taboos in place to reinforce the resentment.

I imagine myself as a father of three, dropping them off to their various mothers' houses for the weekend so I can host a gay orgy in my basement, or make love and cuddle with the boyfriend I haven't found yet. I think of Luke, and of our time together. It may only feel like yesterday to me, but it's been years since we broke up, or seen each other, or even spoke. I had no doubts he'd moved on since; why shouldn't I? Knowing that there wasn't really going to be anyone off the table, and we were all on the market at once... Things were going to get very interesting.