From the Deep

The Third Mermaid

 AN: Again, the first part here may have lots of missing Fs, Gs, and a few other letters as well.

Ian leapt from his bunk bed--he was a quick waker--and charged outside to the deck. It was freezing, but he hardly noticed the cold. Nigel and Monica were standing over by the net machine, trying to get it started in the dim light. Charles, from inside the cabin, was swerving the boat closer to a certain patch of water and focusing the boat's strongest lights on it.

Ian ran closer to the deck. He could see, now, what had gotten Nigel excited. It was difficult to make out--the spot was farther away, and the sharp shadows cast by the searchlights were confusing--but there were things there, swimming things as long and wide as the mermaids they had back at the lab, swimming up near the surface with their backs just breaking above the waves.

The rattle and screech of machinery behind him told him that Monica and Nigel had gotten the net loose. Ian dashed back to them and helped them haul the heavy bundle of rope to the edge of the boat, then into the water. It hit the water with a splash, then spread out.

Charles sped the boat closer.

By this time, Sara had come out as well, wrapping a dressing robe around herself for an extra layer of warmth in the frigid night air. She joined Ian, Nigel, and Monica at the side of the boat, leaning over the edge for a better look.

"Look how they swim..." Ian breathed, more to himself than anybody else.

They didn't move quite like dolphins, or quite like sharks, or quite like anything he had seen so close to the surface before. And, oddly, they didn't seem to be moving away, though they'd surely seen the boat speeding towards them. But this wasn't the case. As Ian got closer, he saw that they were trying. There was just one holding them back. That one wasn't swimming at all, but thrashing in one place. 

And then, suddenly, they vanished. 

"No!" Ian shouted. 

The boat swept past the place where they had all been grouped together. Sara turned and jogged down the side of the deck, keeping up with that patch of water, but everyone could see that there wasn't anything left there now. 

Monica shook her head grimly.

Ian turned to look into the windows of the cabin. Inside, Charles was pushing at things and looking at instruments. Suddenly he looked up. "We snagged something in the net!" he shouted cheerfully, and gave a thumbs up. 

Nigel was the first to get to the crane. He started spinning it. Ian and Monica joined him, while Sara stood back and filmed the rope coming up with the video camera that I've decided she should have been holding all along to be recording all this evidence. 

"There's something big thrashing around in there," Monica said. 

It came up out of the water kicking, fighting, screeching. The entire net crane shook with the impacts from the creature's struggles. Slowly, carefully, they brought it over the deck of the boat and lowered it. 

"It is a mermaid," said Ian. "A live one." And then he snapped out of his melodramatic trance and yelled, "Get it in the tank!"

The kept a tank on the deck of the ship for keeping live organisms like this that they pulled from the ocean. Ian yanked open the lid as the crane's arm swung the net closer. Nigel ducked down and grabbed the seawater hose, and began filling it up. The mermaid was dropped in with a splash, and he poured more water on top of it, desperate not to let it go dry.

Still the thing fought and thrashed. Its front fins, so bizarrely long, scrabbled at the ropes of the net just like arms. Ian saw immediately that it was trying to free itself. He said, "We need to get the net out of there."

"How?" said Sara. It would be near impossible to pull it out without further entangling the creature. 

"Cut it loose," Ian decreed. 

It wasn't really a good idead to cut loose nets when they caught things in the ocean. Nets were needed, and good nets couldn't easily be repaired; it was always best to save everything you could. But Ian felt now--in fact, the whole crew felt it, an unspoken agreement in the air as they hurried about their jobs--that there was no time now to feel sorry over anything but the mermaid they had just pulled from the ocean. That was what they needed to focus on; that was what they needed to save. 

The net was cut to pieces and then the crew reaced into the tank, pulling out the ropes that were still clinging close and endangering the struggling creature. Ian's hand brushed against its skin as he worked. It felt... unreal.

"Is it safe yet?" Sara gasped.

The thing was calming down. Or at least, the thrashing and struggling was slowing down. It occurred to Ian that this might not be a good sign--what if they had hurt it somehow, and now it was dying, or if it went into shock and fell unconscious? It still twitched its entire body every so often. But now it was floating, belly and face down, long front limbs held close to its body almost like it was scared. 

Nigel picked up the clear plastic cover and pushed it over the tank. The team backed away, breathing out sighs that were a mix of releif and unbelievable excitement.

"Wow," said Monica.

"Wow," agreed Ian. 

"But seriously," said Nigel, "what is that thing?"

"A mermaid," said Monica. "Obviously. Now we see how it moves... there's no doubt..."

Nigel just shook his head. He, more than any of the others, hadn't wanted to accept that term. It was obvious that he was still reluctant about it. It was too much of a fantasy story for him to deal with seriously. Instead of arguing, though, he turned to Ian and asked, "What now?"

Ian looked down at the figure, half-floating half-lying facedown in the long narrow study tank. He said, "We've got to get her into the big tank downstairs. And we've got to turn around and speed home right now. No more hanging around and looking for more. We need to make sure she survives."

"She?" said Sara, who had been furthest away and seen the least detail. She stepped closer to the clear walls of the tank and checked. "Hmm. That's odd. The third girl."

"Let's just  move... it," said Nigel. He went to fetch the wheeled casters as Charles turned the boat around and headed for home.