From the Deep

Family Matters

The thing was, it was one thing for Nigel and Charles to decide that the baby gray - skinned dolphin - human hybrid made - up creature looked like a Hans. It was quite another for the rest of the world to accept it. 

To their great surprise, Ian didn't seem to mind the name. They hadn't quite dared to tell him -- Ian's weird obession with the mermaid had everybody on edge when it came to telling him things about them -- but Nigel and Charles and then the rest of the team quickly got into the habit of referring to the baby as Hans whenever they discussed it. Ian overheard them, and for a minute, everyone was nervous, because it was impossible to know whether his reaction to it would be as weird and blown out of proportion as his reactions to a good many other things concerning the mermaids had been. 

But he just sighed a sigh that seemed to say, Really? as if he was just a bit exasperated that the name they were using was way too obvious. 

But after all, why would he get upset? The names made sense, he explained to Monica later. 

"Hans Christian Andersen," he said. "It's a mermaid name. We have Andersen -- the big one -- the proper name, the grown up -- the mother. And then we have Hans -- same name, same thing, a mermaid -- but shorter, smaller, casual - like, kid - like."

Monica nodded like she was humoring him. "Whatever you say."

But Ian, of course, noticed. "What?"

"Nothing. You are aware that the guy wrote other stories too, right?"

"Of course," said Ian, though it wasn't something he often thought about. He liked the poetic justice of the name Andersen being linked so thouroughly to the mermaid Andersen. And for a creature like her, a creature that had a soul, he thought poetic justice was a very nice thing indeed.

In any case, it didn't take very long at all to get used to thinking of the mother and child as Andersen and Hans, as if that had always been what they were called. And it didn't take very much longer for the story to spread to the rest of the world, that there was a baby mermaid now in addition to the one that had been held in captivity for so many months, and that it was called Hans.

If the previous stories about the mermaids had spread like wildfire, this one exploded like an atomic bomb. Mermaids were on thing. Itsy - bitsy adorable little baaaaaaby mermaids were quite another. It helped that Sara was such a talented photographer, and had managed to snap a photo of Hans that was all giant adorable black eyes; it had gone viral.

And conversations abounded. There were , of course, the usual conspiracy theorists, with their cries of "Fake! Faaaake!", as well as a feminist backlash against the fact that they'd chosen the male name "Hans" for a so far neutrally - gendered creature, and as Nigel had suspected, people who criticised the fact that they'd chosen it over the other possible name "Christian."

But by far the most interesting were the people who set about theorizing where on earth Hans had come from. When Andersen had gotten pregnant. Why, if there were clearly male mermen somewhere strong enough to be capable of reproducing, it had only been females that had been found at the surface so far. And how it was that Hans was able to survive. 

For Ian personally, the biggest point of interest was the songs that Andersen sang to Hans.

There were plenty of those. 

He saw now that singing was clearly a social thing among mermaids as well, and not just a bare - bones way of sending information to each other through the water. Andersen was rarely silent now that she had Hans. She was always singing, and her voice was stronger than ever, her notes chock - full of emotion. 

I love you.

I'm tired, you exhaust me. 

I'm hungry hungry hungry, are you hungry?

joy

This is how you swim.

This is how you eat.

This is how you catch fish.

joy

I love you I love you I love you

joy

joy

joy

joy

joy

And so on. 

Ian loved to watch them together and to listen to what Andersen sang. Most of the time she sang directly to Hans; sometimes she turned to Ian and sang to him about Hans. It wasn't just beautiful to watch the mother and child playing and learning and being with each other, but as far as Ian knew, he was the only one that Andersen ever sang to about her child. It made Ian feel trusted, included. 

And it was only very rarely that he caught another edge to her voice, some notes that were less sweet and pure but tinged instead with something darker and far more unhealthy.

scared scared scared

fire water danger

joy

joy

scared.

And of course, this was what Ian wanted to keep on looking at. This was what Ian wanted to study. 

But the world had other ideas. 

The focus of public attention on this story was almost entirely around the origin of Hans, and not the family's current state. Day after day, the team was bombarded with questions about the missing mermen, about larger mermaid populations, and about what the scientists were doing to find them. 

Because now that the scientists had found and kept two living mermaids, it was expected that they procure more. 

And that meant back to the research vessel.

This time, with a submarine.