Wave Watchmen of the Polar Sultruviam Waters

in #hive-158694last year

A pure fractal made in Apophysis 2.09, rendered on blue and given two eyes
sea queen blue breaking.png

“Look, you ought not not have to know anything but how to follow an order – we're fleet officers and guests on this planet working to establish diplomatic relationships with the Sultruviamin. You need not see why – if you are told not to get into the water, don't get in it, Ensign! This ain't no pool party – that's connected to half the drinking water for the whole planet!”

Capt. Almira Jackson had been recalled for event planning –

“And babysitting,” she opined to my uncle, Admiral Benjamin Banneker. “I just don't get how they send these kids fresh out of the Academy to things like this.”

Both were truly senior senior officers, cadet mates of 60 years earlier, recalled because of separate serious matters to the Earth-led consortium. The overlooking of Sultruviam as an inhabited planet, and then the scramble to get the science and the diplomacy right, had called the two of them together.

“Well,” my uncle said, “these young people have to start getting some experience somewhere, and the powers that be know that neither you nor I are going to let them get too badly hurt. Hurt feelings – oh well. Into the Sultruviam watershed to die: no ma'am.”

What had just been discovered, but not yet put out to the rank-and-file, is that the polar waters of Sultruviam, supplying as they did the entire hot, arid planet, also had Guardians of their own, colloquially called the Wave Watchmen. They patrolled the shores, and vaporized anything that should not be in the water.

To a human, a human is a marvelous sentient being.

To a Wave Watchman, a human is a particularly noxious foreign object whose composition of so much sodium and iron requires a particularly high heat incineration among several of them.

In the above picture, from the air, a mature Watchman and its offspring had been drawn to the mind of the ensign, thinking about playing in the waves.

The Wave Watchmen too were sentient, and telepathic, and the Vulcan with our team made their thoughts known loud and clear.

“In essence, look but don't touch. Stay out of the water. It is for our use at need, but not for our frolicking.”

Later on we would get a look at the southern polar Wave Watchmen, and realize … maybe these were watch queens... one could trace a mermaid-like body after dark, and the crown and aura of power denoted that these were water-working cousins of the Guardians in the sky, roughly in the form of a great fish to denote to humanoid minds the suitability of their presence, and also a caution to those who would enter the water.

The same pure fractal made in Apophysis 2.09, rendered on black and turned upside down
the sea queen.png

On that particular night, my husband and I were walking a respectful distance from the shore, and noticed another couple around the curve of the great lake … a tall, familiar masculine figure and a woman with a beautiful head of hair, also walking a respectful distance from the shore, silhouetted against the Guardians of the sky.

“I wonder if he has told her what he found out from the Guardians yet,” I said.

“I wonder if he has to,” Rufus said.

Capt. Jackson was a widow … she kept her life full and busy, but ever since she and my uncle had met at that party back on Ventana 5, whenever their lives interacted at a time of leisure, she was most often nestled into her old friend's strong right arm.

“Well, with today's medical advances, they could still have 20, 30, maybe even 40 to 50 years,” I said, “and good ones, because the love is clearly there.”

“All of the sudden but not really,” Rufus said. “I wonder why he didn't marry her straight out of the Academy.”

“A certain Ensign Jackson had that idea first,” I said. “He and she were married for 42 years – I remember because Uncle Benjamin and I went to the funeral, and that was just before I went to the Academy. Capt. Jackson has now been a widow for 18 or 19 years.”

In my mind I wondered if perhaps Uncle Benjamin had just been disappointed twice … once in the Academy, once with a particular first officer who was now a full fleet admiral … and, being unwilling to compromise, had thus remained a bachelor. There were many, many, many people who adored the admiral, and he had large circles of people with whom he was friends, but for as long as I could remember, he kept the circle of his intimates very small. He was particular, and perhaps that went with his genius – he needed to preserve his energy so he could bring forth what he had been given. Only so many women could make a mate for a man like him – not that there were not plenty of human and humanoid women who would have jumped at the chance, but, he knew what was for him, and what was not.

“Your uncle has been a bachelor for his entire adult life,” Rufus said, “and as a man who was a bachelor into just his forties, it takes a special woman to have us thinking of marriage – but when you meet the fit, you meet the fit. I'm a witness!”

He squeezed me tightly, and I squeezed him back as we walked along, slowly gaining on the couple up ahead of us … but then turning off to go back to our accommodations before overtaking the silhouette, the two figures in it having by that time turned toward each other.