Chapter 4: Swimming with the fishes

“for whatever we lose (like a you or a me) / it’s always ourselves we find in the sea” E. E. Cummings

One of the things I have the students do to develop character and personal forbearance is oil the benches and the floors of the school. In the small reception area are a number of hand made hardwood benches now stained dark from years of oil and butcher’s wax applications. The finish is smooth and silken to the touch, but it requires a lot of laborious rubbing to get it to that state. Perfect for students who need to focus their youthful energies, and learn the muscle memory through repeated actions. My thoughts drifted back to my time of oiling benches and hand buffing floors.

“Teacher, why do we do it this way?” myself as a youth asked.

“How else are you going to learn?” a wizen old man spoke quietly.

In my preconceived youthful mind, I envisioned great mock battles, digging my fingers into burning sand, smashing various body parts with boards, and beams…but oiling a bench? “Crazy old man” I muttered to myself.

At that age how was I to know that I was learning as I was doing. The ever repeated actions programmed muscles to respond near instantaneously without having to have a cognitive recognition response. There is a complex interaction between your senses and your reactions. You see something (a kick or a punch coming your way for example), your brain analyzes that action, “Oh Dickboo Buntlac is throwing a crescent kick, by calculating his stride length, and the length of his leg with the distance traveled it should hit me about OOOFFFFFFfffffffffff” Whereas the repeated action causes your body to “read/react” without needing that cognitive recognition. At age eight how was I to know that centuries of training actually made scientific sense?

Crazy old man indeed.

The familiar tinkling of a string of bells attached to the door announced its opening. A furnace blast of hot air off the street rushed in as the cool air from the room snuck out the open door. The temporary vortex of moving air has the tendency to move whatever is in its way be it small children, umbrellas, or clothing. Since hot air rises, and cool air sinks the black skirt of Ramie was pressed against the long legs of one female lawyer, simultaneous the air rushing in blew her straight dark blond hair from her back over her shoulders making her look vaguely like a Lhasa Apso. I chuckled internally.

Annoyance ran across her fair features as hair formerly perfectly coiffed was know windblown and messy.

“It’s a good look, sorta Haight-Ashbury meets the AKC” I said with plain sarcasm

Pale blue daggers stared me down. “Thanks” She ran fingers through her hair to smooth it back into place.

I muffled a quiet laugh and I got off my recently oiled bench, bade Ms. Cypher to wait, as I opened the door let the vortex happen and then showed her the door. I watched her walk out (again!) and grabbed a zippered closed binder from the bench and followed her.

“I hope you like Sushi!” I asked brightly as I escorted her to the next door down.

The front façade of Ichi-ban fish and Grill wasn’t really much to look at, black out windows with hand painted Kanji in white, on the front, (they literally translated to “save a cow eat more fish”) the awning from the previous shop still hung over the restaurant and in ever fading letters said, “Brenda’s Custom Foundation Garments”.

Eyeing the façade, “You take me to the nicest places.” She quipped.

“Only the best” I retorted.

Where the outside looked sad and tawdry the inside was anything but…fish tanks were everywhere with soft lighting casting a dim glow. Rich chairs and tables assembled in rows, separated by aquariums. Dark, near black paneling occasionally interrupted by some item or article of Oriental extract even spaced on the walls. Far in the back was the sushi station, where the culinary artists plied their trade.

Musical tinkling of bells rang as I opened the door for Cypher.

A pretty woman of Asian extract, wearing a white shirt with a black bow tie and matching slacks met us at the door, Cypher at least a foot taller smiled coolly.

“Ahn yong hasayo, Yuki” I spoke with a happy lilt as I came around Cypher.

Yuki’s face brightened and a her lovely smile revealed perfect teeth. “Ahn Yong Hasayo Sah boo nim!” her voice was reminiscent of song birds tweeting in spring.

Breaking into English I said, “Yuki can I have tatami room 2?”

“Sure thing, Hank” she said with accent less English.

A blond eyebrow rose as she followed the petite woman forward.

Yuki led us to the back past the sushi bar where the various chefs nodded greetings. Each in turn caught my eye and gave me sly conspiratorial glances, or nodded approvingly. I rolled my eyes at them.

She slid a Shoji, a heavy paper and wood screen, out of the way revealing a raised room with tatami covered bench that circled the outside perimeter of the room, in the center was a table of dark hardwood. The dried grass colored tatami contrasted sharply with the dark woods surrounding it. The walls were covered in paper and matching wood screens. The room was illuminated by a single lamp covered with a paper lantern.

Yuki removed her shoes, walked up into the room and put down two cushions at one corner. She gestured for Cypher to do the same. Louise removed her dark flats and gracefully followed to where Yuki gestured. I followed suit immediately.

Yuki took our drink orders and worked her way out of the room.

“Do you know Sushi, Ms. Cypher?” I asked.

“A little, but you seem to know your way around.” She replied.

“I’d be happy to order for you.” I offered. “How adventurous are you, with food that is?”

“Reasonably, I draw the line at eating live things unless I absolutely have to, and please do.” She smiled teeth near blinding in their whiteness.

“Alright then” I laughed.

Yuki returned with our drinks and I ordered a variety of foods, most not on the regular menu.

I watched as the lawyer known as Louise Cypher manipulated her chopsticks adroitly after she had broken open the packet that contained the disposable sticks.

“So where were we?” she asked. “Would you also put sonophones around the Bahamas? Or Lake Illiamna?”

“Not likely, most fish don’t sing although a number of the croak and bark and no known cephalopods sing” I said.

“Each location and creature presents a different challenge to its discovery.” I continued.

“If the GBO is indeed an octopus it’s probably very intelligent, and that will have to be approached as such.”

“Intelligent?” Ms. Cypher was intrigued “How intelligent?”

“Very. As smart as a annoying border collie. They can problem solve, the have both long and short term memory. They have shape and color recognition. Their brain mass to body ratio if fairly favorable in terms of most animals. They are certainly the most intelligent of invertebrates. They can solve practical problems and mazes with alarming speed. The also practice theft.”

“Theft?” I recognized the single raised eyebrow of Ms. Cypher as the nonverbal communication stating, “You’ve got to be kidding me?”

“Theft.” I aped.

One of the dishes Yuki had brought us was “Tako-su” pickled baby octopus. As I talked I held one of the octopi with chopsticks as I pantomimed what I was saying with the little cephalopod.

“There has been a wide battery of experiments ascertaining the intelligence of Octopi. On numerous occasion, the test subject escaped invaded adjoining aquariums ate the inhabitants and returned to their tank, so theft in the form of fish and crustacean poaching.” I detailed. While talking, I migrated several of the tiny octopi from the serving bowl to my plate each one dancing a little dance.

“There are several accounts of Octopi boarding fishing boats and breaking open crates of shellfish and crustaceans. Octopi intelligence seems to be world wide and not species specific, so we can expect that if there is a enormous octopus in the depths around the Bahamas and Bermuda it is likely very smart.”

“There seems to be a strong correlation between length of time and how intelligent Octopi are. Their intelligence seems to be limited with their short life spans, even the most long lived octopi only live a few years, but within that short time they seem to be able to learn at a astonishing rate.”

“So a really old octopus could be really smart?” she asked.

“If were given the right stimuli, practice and circumstance, sure. You could draw that conclusion.” I replied.

“How big are we talking for the GBO Seeker?” Cypher’s eyes wide with imagination.

“Well, the largest known octopi is the North Pacific Octopus with a arm span of over 30 ft. and a body weight around 600lbs. The St. Augustine Globster weighed a couple tons, it was never confirmed as a Octopi, but some authorities believe it to be one. The largest known cephalopod is the Colossus Squid captured in the South Pacific was nearly 1000lbs. The largest fossil record cephalopod was the Camereoceras; an ancient giant relative of the Nautilus was believed to have a shell that was over 30ft long. In water the effects of the Earth’s gravity is somewhat mitigated. So the limiting factor for size is available food, and available oxygen. I’m guessing somewhere in the range of 300-1000 lbs or several thousand times the size of this little guy.” I popped the pickled octopus into my mouth and chewed with relish.

“Follow the food again?” Cypher intoned.

“Indeed. It’s no small fact that colder water has a much higher biomass than warmer water. Diffused oxygen counts increase as the water temp lowers. In certain areas the difference can be more than a factor of ten when comparing biomass of tropical to arctic or Antarctic waters.
The Colossus squid was captured at enormous depths where the water temperature was a few degrees above freezing. The phenomena of big things at the bottom of the ocean are called Deep Water Gigantism.

Now Bermuda is essentially the top of seamounts that are in the North Atlantic. The waters off the main island chain drop off drastically to cold deep water depths. Small groups of commercial fisherman trap very large crabs in the deep waters surrounding the Bermuda. It is these crustaceans that are the likely prey of the GBO.”

“So if this thing is down there, it lives in a extremely hostile (to humans) environment, is smart, and is probably really big. So how are you going to get it?

“We swim with the fishes.” I said plainly.

”What’s that mean?” she asked annoyed.

“We will have to train the deep water species to our presence so that they aren’t alarmed to our visits. So our visitations will have to be regular, additionally we will have to illuminate our target area so that our test subjects get used to the light. At the depths we’re talking about light never penetrates, so strobes will be alarming to the local species at first. Over a period of time the local fauna will adapt to having an illuminated area. Then we start attracting prey animals, feeding the crabs specifically, once the crabs start showing up regularly, then we start drawing in the GBO. “

“Drawing in the GBO?” Cypher stared at me hard, “how?”

“at the depths we’re dealing with most predators are NOT sight predators, although the largest eyes on the planet belong to deep water cephalopods, the Colossus Squid has an eye over 11 inches across. It is believe because it moves up and down in the water column that it may use whatever available light is around by looking up, or picking up things that self illuminate. Octopi have good to excellent eyesight but the deep water species will most likely hunt either tactilely or by scent, possibly in concert. Once we’ve established our deep water sighting range we will release shedder crab oil. As crabs grow larger they shed their old shells, they release certain chemical compounds during this time as they lose their old skeletons. They are most vulnerable at this time and many crustacean predators seek them out by this scent. Octopi seem to be intensely susceptible to this chemical attractant.”

“Where does one get shedder crab oil?” she asked.

“Almost any bait and tackle shop on the coastline. The compound has been chemically analyzed, isolated, and duplicated. We catch some crabs, put out some scent, and draw the big predators in. We’re likely to draw several unknown species into the target area. Once they get into the illuminated area, we video tape the whole affair.”

“I thought you said video tape is worthless” Cypher remembered accurately.

“All by its lonesome, yes it is but we’ll have a couple of traps to get DNA samples. We can arm the scent traps with remotely released, pneumatically fired dart guns that will fire large bore syringe darts that have internal barbs on the syringe barrels. These will core sample anything we shoot and the darts will be tethered so when the animal flees it won’t take the dart with it. The dart get withdrawn remotely and pulled up. If we have lured GBO into the area then we drop down the bait bottles.”

Before she could say anything, I continued. I picked up another octopus with my fingers again pantomiming what I was saying.

“Bait bottles are essentially large bottles that will have a crab inside it. There will be a big cork stopper in the end. The large octopus will try to pull the cork out to retrieve the crab. Once we’ve gotten the big octopi to do this a couple times we’ll send down a bottle with a guillotine in the nose, lure it in with crabs and shedder oil and vivisect a portion of it’s arm, don’t worry they grow back.”

I bit off an arm of the octopi as I gave Ms. Cypher the thumbs up.

I continued, “The state of the art ROV’s and remote collecting technology will allow us a level of freedom and operability that was heretofore unavailable.” I popped the rest of the octopus into my mouth.

Cypher tilted her head in thought, she picked up a cup of tea took a deliberate sip.

“Will it work?” she asked.

“All the concepts and technology presented have been previously utilized in one form or another. Much of the technology comes out of current benthic exploration. Heck we know more about the surface of the moon than we do about the benthic regions of the ocean. More men have walked on the moon than our ocean floors. It should work.”

I looked at Ms. Cypher and grinned; “Besides there are few home ports more pleasing than Hamilton Harbor.”

Her eyes were far away, She “mmmhmmm” pleasantly as she ate. I wasn’t sure if it was my talking or the food.

“Going from the pleasant oceanic beauty of Bermuda to the stark raw beauty of Alaska would be dramatic.” I quipped as I sipped my tea.

“Lake Illiamna has an active volcano, it was carved out of the Alaskan crust during the Holocene, glacial expansion and contraction cutting out chunks of the Earth like a saw blade. At one time it was fully connected with the ocean now the Kvichak River drains it into Bristol Bay. It has one of the two known populations of freshwater seals, the other being in Lake Baikal. More a inland sea than a lake it is enormous over 75 miles long and 22 miles wide. It is very fertile too, with one of the last wild populations of Sockeye Salmon, King, Coho, Pink, & Chum Salmon, Arctic Char, Arctic Grayling, Dolly Varden, Rainbow Trout, Northern Pike, and Whitefishes. So if there is a monster it would be well fed.”

“Go on Seeker.” Cypher said as she dug into her Chirashi-don fishing for a piece of salmon.

“Because it hasn’t been sighted on the ice during freeze over periods like the seals I suspect we’re dealing with a pure aquatic. The sightings of the creature are either from a boat or from the air and vary from black to nearly silver. Normally the creature is basking at or near the surface. The size estimates run up to 30ft. but 15-20ft is the most common. The most commonly suggested suspect for the beast is a land locked Sturgeon, which would fit both the size and the various color requirements. The problem with Sturgeon as a suspect is that they are a bottom feeding species; their bodies are adapted to life on the bottom of the water. White sturgeons are known in Alaskan waters, so that keeps them as a suspect of interest.”

“So what if it’s a sturgeon?” she asked.

“A 30 ft Sturgeon would be truly a monster if they indeed exist. The largest on record was a Beluga at 27 ft and over 2000lbs. Still I don’t think it’s a sturgeon.” I finished.

“Why not, using your deduction methods it adds up, lots of prey fish, cold water, they’re in the locale, they bask, they can be up to the right size…what am I missing here?” Cypher added up.

“Sturgeons are not true piscevores. They don’t eat all those pelagic species of fish. Adult Sturgeons are nearly oceanic. They are anahydromous do go up stream to lay eggs, but return to the estuaries where they live out their lives. But if like the seals they got trapped up in that big lake, a new species of giant land locked sturgeon would be cool.” I admitted.

“If you’re not into the Sturgeon as the culprit what do you think it is?” She asked.

“Likely suspects would be some super-sized version of an existing piscevores, like a Giant Muskellunge, or Pike. Maybe the creature is a really, really big salmonid like the Taimen.”

“Taimen?,” she quizzed.

“The Hucho taimen, the world’s largest and oldest salmon. Native to Siberia and Mongolia it can get over 6 ft long and 100 lbs. They are also the oldest existing species of salmonid, the problem with them is that they are only native to Mongolia, but at one time their range spanned most of Northeastern Asia. Like Loch Ness, and Lake Champlain, Lake Illiamna was formed over the last glaciation period. When the Earth warmed, the glaciers melted and there was a time when all of them were connected to the ocean, but Champlain and Illiamna were inland seas, (Champlain is the home of the oldest known coral reef) eventually the seas level fell and all the inhabitants of these lakes had to slow adapt to freshwater. It’s a similar story throughout the world, and many species made the slow transformation.

“Slow transformation?” she asked.

“The change to freshwater doesn’t happen overnight. In fact it may take hundreds maybe thousands of years, but many species have made the adaptation to wholly freshwater. Most notably the Nerpa of Lake Baikal, The Iliamna Harbor seals and in our times the Striped Bass. “

“But why piscevores? Why not something else?” Cypher slurped as she ate her Maguro Yamakake (Ground Mountain Potato with Tuna chunks garnished with seaweed flakes).

“Following the food again, fish make up most of the available biomass of Iliamna. So if it’s going to be big, it has to have a lot of food, and in Iliamna its fish. Besides from all eye witness sightings depict it as a big fish.”

“So how are you going to find it?” she slurped once more.

“Map the lake, map the prey, and then use the Trojan salmon.” I stated.

“Trojan Salmon? Explain please?” Cypher said through a napkin as she wiped her mouth.

“We map the lake to know what we’re dealing with topographically or bathymetrically more appropriately speaking. Well use side scan sonar and depth finders for most of that work. We’ll sonar scan the entire lake over a period of time to know where the fish congregate and move. In nature predators stay close to their prey, so where the large concentrations of fish are so will be the big predators. We can use the latest generations of sonar to identify the known species of fish. Once we establish a pattern of anomalous readings we’ll know that something fishy is going on.” I popped a large chunk of Fatty tuna into my mouth…so good.

Once we know that we have a located a population of creatures. We’ll send down captured salmon that have radio transducers implanted in their gut. Since they will be weakened already and acting like wounded fish, they will be quickly picked up by out local predator. It ingests the radio transducer, and then we can track it. Voila! The Trojan Salmon.”

I made a small gesture like a magician pulling a rabbit out of his hat.

“What if a seal eats it?” Cypher asked between sips of tea.

“It will eventually sound to breathe air. We’ll spot it. If is stays down and submerged it’s the creature.” I explained.

“Then what?” the Nordic goddess eyes sated with food but no less piercing lazered me.

“We send in the wetplanes and the harpoons.”

I saw her getting ready to ask so I continued.

“wetplanes aren’t the amphibious planes, but a new high speed generation of submersible craft, some manned some not capable of very fast movement underwater 30-40+ knots. We chase down the creature photo and video it and then tag it with a sampling harpoon which will excise some tissue for DNA collection. Most large open water predator fish are amazingly fast, heck marlins have been clocked over 50 mph and Sailfish faster than that, so we’d have to use something that can keep up with them in their element, hence the sea planes.”

“The DNA sampling wouldn’t kill it, but it would give us the body we need for the scientific community.”

“You need a body” cool alto droned.

“You need a body” I replied nodding.

“To get to that point, there’s a whole gamut of equipment design, test, and manufacture, a team to assemble, locale scouting and planning, the logistics alone on any one of these expeditions is going to cost a mint. As the old saying goes, “The devil is in the details!”

Using a piece of pickled ginger as an epicurean intermezzo, I asked Yuki to bring us some Green Tea Mochi. The white small mochi looked like dough balls, but they were a ball of green tea ice cream encased in gelatinous rice. They are particularly delicious.

She was enjoying herself, the food was delicious and exotic, the conversation both alien to her experience and stimulating. In the controlled dry confines of law there was little room for the unknown and for anything but exacting process. The man sharing her table was like their conversation alien and stimulating. She had no analog for him in her experience. Articulate, passionate and mysterious, she found herself drawn into his explanation and stories. Watched his heavily scarred hands with intent fascination, the dark eyes, and the quick smile; She fought herself for professional separation.

“So you’d need a team of Scientists?” Cypher stated to break the spell

“Not necessarily, but Yup I’d get the band back together.” I quipped.

“Not only scientists though, on expedition you need a wide variety of skills and everybody would have to wear multiple hats. Someone has to drive the truck, set up/break down the camp site, prep the food, cook the meals, stitch the wounds, navigate, pull security, sail the boat the list is endless. I could do most of it my lonesome, but having someone backing you up only makes sense and is good safety practice.”

I rolled my eyes; an expedition like this could be an enormous expense.

“Most of it yourself?” wry smirk from Cypher.

“Oh Heck yeah! Have you ever read Heinlein? This quote from him is one of my favorite” quoting I said.

“A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.”

“You can do those things?” Cypher paused.

“I haven’t written a sonnet since senior year in college, but mostly yes.” I explained.
“The point isn’t personal superlatives, but occupational redundancy putting together a team of specialists who can cover each others backs” I continued.

“When you’re out in the bush, you have to be prepared or you’ll be extinct pretty quickly. Outside of our moderated, climate controlled, asphalt paved personal realities the wild world is just waiting for the unwary and the careless. Any of these expeditions would likely be elongated affairs, certainly week’s maybe months abroad. I’d likely get a lot of Nature on me.”
I snickered.

“Whether is be just me, or I have a team I’d love the chance to make this happen.” I said with focused intent.

“But Why? Why risk your life, name on something that might not even exist? Why do it?” Cypher said half cynical half pleading, she obviously didn’t understand.

I started humming, then singing, “and the world will be better for this. That one man torn and covered with scars, still strove with his last ounce of courage…to reach the impossible...star!”
I laughed at my terrible rendition.

“You mock me!” Cypher crossed her arms, head tilted away but a smile was on her lips. She tossed the dark blond hair.

“On the contrary, although the song was badly performed I believe in its premise; To dream the impossible. Our lives are simple we’re born, we live, we die. Every tombstone portrays the day we’re born and the day we day. Those dates matter not, but it’s the dash in between that truly matters. It’s not how long you have, but what you do with the time you got.” I said impassioned.

“Exploring those places, looking for those things; that is the Nature of Mankind. In the end, we’re not really looking for them but for ourselves.”

Moving closer to her I stared into those February blue eyes, “I look because I want to know, them, it and myself”

Time stopped. I swear I could feel her breathing, count the heartbeats. I felt compelled to close with her. Our eyes locked, I leaned forward slightly to her left closing in on her face. She watched me all the way in turning to meet me, mouth opening slightly. Not touching her, but insanely close I whispered, “So what now Cypher?”

She shook perceptively, blinked several times pulling back. She moved away regaining her composure. She straightened herself as she stood unfolding her longness out of the tatami pit.

“I will, consult with my Client…I will see more of you, I mean call you soon.” She fought her words.

I stood, took her hand in both of mine, look deeply in her eyes and said, “Thank You. I look forward to seeing more of you.”
Her feet slipped into her shoes, she opened the Shoji screen. She turned to walk away…stopped looked back…turned to go again.

I watched her walk, and enjoyed the view.