Page 23 of Music of the Ocean

The ever-present pressure hum of deep water softened here, muted to a low drone that he felt more than heard. Saxby’s muscles uncoiled for the first time since the crash. The chamber was empty, save for him and the creature.

The entity hovered in front of him, its tentacles coiling and uncoiling in slow, deliberate patterns. Your human vocal cords cannot pronounce my name, unfortunately, but I wish for you to know it at least.

Saxby jumped in shock at the voice in his head.

The creature opened its mouth and sang. The sound reminded Saxby of the sounds whales made. Yeah, there was no chance he could reproduce that sound. Was that its native language? He bet it was.

Saxby might not be able to reproduce it, but it was certainly gorgeous. Apparently, that was one of the creature’s many talents, along with being able to speak to him telepathically.

At least, he thought it was telepathy. He was unsure how the being managed to do that or how Saxby could understand him. That was so above his pay grade.

The entity chuckled. You can speak to me telepathically also. We all speak this way because not everyone was born here. Like you.

And just what the hell did that mean? Shit, were there more humans here? Other species?

Yes. Any living thing that touches the water belongs to my world.

Saxby wanted to laugh, or maybe punch something, or maybe just curl up in a ball and let the current take him.

Saxby? Try to send me your thoughts.

Saxby’s brain was too loud and too full, and now this seven-foot tentacled Adonis was giving him a fucking homework assignment? The urge to mouth off nearly overwhelmed him, but those patient eyes held him in place. It wasn’t hostile, just waiting.

What did he have to lose, right?

Saxby focused on the entity and tried to… what? Think hard in its direction? He’d never done this. It wasn’t like hailing another ship. It was more like transporting and hoping someone else would notice.

Saxby tried for a moment to think at the being. He pictured a word balloon, then a white screen with the word “hello” stamped in the center, but nothing happened. The creature tilted its head, lips quirking in what Saxby was now sure was amusement.

Saxby sucked in another lungful of water, letting it roll through the new chambers in his neck. He closed his eyes, shut out the blur of lights and tentacles, and tried to recall the taste he’d had back in the shuttle, that moment where something electric had shorted his thoughts together with the thing across from him.

He let the memory of that first contact bloom. The cold shock, the invasive joy, the sense of being parsed, molecule by molecule. Instead of fighting it, he pictured everything and laid it out in his mind like a table of contents.

The connection snapped into place, sudden and bright. There was a flash of understanding, like he’d caught a current running beneath the surface of his own thoughts. The being’s emotions filtered in—delight, pride, and a hunger that was not for food but for the puzzle Saxby presented.

There you go.

Saxby’s thoughts tumbled in a mess of questions, but one trampled the rest by far. Why me?

The being swallowed the question and responded not with words, but with a memory. Was that its own or a collective one? Saxby couldn’t tell. An image, or maybe an echo, of a thousand generations crashing through the ocean, the entire watery world pulsing with life and will.

A memory of hunger so deep it was indistinguishable from loneliness. Of reaching, always reaching, for something that would answer back.

It sent Saxby another impression—isolation, the silence after the last of its kind vanished beneath the waves, nothing but cold and memory left to fill the void. It was so lonely. Then, Saxby touched the water, and everything changed for the entity.

It had needed him, in the same way a planet needs an atmosphere or a galaxy needs gravity to keep from flying apart. Saxby was his mate, and okay, yeah, he’d panic about that later. One major crisis at a time, please. Also, the creature had also been stunned that they were mates.

It’d always assumed it could only bond with one of its kind. But it couldn’t deny its reaction to Saxby. Nor did it want to.

The creature drew closer, and with an impossible tenderness, pressed its hand against Saxby’s chest. The gesture was so human it made Saxby’s heart stutter.

The tentacles wrapped around him, holding him in place, and in that moment, Saxby realized he was not being restrained. He was being embraced.

A rush of memories that were not his own flooded his mind, images of ancient oceans, of conflict, of the city’s long existence through the eons. He saw other arrivals, some like him, some not, all of them changed, remade, welcomed because they touched the water.

The planet was alive, its oceans a single vast consciousness, ancient and hungry and elegant. It wanted to know him, to understand the small, bright pain that was being human. The transformation was not an attack or a theft. The planet didn’t see it as such.

The simple truth was that whatever species touched the water automatically was transformed and belonged to the planet. Period. And this tentacled creature was the physical embodiment of that consciousness.