He closes his eyes and tries not to think about pink elephants.

For a few moments there is silence. Then there is a ripping noise, followed by a low warbled tone, and then the air does something incomprehensible, but he is too busy thinking about pink elephants to really notice, and then everything quiets again.

There is a odd, yet vaguely pleasant smell of kelp, and he can hear a dripping sound. There is also what sounds like wet barefoot feet stepping lightly on the pod floor.

"Can I open my eyes now?"

There is a choked and gurgling sound similar to "..eshh". If he doesn't respond then, there is two light taps on his shoulder.

He opens his eyes at the first tap.

"Knock knock. Who's there?"

To his side he sees a blobby humanoid monstrosity! Wait, it's... deflating? Slowly it returns to the shape of the Tender.

Even adjusted, they are really quite disconcerting to a human eye, with the pod lights and without the idealization of the mind space. While they have returned to roughly human proportions, the glistening dark scales, too wide webbed feet, and noticably bioluminescent red eyes makes them look more like a deep sea creature than a human, and not particularly a friendly one.

They open their mouth, points to his face, and makes an opening motion with their hand.

(If he peers into their mouth he can see what looks like baleen lining the roof of their mouth.)

Well, yes, he was not expecting them to be human. But still. It was way easier to forget that in the mindspace.

Baleen. Ok. Sure. Wait, does that mean they're mammals? He tries to check surreptitiously.

While the rest of the face is quite human, now that he takes a moment to inspect them, he can see that there are some distinctly non-human features. While the upper body is fairly close to an androgynous human, the legs are... wrong. He has to think about it for a moment, counting the bends, and it's not the same. Where the thighs would be on a human, the first bit of the leg goes backward rather than bending forward.

There are also various auxiliary fins on the sides and back that seem great for swimming. As to mammalhood, hard to tell. If there was gentialia in the normal location, it would be as if squished by a scaly body suit.

Since they seem to be looking at his face, they catch him looking down, but doesn't seem to be bothered by it, other than that it indicates that their communication attempt is not getting across.

"Can I boop your nose?"

When he speaks they tilt their head down to get a better angle to look into his mouth but does not seem to get a good enough look.

They nod simply and step forward lithely, bowing forward slowly.

*boop*

It's... wet. But it's still a nose, and as such can benefit from being booped.

"Thank you," smile "you didn't have to agree, but I was curious."

"You were trying to say something before? About me speaking to you? Or saying something or? Ah, opening my mouth?"

He opens his mouth wide for a couple seconds, then feeling exceedingly silly closes it again.

Wher he touches the nose it squishes in a way that's quite unfamiliar. Like a sponge under fish skin, or like a fungus being mushed, then elasticising back. Definitely not like cartilage.

When he opens his mouth they look delighted for a moment, then quickly lean down and peer into the mouth. They tilt body around to get different angles. When he closes it again, he might realize that since they started within boop distance, they're really quite close now. If it was a human that was this close, he'd feel the warmth of their body on his skin. But there is none. Just humidity and a now strong smell of vaguely pleasant kelp.

Then they take three quick steps back and hold their hands over their mouth. Then there is a warbling noise again, coming from their head. Something shines through the space between the fingers, but it's not light. It's like dark or not dark or shiny or aah pink elephants.

After a few seconds it ends, and they open their mouth a few times in an exploratory manner, revealing a tongue very similar to his.

They try form a few words, but it all comes out as a breathy whisper. They frown disapprovingly. After a few tries the words start to sound recognizable. "Oalel ish oel. Wadel ish wed. Water is wet." 

They stop looking into the ground and look back at Mark. "Can I boop your neck?" they whisper.

"Sure, go ahead!"

He tilts the head to one side, to offer more boopable surface.

They step forward again and gently palpate both sides of his neck with their fingertips, then exclaim a whispered "aha!" before they step back again, leaving drops of sea water running down his skin.

Then they hold their palms against their neck and the warbling repeats (by which point he knows he might want to look away or momentarily distract himself). Then they start experimenting with sounds using toned vowels and other sounds that can't be called "breathy", before settling on a soft-spoken low alto.

With relief, they say "Oh good. Now that we have established non-time-limited communication, tell me. What needs do you have that are not getting met?"

Well. The need to ever see the sunlight again, probably.

"The oxygen is going to be good for a couple more days, but after that things get iffy. I could possibly jerry-rig something but that requires energy and that's also not infinite." Yet! "Food is also fine for now, and oh, you know what? I'd kill for a good shower!"

"I'd like to ask you to not end the existence of any life form in these depths, and that no such action should be required to achieve cleanliness" they say severely.

"There is a sunken spacecraft I have anchored not too far from here. I believe it may have facilities for hygiene that could fulfil your need, after some healing. Do you have abilities that could contribute to such restoration?

From what I can understand of your physiology, it would be catastrophic for you to brave the depths unprotected. Would you like me to pull your pod to the craft?"

They make no suggestion on how to achieve exposure to sunlight, because Mark didn't actually say anything about it, and they are not inside Mark's mindspace at the moment.

"Oh, that was utterly metaphorical. I only eat syn-meat, anyway."

"I have a bachelor in Percussive Maintenance and a master in Sacres, those both help."

Uh.

"To be clear, that was a joke. I am a trained experimental physicists, I should be able to fix a lot."

"If you could pull the pod that would be great, the pressure down here would kill me very quickly."

"I see, I'm glad to hear that. And that is fortunate."

They glance out the porthole.

"You need rest before it is safe for you to invite me into your mind again. If you wish to bring my attention to you, please knock on the porthole and I'll come back in."

They stretch symbolically in preparation of the swim.

"Please avert your gaze and attention."

And then the air warbles and does something incomprehensible again.

The jolt of the pod that follows, and the acceleration that is felt, is more akin to being strapped by the ankle to a swarm of jet propelled boats than anything a biological life form of that size should be able to achieve. Especially with a pod this heavy. They travel for a long while if Mark doesn't interrupt, perhaps slightly less than an hour, but it seems they travel _far_ in that time. What happens in the pod while they're moving?

Pinkelephantspinkelephantspinkelephants.

What the? He lands on his ass.

You know what, while he's down he might as well take a nap. Fishperson said he needed rest before re-attempting whatever they did in his mind anyway.

Plus he'll need to be well rested for fixing whatever will inevitably be wrong in the other spacecraft.

He wonders which one it's going to be? If it's the Boçaneer it might even have still functional subsystems.

He wakes by a loud CLONK as the pod hits the side of something metal. If he peeks out the porthole, he can see the dark hull of a spacecraft's exterior EVA port moving back and forth, as if the pod he's in is dangling. Then a slithering hissing sound appears from the edges of the vision out the porthole, and the pod stills. The water between the pod's window and the exterior port of the spacecraft drains by an unseen method, but perhaps he can hear a slight warbling. 

From what he can see, the ship is far too modern to be the Boçaneer. It was part of the early exploration, and using this alloy in this way became commonplace much later than the Boçaneer's manufacturing date and also disappearance. Perhaps it's something unregistered, or from some of the more secretive factions. It seems like it belongs on a medium sized ship, housing perhaps 5 or 8 crew.

Behind him the Tender appears, accompanied by the air doing something that threatens his sanity pink elephants and a minor splash of water. 

"The pod has been fused to the spaceship. The spaceship had plentiful ruptures during the initial descent, but it has now been strengthened by being covered by a shell. It holds pressure now. Most of the water has been evacuated, but what remains is nothingness. Oh, you have a word for it, vaccum, yes. Be wary."

Through the metal of the pod, away from the ship, something horrifying calls, a screech permeating the depths. 

They look over calmly, then look back. "Other duties call. If there's nothing else right now? I will return in time. If you are in distress, let the membrane know, and I will know. The membrane will not hurt you."

"I have also shown you a new aspect of your mind and traces of my visit remains. Don't explore it in my absence. And especially, don't call out through it."

They fix Mark with a stare. "Do not call out through your mind. Do not."

Concerning.

"The membrane?"

They gesture out through the porthole.

"The surface of the shell encasing the spaceship. You can't miss it."

Another screech reaches the pod.

"I really must go."

They walk around him to behind him as to be out of sight, and then *wwoorp*. A jet of water flushes against the pod as they speed off into the distance.

And he is alone yet again.

Well. Let's go explore!

He dons a vacuum suit, grabs his pocket everything and a torch and opens the pod's door.

What's on the other side?

*Psssshhhffffffooommm* the air disappears out the edges of the hatch and stabilizes at a lower pressure. Outside there is a small space between the wall of the pod and the ship. As a sealing cylinder connecting the two structures, there is a dark marbled surface unlike anything he's seen before. It has streaks of the same red that eminates from the Tender's eyes, but is otherwise very black. Looking at where it attaches to metal, it looks more... grown onto the metal than anything else, like skin over a wound. And from the occasional small movements it... Seems alive?

Three meters in front, the outer airlock door of the spaceship looms, big enough that you could squeeze a hovertruck into it if you're brave. There is a fairly standard access panel to its side. It's not current, but it's not old, as far as space ship designs go. Everyone who's been around space ships would know how to use it. Well, if it had power.

When the majority of water was removed and vacuum remained, some water quickly turned to water vapor due to the low pressure. This changed the boiling point until an equilibrium was reached at about a hundreth of an atmosphere and the evaporation stopped or at least slowed dramatically. So despite the near vacuum, everything is still wet. And while vacuum doesn't really have a temperature, everything he interacts with is cold, just above freezing.

Oh god why is it moving.

The sooner he can get inside the ship the better. Oh, he has seen that panel before, nice. It's going to be super easy to... oh. Of course it would have no power. Oh this is going to suuuuuuuuuuck.

So, the issue is not even the panel per se, he could probably macgyver (blessed be His name) a power source from the pod or from one of the other vacuum suits. No, the reason why this is going to suck is that no power means no servos so he will have to open the airlock door with his puny strength. He hopes the mechanism didn't get whacked too hard, otherwise he'd be pretty screwed.

He will never skip leg day again.

He grabs the Big Red Lever on the airlock door, helpfully labeled as "Manual Override" and tries to pull.