"Are you getting a reading yet?"

"No, I'll go check the cabling to the sensor."

The camera pans away from the woman getting up to leave the room, to a figure in the back. Standing still, in the same room, but detached from the group of collaborators, we see...

The man does not believe he's in mortal danger either.

From the main room, there has been a steady symphony of fans, pumps, and a harmony of electrical whirring. Gently, the equilibrium is disturbed by a tone of increasing pitch.

"Hey guys, did you change something? I hear something different!" 

It was a shout of confusion, not of alarm, from Natalia, the woman checking cable connections. The response from the control room has elements of both.

"What?! No, we touched nothing! The energy levels are increasing though. Did you touch something else than the sensor cabling?"

Uh, that's not what he was expecting. Why would the energy levels raise like that? Unless the generator was set to a higher wattage for some reason?

It takes a precious few moments before the team spots what Mark intuits.

"Hey it looks like the generator is targeting a stupidly high wattage, what the hell is going on?!"

The tone has now transitioned from a hum to an unpleasant shrilling treble. Natalia hurriedly comes back through the control room door, in a slightly military jog.

"Hey, turn it off! Now!"

The controls for the main generator should be... behind him, actually.

Mark stands up, and as he turns around he realizes that the reason the setting is wrong is that... he moved the dial with his butt while he was leaning on it. Whooops.

"Generator powering down!"

He checks the wattmeter waiting to see it go to zero as the generator winds down.

It doesn't. It seems to be stuck at 2000MW.

"It's not shutting down. SCRAM IT!"

That's not a command you hesitate to obey near experimentally modified high energy machinery. The closest team member reaches over and slams the big red button. 

Inside the main room, three great cylinders protruding from the central column make clacking noises as three large pistons fall into the core. The heavy thunks and smattering in the exotic material inside announce a change in the sound sudden enough to appear like a new movement of the symphony.

Pump noises suddenly jump in frequency, and fans max out their capacity. Auxiliary systems come alive and contribute with their own sounds. It was loud before, but nothing like now. The only steady element is the generator, after it obstinately refuses to yield to the shutdown sequence's countless commands.

The increase in noise is matched by a slowing of the now unbearably high pitch tone, and after a moment it seems like a climax has been reached. The team holds their breath.

And then the tone slowly, unrelentingly and almost mockingly starts to increase in pitch again, though much slower this time, as the generator wins against the emergency systems.

"We're too far outside parameters, the systems weren't built for this! We have to stop the generator! Mark, come on!"

"I'm trying!" Power throttles don't work, unplugging and re-plugging the control panel does not work, choking off the energy source does not work. "It's not responding to any command I give, tabarnak!"

That's when he notices the clicking and crackling.

So does a team member not currently involved in shouting theories at each other.

"Hey, it's approaching feedback loop soon!"

Natalia stops mid sentence and looks up in realization.

"We can't stop it, it's gonna spiral out of control!"

A beat as everyone takes this in. She says the next thing as she's moving to the station intercom on the wall.

"We have to get everyone out of the station - Hi command? Experiment went bad, the entire station must be evacuated. Yes, for real, the experiment core is gonna feedback loop."

She glances over at the graphs on the screen.

"Uh... Minutes at best."

She turns away from the intercom as a loud signal comes on over the announcement system, adding another layer to the cacophony. 

"IMMEDIATE EVACUATION. GET TO THE ESCAPE PODS. IMMEDIATE EVACUATION. GET TO THE ESCAPE PODS. IMMEDIATE EVACUATION..."

He notices some of younger scientist seem frozen in place, still in denial about how bad the situation is.

"FLY, YOU FOOLS!"

He moves to look at the experiment screens to get a better feeling of the situation, and see if he can do anything to delay the inevitable.

That seems to bring them back to reality, but they still don't move until one of their friends gently but firmly pushes them toward the door.

Natalia's now fully in lieutenant mode, and her voice carries remarkably well over all the noise.

"Okay we gotta GO! To the escape pods, NOW!"

The team shuffles out in a disorderly group behind Mark's back, giving him a moment alone with the screens.

It's bad. Not all the sensors were set up yet, but the ones that are functional say enough. Accumulated energy is about a magnitude beyond all the normal ranges from literature, and the collected image from the auxiliary readings shows early tendencies to superlinear growth. Generator status looks completely normal, except it's not supposed to be at 2 GW. The emergency systems are whining showing errors indicating that the core is hotter than expected. Maybe it'd have a chance if the experiment had required fewer modifications and circumventions. Perhaps if you shuffled the power couplings around you could allow... there's no time. Checking the cooling vats, there seems to be an imbalance, so maybe there's a little extra cooling potential if you just...

"Hey, maybe you can withstand blue cheese but you can't withstand a core overload. Let's GO!"

Natalia is the last one out and has turned to shout in Mark's general direction while keeping an eye on the group.

"Roquefort is the pinnacle of human food, you heathen. I'll reach you as soon as this is slow enough that the escape pods have time to actually get to a safe distance."

He starts tinkering with the coolers' balancing to see if he can squeeze any more time out of them. They're really not collaborating, but the situation being what it is means he can basically ignore all limits and possibilities of long term damage and just let all the noncritical systems overheat. It's not as if they will survive for long anyway.

Natalia turns to Mark with a look of impressed respect, and then quickly regains her composure.

"We'll save you the closest escape pod to the right. Running there will take... 20 seconds plus launch sequence. Good luck and thank you."

She turns her back and the group leaves the room.

The cooler tanks' pumps spin to life, but not without presenting Mark with a continuous stream of on-screen warnings and pop-ups which require constant dismissal. In the tanks, many cubic meters of coolant change tank, which have a noticeable though slight impact on the graphs. Another set of overrides and the coolant to several subsystems are cut. In the distance another warning signal sounds as several sets of machinery immediately overheat. It's buying time but not stopping the process by any means. Some of the subsystems accept the command but then promptly stay at the same status.

After spending a while with the graphs the outputs of various sensors imply there might also be a way to modify the composition of the reaction to gain another bit of time, through inserting more exotic matter. Maybe.

If he would have time to notice it, there would almost be a kind of calm now that all the immensely stressed scientists have left the room, despite the wall of sound. Just Mark, the screen, and the graphs.

"Crisse de câlice, do what I tell you, you dog." He tries performing some percussive maintenance on the more stubborn systems. Will it help? No. But it's good for the mood, and he needs to be at the secondary station to monitor the additional exotic particles anyway.

After a minute of cursing he sees the second derivative is clearly going down. Shit is still going to hit the fan, there is no way to stop it now, but at least the other pods should be able to escape.

His pod on the other hand... eh, 20 seconds to get there, plus at least ten to launch even if he cheats and skips the safety checks... It's going to be tight.

From the main chamber, the clicking and crackling has gone from occasional to continuous. While he was working, the telltale thuds of escape pods being launched had been smattering in the background, barely audible over the noise.

A little more balancing of the process, but then all the graphs are saying the same thing. 40 maybe 45 seconds remaining until the core is critical.

Well, fuck. Let's see if he can beat that 20 seconds estimate (he probably can, he's fast) and get out in 30 seconds from now (he probably can't, even on full manual override the launching still needs time).

He runs.

All the nearby escape pods are launched, except the closest one to the right. Running takes 13 seconds. Launching takes 11. A rapid acceleration.

In the back of the escape pod, the porthole in the door he came through is haloed by the glow from the jets. The launch sequence ends, the jets turn off, and for a few seconds, it's completely quiet.

Through the porthole he can see the station as it grows more and more distant.

It's beautiful, and he would appreciate it even more if it wasn't tinted with the sadness for all the work lost and worry about being rescued in time. It's probably going to be fine, the pods have enough oxygen for days, even more in his case because he's alone, and they managed to send the distress signal through hyperlink, so the rescue operation should already be en route.

The station is slowly rotating, suspended above a planet not unlike the Earth, if the Earth had a single anemic continent surrounded by a superocean. It has polar ice caps, but there is no landmass below them.

Sound requires air to transmit, so the only sound in his pod is his labored breath. He knows he'll soon hear the low buzzing of the life support system, keeping the air breathable and the temperature reasonable, but there is no need yet, so everything is silent. Gone are the crackling and clicking, the high pitched wines of systems about to break. Gone the people yelling, running.

He starts whistling a classic tune to calm his nerves.

It's fine. He's going to be fine. Everyone is going to be fine.

He's keeping his eyes on the labs section of the station, trying to see if he can spot the first signs of havoc, it should happen right about n-

It starts gently, like a giant tentacle slowly constricting around the hull. Uneven ruptures appear across the surface, as an immense force pulls a quarter of the station toward the lab section. For a moment the mass begins to shimmer, reminiscent of a ship about to warp, but then the force reverses.

Violently, the station explodes in a station-sized supernova, impossibly bright. Immediately, a second explosion follows as the station's main reactor is caught in the blast. For a moment it is as if time stops. A home for a hundred people, work of a cumulative lifetime, all gone in an instant. Still, complete silence.

Then the explosion is over. Where the station was, there is only an afterimage of the blast. Around it, a halo seems to appear. No, it's a field of debris, and like a shock wave it expands in all directions.

Including toward Mark.

There is barely enough time to despair before it impacts. Suddenly everything is loud again as metal fragments, glass shards, and molten material pelts the outer shell.

The pod violently tumbles, and were Mark not fastened to the seat, he would have been sent flying. Instead he bruises as he's thrown against the side of the seat, and hits his head hard against the padded headrest.

The pelting subsides over the next moments, and then it's over. Again there is silence.

"Meeeeeeeeeerd-"

He stops shouting when he hits his head, and as soon as the noise is over he starts checking the sensors and diagnostics to see if anything is on fire. Metaphorically or not.

It seems like the out shell has survived the impact without any issue, although there is a warning saying that the parachute sensor is offline. It's probably going to be ok, that area was on the other side of the pod so it should have been shielded from the first wave of debris, and there are no warnings about the deployment mechanism itself.

He takes a moment to remember the station, the corridors he's spent so much time in, the place that was becoming a home away from home. And now it's gone.

After the impact, his orbit is now going to see him land on to the planet, and the pod doesn't have enough fuel to maneuver and avoid that. T-minus 10 minutes to the beginning of the re-entry. Well, still beats being dead, he can definitely survive re-entry, and they can probably recover him from the surface without much fuss.

The ten minutes until reentry, and the first ten minutes of descent into less and less thin atmosphere, pass uneventfully.

The 3D model displaying the status and an overview of the pod display a number of other warnings. For example, the radio antenna was ripped clean off, and if he tries the radio, there's only static. The distress beacon that will allow the rescue ships to find him are working fine. Everything inside the reinforced middle layer is fine, everything outside has varying degrees of damage.

How does he spend the time until it's time for the parachute to deploy?

He turns off his pocket everything. With no base stations in range and no working radio it's completely useless right now, but it might be useful to keep some battery in it if he later needs a torch or... well, not much else to be honest, music and reading definitely don't have the priority right now.

He checks and re-checks the re-entry procedure and checklists until he can mostly recite it from memory.

He improvises some situation-appropriate lyrics for one of his favorite songs.

There's a starman falling from the sky
He'd like to reach the ground safe
But he fear he'll blow up fine
There's a starman falling from the sky
He's told the chute to work well
'Cause he knows it's essential
He told me
"Let the heat shield take it
Let the heat shield burn up
Let me get to the ground"

As the vessel gradually enters atmosphere, the air friction causes the descent to be shaky. At the same time the view out the porthole changes from cold hostile space to an inviting clear blue sky. As if the planet greets him and wants to give its condolences for the events in orbit.

Without much warning, the parachute deploys. The strong tug suggests that it's either completely undamaged, or only has a few holes.

If he leans over, he can sneak a peek of the ocean out the porthole. If he does, he'll see other escape pods bobbing happily on the surface on deployed floatation devices. Some of them have their parachutes flopped to one side, and some of them had their parachutes land directly on top, as if they were kids with ridiculously large hats.

Only some gentle waves stir the surface, and the water seems to say "come to rest here next to your friends, you are safe now".

Oh, good, that seems most of them. He hopes the other ones are also safe.

He prepares for impact, visually checking the harness one last time to see if it's still correctly locked and then relaxing his muscles.

He stops singing, and just listens for the sound of the wind whistling by.

5... 4... 3... 2... 1... and...

SPLASH!

The world tumbles dizzyingly around him as the pod impacts the water at a transverse angle. His body is again slammed against the side of the seat, and his head again hits the padded headrest. Gentler this time, since he was able to prepare for the impact angle.

As the pod falls under the waves, the sound of high pressure gas is heard as the floatation devices activate. Ten seconds pass. If he's experienced the rarer escape pod simulations, he'd know that he would see the light from the surface fill the space again in just a few seconds. Any time now. Aaany second.

Instead, a warning sounds. "Insufficient floatation pad pressure!" the screen reads when his vision finally starts to unblur.

"Putain!"

He quickly unlocks his harness and tries to open the pod's door, but it's designed to open towards the outside, and the pressure difference is already big enough that it just won't open.

He tries some percussive maintenance on the handle - "Putain! De bordel! De merde!" - but it doesn't budge.

He makes sure the distress beacon is still active. Not that it would help if he gets too far down, but if the other have seen him splash maybe the rescuers will try and find him, right?

Right?

He doesn't really have anything to do now, and out of habit he just straps back and... waits.

He sinks.

Outside, the gradient has turned from friendly to impersonally cold blue. Water keeps swirling past the window.

He sinks.

The display shows the distress beacon continually wasting energy to shout several tens of meters in each direction. The landing sequence seems confused, and is waiting for the pod to resurface. They are built to take shrapnel or land in water.

He sinks.

The light from the porthole dims slowly as the distance to the surface increases. The cold blue gradually turns to a dread-filled black. Soon only dim interior lights grant the eyes respite from the darkness.

He sinks.

The hull of the pod creaks and then sets. The shells are built to survive a core overload, and that translates to a somewhat absurd degree of pressure tolerance. He'll die of hunger or cold, not from water pressure.

He sinks.

After 20 minutes, there are no more changes. The pod stays upright, because it's built to be heavier on the bottom, and he can walk around if he wants. The water cushions the descent so there's little shaking. A dark continuous sound of metal clumsily cleaving water is all that comes from the outside.

He sinks.

A damned man in a metal container.

He sinks.

Boooooooooooooring.

One can't die of boredom, right?

Guess he'll just have to wait for his inevitable doom.

Dim lights from the power saving mode of the pod make their way out of the porthole and make it a couple of meters before it fades. A very small pod is sinking in a very large ocean, and the water cares not for his plight.

The eternal cold permeates everything, and the darkness stretches into the seeming infinite. The pod creaks from time to time as the pressure builds and builds.

This far away from sunlight, and still nowhere close to anything like a seabed, there are no nutrient sources for fish or other small life. And thus no larger life. Instead there is simply nothing. 

Time passes for a long long time.

It's been many hours. Probably several days. He's eaten several times, slept perhaps a couple times. 

Something very large bumps into the pod from the side.

Did he finally reach the seabed? He tries to look out of the porthole, is there anything out there?

He re-activates the distress beacon. It's probably useless but... you never know.

If he would have reached the seabed, he would have glimpsed it. The bump made the pod rock start oscillating slowly and it slowly self-rights, in a manner consistent with continued sinking. There is no second bump.

"Câlice..."

He turns the distress beacon off again, and then slowly slides down until he's sitting again.

He puts his head in his hands and just stay there for a while. It's not as if it matters.

Something large slithers away, curiosity sated.

A signal designed to reach across solar systems emits from the pod. The water absorbs a lot of it, but not enough. 

In the distance, something awakes with a start.

In the pod, things are back to normal. What artifacts of his existence during the descent can be seen inside?

Well, there's emergency rations wrappers all over the place. Not like it matters.

The heating system is fortunately still working, so the floor is actually not that bad for sleeping. He just took the soft parts of the spacesuit as pillow and... well, that's about it. The capsule is not meant for long term survival, so it doesn't have a lot of amenities. But it's also meant for up to four people, so he has plenty food, water and oxygen left.

He's not sure what the point is, but also too stubborn to just give up.

In the distance a deep rumbling sound, like someone is yawning in slow motion.

Good. Great. This is probably the sound of the pod finally giving up to the pressure. Well. It's been a nice ride.

The sound subsides. The pod has not noticeably changed shape.

Then there is a rapidly approaching sound, as if from a swarm of fish.

Could this be someone coming for him? From his position on the floor he lazily flicks the transponder on again.

Is it useless? Yes.

Is there a part of his brain that will Just Refuse To Lose. Also yes.

Seconds after he flicks the transponder the swarming sound stops momentarily, then changes from rapid to frenetic and suddenly there is a smattering of an incredible number of simultaneous bumping, scratching, grinding noises against the hull of the pod. It sounds unpleasant and damaging to the hull.

Thaaaat, is not the sound of a rescue. Without really thinking about it he turns it off again.

More laying on the floor. Just waiting for the damage to be enough.

The grinding, scratching, bumping noises quickly subside, and the calmer swarming noise returns after a few moments, moving away from the pod and disappearing in the distance. If he cares to look, there are a bunch of new warnings on the pod screen about damaged systems.

Another slow motion yawn, but much closer now. This time it shakes the pod enough that he can feel the floor vibrating against his back.

Well, that helped.

Possibly.

Some time passes and there are various sounds of... things... swimming by. Throughout there is one steadily increasing sound.

If the thing that could send the pod rocking by leisurely prodding the pod was very large, it is a shrimp compared to what now approaches. The disturbance of the water can be felt by organisms an immense distance away, as water rushes around it to make way for the volume of its body. Something best left alone and slumbering, but now awoken and intrigued. It's huge, it's fast, and it understands how to construct a vector of travel from two momentary pulses.

And it's heading this way.

He gets on his feet again and tries looking outside the porthole again... still dark and nothing to see?

The darkness is so deep that it seems to almost permeate into the pod. As he stares into the darkness, there is a few glimmers of bioluminescence in the distance. A handful of jellyfish are hurriedly swimming directly down, but they're shaped... wrong... There is an irregularity to the shape that no jellyfish has. As if some of them have been partially put into a blender and then been reconstituted as a living creature. 

They're quite far away, and the light is very dim, but for a moment he thinks he can see an eyelid open, revealing a very human looking eye, looking directly at him. Then the eyelid closes again and the jellyfish keeps swimming.

The sound of displaced water and cavitation keeps getting louder.

... concerning.

Ending up as some creature's lunch wouldn't help with the rescue, would it?

The sound has moved to directly above him now, and whatever was moving has now stopped moving. 

Then there's a vague pressure on the back of his head. And an itch behind his eyes. And a shiver down his spine.

Images of darkness and too many eyes and undulating flesh and tentacles appear superimposed on top of what he sees inside the pod. He hears wailing cries in the distance and a high pitched buzz and sounds of a disfigured mouth eating. On his skin there is the sensation of slime and scratches and electricity, but when he looks there is no wounds and no moisture except his suddenly appearing sweat. Then the pressure on the back of his head triples and he gets the distinct sensation of something pushing itself inside his mind. It wants to know you it wants to understand you it wants to show you it wants to communicate it wants to join with you it wants to create with you it wants to it wants to it wants to

What the.

Check oxygen level: good.

Check CO₂ level: good.

Check air pressure: nominal.

What the HECK.

Then suddenly the hallucinations cease, with a final impression of a wall of light appearing in the way of the stream of... something. Everything ceases, leaving only the memory of the supernatural experience and a lasting trace of the headache.

Some moments pass, and then the giant something above starts making noises of movement again, but this time slower and heading away from the pod, and making considerably less noise.

There is stillness again, though not silence. 

So that happened.

He's probably going mad. Pod fever?

There is a polite knock at the porthole, and a scaly face with red eyes patiently and solemnly peers in.

Who the what.

... sloooow handwave?

"Hi?"

A moment of taking in the motion, then a hand slowly raises, imitating the slow wave.

All motions are graceful and precise, eyes are intently observant. 

Uuuuh.

Points to himself. "Mark."

Only the lowest frequencies how his speech would make it through the hull into the water, but the pointing as a method of communication is an important building block to learn. So is the implication that identity is important to establish early in communication. The figure learns.

The figure points to itself in turn, mostly symbolically, and the mouth opens for a moment.

Since Mark seems to have calmed down slightly since the appearance, the figure takes some initiative.

A gingerly, slow, point toward Mark's head. A question maybe?

What with the head?

He still has some lingering headache, so he grabs his head with his hands and tries to mime that.

That is not what the figure means, but the figure does not know shapes for yes and no yet. Nor is there enough context to know that gesture means pain. 

Instead the pointing motion is repeated. And there is a decision to be clearer.

The figure leans forward, and the eye contact goes from intent to piercing.

There is a polite knock on Mark's brain.

:Hello?:

There is no response. But once his focus turns inward he notices a new affordance that is somehow related to the knock. Does he do the thing?

The piercing gaze remains but there is a continued stillness, as if not wanting to insist nor spook Mark.

Is he going insane? Probably.

Could he possibly resist poking the sparkly new thing in his brain? Absolutely not.

:Poke:

Something opens or is exposed or is let in. There is too much unmapped new stimulus, so the brain does what it always does and tries to map it to something already understood.

He gets the impression of someone walking into the kitchen module of a personal habitat, being careful to not touch or look at anything other than what is strictly necessary to sit down at the table in the chair across from him. He also gets the impression that the walls and floor and ceiling and insides of the cabinets and the environment outside the porthole are draped with his memories and experiences and thoughts.

There is the sense of a greeting, and since identity is important to establish early in communication, the figure conveys the task of caring for, or tending to a system.

Outside his mind, the Tender waves again.

Then the Tender indicates an affordance that is conceptually related to the first new one, but which seems inverted in valence. The Tender implores him to try it.

Teeeentative wave.

:Otherpoke:

The guest is swiftly evacuated. He is once again alone in his brain.

Body language is so intuitive to Mark that some was automatically absorbed during the brief visit. The Tender is currently testing the motions of nodding, shaking their head, and moving their face to various different expressions. Tries a couple things, while inspecting their own face in the reflection in the porthole, and then lands on a slight content smile, and a small nod. 

An offering gesture, but with a head movement and opened eyes in a way that implies optionality. And then another knock on the brain.

So. He can... invite Creepy Eyes into his brain and then... eject them?

Well. Not as if he has anything better to do.

:Invite:

Again there is a guest in the kitchen module. Again the Tender is very careful not to look at or touch anything not indicated.

The Tender mentally offers their hand as if to let Mark lead them, if he wants, and gestures to the memories and understandings and skills and knowledges and experiences draped across everything in the room. Is there anything he would like to show them?

Uhm. Let's start with why he's here.

In the kitchen metaphor it's probably going to be... there, on the counter. There is a bowl of some silvery liquid that has his pod floating in it. He points to it, and to the charred piece of metal that's sitting on the stove and smells of burning space stations and failed experiments (how can that be a smell?).

The Tender carefully puts a finger in the silvery liquid and Mark experiences a flashback in fast forward of the descent. From the panic in orbit, to the impact of the surface, to the long stretch of boredom to the interactions with various otherworldly creatures. The flashback ends and Mark can see that the Tender's eyes in real life are closed.

The mental representation then puts their hand on the space station fragment and Mark experiences those hectic last moments on the station again, but again quickly, and with some distance to the experience.

The Tender expresses understanding and sorrow and empathy and reassurance.

The Tender touches a specific part of the fragment again and Mark experiences a part of the memory again.

"Okay we gotta GO! To the escape pods, NOW!"

Then picks another and Mark can hear a memory of his own voice.

"Roquefort is the pinnacle of human food, you heathen."

Finally they walk over to the pod in the bowl and Mark can hear the initial bits of his improvised lyrics:

"There's a starman falling from the sky

He'd like to reach the ground safe

But he fear he'll blow up fine"

The Tender expresses confusion and interest and inquiry, and again gestures to the surroundings.

(Throughout, their eyes very carefully seek to only the bowl, the charred remains, and Mark's representation of himself, ignoring the clutter of other symbolic items, images plastered on surfaces and other more abstract representations.)

Bowie or food first?

They say music is universal, right? He remembers something about whales singing.

Roquefort is definitely not universal. Yet!

He looks around... there, door. He beckons Spooky Eyes to follow him. He moves into a relatively empty corridor, then into a metaphorical room.

And the memory of Bowie should be... there, he can see the record player. He grabs a vinyl and starts the player. The music fills the small cabin.

The Tender listens to the abstract amalgamated representative of every time Mark has heard that song, merged with his emotions and experiences of it, sprinkled with some of the associations of other Bowie music. They can not do much else but enjoy it to a significant fraction of how much Mark enjoys re-audiating it.

The real life face is shaped into a fairly close facsimile of a smile of enjoyment, and the mind representation is swaying along in a very human fashion.

Then the song ends and they are awoken from their reverie. They communicate appreciation, but also misunderstanding.

Uh. Misunderstanding. Maybe they would have wanted to know about Roquefort instead.

Ok, that's totally not how the real TK is... was structured but he can probably open a door from the corridor directly to the command center.

Come, Spooky Eyes, if you want to understand more about the station we can do that better over there.

The command center is an unassuming place. The station mostly ran itself, so there was rarely a need to be there, but he knows that it is where the manual overrides where, so based on the whole mental metaphor the plans should be easier to view here. Plus it has big screens, so there's that.

He tosses up a 3d model of TK.

"This is where I lived for the past... I don't even know how many years now. I was running at first, mostly from my past but... I found something here. Research, pushing the boundaries of what humans know about the deep structure of the cosmos. Curiosity, bold experiments far away from any inhabited places.

"Then... something went wrong. Some days ago now, I've lost count of how many to be honest, I could check it but that would require leaving the mindspace. A routing experiment and... it was probably my fault."

"Damn."

"I hope I was the only one to sink and the others will all get rescued."

"Would serve me well."

As Mark gets a hang of manipulating his own mindspace, the environment quickly stops being cluttered with random deeply private things, and instead symbolic representations appear when he wants to refer to them. The Tender picks up on the intention to _show_ the command center and unlocks their eyes from his face and starts to curiously look around the room, pausing to inspect the 3D model from several angles. Mark is still new to this, but the Tender is not, so when the big screens flicker with faces of people who may or may not be lost, reflections of guilt, and unrelated thoughts, they don't look. They express curiosity, but again misunderstanding.

When he starts speaking they intently stare again, every now and then reproducing some repeated sounds. "Ai". "Ww". "Me".

They look confused and focused, then shake their head and hold up their hand, palm up.

Floating above it appears a glass sphere slightly larger than Mark's hand, which contains a number of small, odd... fungi? floating around, with ethereal connections between them.

The Tender mimes touching the sphere, points to Mark, and extends the item toward him. 

spherebop

His senses are overwhelmed by a fast forward journey through a series of mental images and sensations. Unlike when he was reliving his own memories, the unfamiliarity of this new material makes the experience way more intense. 

The information comes in flashes, and each flash lets through a background noise of something otherwordly, like a hum of the beyond. It decorates the edges of the flashes as if removed almost completely, but not quite enough, by an imperfect noise gate. Every touch of this signal is so dense and alien that it grinds slightly upon his mind, but seems to not have any other lasting effect than leaving another headache.

He gets flashes of observation of small misshapen mushrooms with patterns of different muted colors. They seem to slowly swim through water through contracting various skirt-like edges, and dispense spores that disperse in the water.

The majority of the package of information focuses in on these spores. He sees different variants of spores, dispersed in various different ways, absorbed through different methods, and each flash comes attached with meaning. This particular pattern means nutrients to be found here. This other kind of spore that travels particularly quickly means danger, and this variant means that the message is modified slightly to mean escape upward, escape downward, or escape laterally. This kind of spore means a call in distress. This way of using spores does not have a survival-attached meaning, and instead is used recreationally. A... joke? 

When the onslaught ends, Mark finds himself confident that he could decode the nuanced meaning of any of these messages, as well as produce any message the limited protocol allows, if only he had the organs to do either.

After ten seconds or so, he can again experience the familiar mind realm, though he finds himself in a featureless generic room of Thyrillian Kappa instead of the command center.

The Tender waits until he comes back to the present, then lets down their hand, letting the sphere disappear, and gently lifts Mark's hand to a similar position. They communicate reciprocation. 

So it was the Roquefort that they were looking for.

He tries... remembering his English lessons, from elementary school throughout university and... making them into a ball?

It's a blue ball, with two red-on-white crosses intersecting each other.

This ball is significantly bigger than the one the Tender presented. They touch it with some measure of relief and close their eyes. 

How is Mark's collected intuitive and formal understanding of the English language organized? Are there insights you could make about his personality from the organization? Does he include any especially salient memories that are fundamental to his understanding of English, or is it anonymized and dry as if distilled into a dictionary and grammar definition?

It's very... organized.

One: I, he, we, me, people, two, be, have, ...

Then simple words, the most used. Build a shared sound book. Keep it easy. Repeat a lot. Short expressions. Slowly make big.

And as vocabulary and grammar get more complex branch into some technical words, a smattering of geography, a quantum of physics...

As Mark's entire understanding of English flashes before his and the Tender's eyes, the Tender seems to not get overwhelmed the way Mark got, and instead calmly is looking down at the empty floor looking thoughtful during the experience. Partway through they start to make sounds and trying sentences that become more and more complex as the time goes on. 

"Water is wet."

"The currents of the depths are few but strong."

"The implications of the existence of the ancients are profound and best left uninvestigated, lest you invite the natural consequences."

Then they think for a moment, then look back at Mark.

"Thank you for gifting me this understanding of your language. Giving you a language of mine would likely harm you, which is why I looked for the most simple language I could find to show what I wanted you to do."

Then, since establishing identity early is important, "I don't have a name the way your language implies you have, but you may call me by my task. I am the Tender to the Depths, or just the Tender. Pleased to meet you."

"Mark Thornwell, a pleasure likewise."

He doesn't extend his hand, he knows some aquatic creatures can be hurt by human touch. No clue if Tender is one of them but better safe than sorry.

"So, you seem to be interested in fungi. Do you have a moment to hear about our Lord and Saviour Roquefort?"

The Tender takes this in stride without any sign of amusement. They learn that a natural topic of conversation is food that is related to the conversation partner's apparent interests.

"I certainly do, tell me about this food. Or show me if you prefer." They gesture, without looking, to the random thoughts that appear in the periphery when he's not focusing on shaping it.

"Though I will say that you likely should rest your mind from having visitors soon. Perhaps we should continue this conversation in your capsule outside of the mindspace. Thank you for the immense showing of trust by the way, our communication could not have been established this quickly otherwise."

He goes towards the minifridge in the corner of the room.

"How would we continue the conversation in my capsule? I've seen you outside of it, I think the pressure differential would be too much even if you could somehow enter it without opening the hatch and drowning me."

"Well, it was either trying to communicate or just accepting my inevitable demise. I'm not particularly fond of accepting my inevitable demise, so... communication it is!"

Impression, (Impression) bleu (blue cheese).

The impression of blue cheese comes attached with not only the doubtlessly positive thoughts of it from Mark's perspective, but the taste memories themselves are also as experienced through Mark's taste buds, so the Tender's experience of the foodstuff becomes about as joyous as Mark's, though perhaps somewhat muted in amplitude.

They allow themselves to be taken by the reveries of sinking teeth into delicate soft cheeses for a moment.

"My gifts allow me to adjust to many different environments, and likewise travel in ways best not described in detail. Your language uses 'atmospheres' as a unit, which leads me to believe the pressure of your capsule will be close to one of the unit. If so I will adapt after a few moments. The greater question is whether you'd like to invite me into your lair or not. Either is fine."

"Sure, why not." His understanding of physics is already being heavily revised today, it's not as if additional strangeness is going to break him.

Plus it will keep his mind from checking how long he has until the oxygen runs out.

"All right. Could you please close your eyes and try not to pay attention to how the the air travels in the room for the next moments, for your safety?"

"For my safety?"

"For your safety."

Sure, whatever.

"I'll close my eyes. Should I... close the mental communication first?"

He doubts he'll be much able to ignore air movements, but at least he can... avoid being startled and paying more attention than normal.

"Certainly, but I can leave on my own. One moment."

And then they exit, which is contextualized as them walking through a door in the current environment. After they're gone, the awareness of the environmental metaphor for his mind starts to lose sharpness and slowly fade. He can hang on to it for a while if he tries, but he'll be unable to make it stay.

His normal vision comes back into view. Or perhaps it was always there and he just started paying attention to it again.

Outside the porthole, the Tender is waiting with a considerably more human-seeming body language than before, occasionally looking away from eye contact, and tilting their body less head on.

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.

As he steps out onto the marbled surface, a shoesized area reaches up to meet his foot. Each step raises to exactly the same level, creating the illusion of a perfectly flat floor that only appears when he's about to step on it. If he stumbles, the floor changes to lessen the stumble.

The imposing airlock door hinges outward, attached to the top of the door. It's designed to be opened manually, so there is a counterbalancing mechanism that he's likely seen a schematic of in passing during his studies. This means he just has to move the mass, and not also hold its weight up against the slightly higher than earth gravity the entire time, which should make this entirely doable.

Well, if he could get started. While the mechanism seems fine, the early part of the descent, before the hull ruptured and could equalize the pressure inside and outside, put a lot of pressure on this door. This wedged it in place, misshaping the edges.

As he pulls the lever, he can hear a seal open and air rush into the airlock, but he doesn't manage to move the door at all.  The floor near the bottom of the door ripples in response to his actions. Does he keep straining?