Under The Sea
Title: Under The Sea
Rating: PG
Pairing: None
Spoilers/Warnings: AU, otherwise none.
Summary: Chin and Kono are oceanographers looking for proof of a sentient species under the waves. And they've finally found it.
Notes: Another fill for my au_bingo card, this time for 'oceanographers'. This is another one that's likely to have a continuation. Also, I really need to do something about all this gen H50 fic. *frowns*
"Chin...Chin, come look at this," Kono says, one hand clutching the single earphone as she stared at the computer screens.
Chin frowned, but pauses his calculations to stand at her shoulder. "What am I--oh!" The patterns of dark and light on the screens shift and he follows them, hardly believing what they're telling him.
Kono twists to grin up at him. "Yeah. Listen." She holds the earphone up to him and he takes it, presses it to his own ear.
For a moment, there's nothing but the steady rush that he's come to know as the ocean's baseline. But then, over it, clicks and whines and the occasional deeper thrum. "They have a language," he says and Kono just grins even wider.
"They have a language," she confirms.
Chin listens to the underwater speech for a few more moments. "This is...Kono, this is everything."
"Yeah, brah. It is."
~*~
The machines don't lie and it doesn't take much to convince Director Jameson that the deep-ocean sensing array had most definitely been worth it, with the realization of their main goal. She listens to the sounds, then looks at Chin and Kono, grinning nearly as much as they are.
"Well, people, sounds like we've got ourselves a breakthrough."
~*~
The next stage takes much longer than they had hoped, but Chin and Kono are patient; they've got evidence that their goal is out there and they're willing to wait as long as they need to in order to get it.
Even so, almost a full year from that day, they're starting to wonder if maybe they just weren't supposed to get any further.
"Like some divine mystery, brah," Kono says. "Give us the knowledge that there's something else out there, then take it away, make us strive even more to get there..."
"Sounds a bit defeatist," Chin remarks, one eye still--always--on the scanners.
Kono shrugs. "Not as defeatist as moaning that we'll never find anything," she points out, jerking her head at the front of the cabin, where the assistant Jameson had given them is hunched over a keyboard. Jenna Kaye isn't a bad sort, really, but she's not as optimistic as Chin and Kono and the long wait has worn on her more.
"Maybe this new guy will be a ray of sunshine," Chin says. "When's he supposed to get here?"
"Tomorrow. They're coming in on biplane. We'll have to get the dinghy out."
"Sounds like fun."
It actually is fun, if only because it's more action than they've seen in months. The new guy is Danny Williams, expert in oceanic tonal differentiation and he's out here because he bugged enough people in the program that they finally said yes just to get him out of their hair.
They quickly realize that Danny knows his stuff, though, and the addition of a new personality--which turns out to be optimistic and pessimistic by turns--he makes headway with the year-old recording where Chin and Kono had finally given up on making any more sense of it.
"It is a language," Danny reports a week in. "Rather like the click languages of Africa, actually, and a bit like some of the Chinese dialects. A relatively short range of sounds, but a number of intonations and combinations that give those sounds different meanings. I'd like to hear it spoken live, but this is as much as I can figure from the bit we've got."
Chin's eyebrows go up as he looks at the paper. "You translated it."
Danny shrugs. "Sort of. I'm guessing on a fair amount, but it seemed close enough."
Kono's impressed. "No, no, that's awesome. Much more than we could ever--"
"Guys! Guys, I've got something!" Jenna's voice rings out from the bow and the three look at each other for a second before nearly running to her.
"What, what is it?" Kono asks, sliding into her seat. Before Jenna can respond, though, Kono's gasping, "Chin! Chin, they're back!"
Chin hastily flips some switches and a second later, a stream of clicks and chirps and other sounds fill the cabin.
"Oh, god, it's beautiful," Danny breathes. Then he's at a keyboard, typing furiously. A few moments later, there's a louder pattern of the sounds, over top of what's coming in from the speakers and Chin, Kono and Jenna all turn to look at Danny, who's staring at the computer like it holds the secrets of the universe. Which, at the moment, it just might.
The sounds fall away for a long moment, then there's a sudden barrage of fast-paced clicks and chirps and thrums and Danny's typing again, grinning widely.
The computer sends out the translation of whatever Danny had typed in as an answer and Danny turns to them, hands punching into the air. "It worked!"
~*~
They spend hours in that cabin, communicating with their oceanic contact, Danny translating as he goes.
"They were aware of us, did you know?" Danny breathes. "They knew we were here, wanted to figure out our intentions before they let us get too close again. That first time was a fluke. And--" he breaks off, listening to the latest reply and he lights up. "They want to meet us, face to face."
"Say yes," Chin commands immediately. He looks at Kono, her excitement mirroring his own. This is what they've been searching for, what they've waited for for so long.
And it's finally here.
~*~
It takes a few days of arrangements, of urgent calls back to the mainland, discussion among the program's chief staff and the director. But then, finally, they're lowering the dinghy into the water and floating out, nothing more sophisticated than a handheld recorder and camera on board.
It doesn't take very long, hardly a few minutes before Kono spots the dark shape swimming towards them. Breath held almost unconsciously, they watch as the creature comes into view and then breaks the surface.
For a moment, they all stare at each other, the humans taking in the mostly humanoid figure, the pointed fins taking the place of ears, the blurry lines of gills just under the water, the shimmer of scales along definitively human-like arms and torso, the blue eyes staring right back at them.
"Mermaid," Danny blurts. "You're a mermaid."
And the mer grins at him, showing them neat rows of sharp teeth. "Prefer mer," the mer says.
"Oh, god you speak. I mean, of course you speak, I've been talking to you for days, but you speak English, what the hell?"
The mer grabs the side of the boat and before they can react, flips himself up over the edge, sprawling on the bottom of the dinghy. He's still grinning at Danny. "We've watched you for many, many tides."
"Many tides," Danny echoes faintly. "Right."
"Do you have a name?" Kono asks, leaning in. The mer glances at her.
"Yes. It's--" the series of clicks and thrums that follows doesn't make sense to anyone, but Danny frowns.
"That's...Roughly, I think it translates to Steve," he says. The mer shrugs.
"Close enough. Who are you?"
They get through the round of introductions before Chin realizes something.
"Wait. How can you be talking. You have gills, an underwater respiratory system, not lungs."
Steve shrugs again. "I've got both. Comes in handy, sometimes."
Chin takes a moment to think about the possibilities, then says, "I think we're going to have a lot of questions."
Steve grins at him. "That's okay. I've got a lot of questions of my own," he says, glancing at Danny. "Some a bit more specific than others."
Rating: PG
Pairing: None
Spoilers/Warnings: AU, otherwise none.
Summary: Chin and Kono are oceanographers looking for proof of a sentient species under the waves. And they've finally found it.
Notes: Another fill for my au_bingo card, this time for 'oceanographers'. This is another one that's likely to have a continuation. Also, I really need to do something about all this gen H50 fic. *frowns*
"Chin...Chin, come look at this," Kono says, one hand clutching the single earphone as she stared at the computer screens.
Chin frowned, but pauses his calculations to stand at her shoulder. "What am I--oh!" The patterns of dark and light on the screens shift and he follows them, hardly believing what they're telling him.
Kono twists to grin up at him. "Yeah. Listen." She holds the earphone up to him and he takes it, presses it to his own ear.
For a moment, there's nothing but the steady rush that he's come to know as the ocean's baseline. But then, over it, clicks and whines and the occasional deeper thrum. "They have a language," he says and Kono just grins even wider.
"They have a language," she confirms.
Chin listens to the underwater speech for a few more moments. "This is...Kono, this is everything."
"Yeah, brah. It is."
~*~
The machines don't lie and it doesn't take much to convince Director Jameson that the deep-ocean sensing array had most definitely been worth it, with the realization of their main goal. She listens to the sounds, then looks at Chin and Kono, grinning nearly as much as they are.
"Well, people, sounds like we've got ourselves a breakthrough."
~*~
The next stage takes much longer than they had hoped, but Chin and Kono are patient; they've got evidence that their goal is out there and they're willing to wait as long as they need to in order to get it.
Even so, almost a full year from that day, they're starting to wonder if maybe they just weren't supposed to get any further.
"Like some divine mystery, brah," Kono says. "Give us the knowledge that there's something else out there, then take it away, make us strive even more to get there..."
"Sounds a bit defeatist," Chin remarks, one eye still--always--on the scanners.
Kono shrugs. "Not as defeatist as moaning that we'll never find anything," she points out, jerking her head at the front of the cabin, where the assistant Jameson had given them is hunched over a keyboard. Jenna Kaye isn't a bad sort, really, but she's not as optimistic as Chin and Kono and the long wait has worn on her more.
"Maybe this new guy will be a ray of sunshine," Chin says. "When's he supposed to get here?"
"Tomorrow. They're coming in on biplane. We'll have to get the dinghy out."
"Sounds like fun."
It actually is fun, if only because it's more action than they've seen in months. The new guy is Danny Williams, expert in oceanic tonal differentiation and he's out here because he bugged enough people in the program that they finally said yes just to get him out of their hair.
They quickly realize that Danny knows his stuff, though, and the addition of a new personality--which turns out to be optimistic and pessimistic by turns--he makes headway with the year-old recording where Chin and Kono had finally given up on making any more sense of it.
"It is a language," Danny reports a week in. "Rather like the click languages of Africa, actually, and a bit like some of the Chinese dialects. A relatively short range of sounds, but a number of intonations and combinations that give those sounds different meanings. I'd like to hear it spoken live, but this is as much as I can figure from the bit we've got."
Chin's eyebrows go up as he looks at the paper. "You translated it."
Danny shrugs. "Sort of. I'm guessing on a fair amount, but it seemed close enough."
Kono's impressed. "No, no, that's awesome. Much more than we could ever--"
"Guys! Guys, I've got something!" Jenna's voice rings out from the bow and the three look at each other for a second before nearly running to her.
"What, what is it?" Kono asks, sliding into her seat. Before Jenna can respond, though, Kono's gasping, "Chin! Chin, they're back!"
Chin hastily flips some switches and a second later, a stream of clicks and chirps and other sounds fill the cabin.
"Oh, god, it's beautiful," Danny breathes. Then he's at a keyboard, typing furiously. A few moments later, there's a louder pattern of the sounds, over top of what's coming in from the speakers and Chin, Kono and Jenna all turn to look at Danny, who's staring at the computer like it holds the secrets of the universe. Which, at the moment, it just might.
The sounds fall away for a long moment, then there's a sudden barrage of fast-paced clicks and chirps and thrums and Danny's typing again, grinning widely.
The computer sends out the translation of whatever Danny had typed in as an answer and Danny turns to them, hands punching into the air. "It worked!"
~*~
They spend hours in that cabin, communicating with their oceanic contact, Danny translating as he goes.
"They were aware of us, did you know?" Danny breathes. "They knew we were here, wanted to figure out our intentions before they let us get too close again. That first time was a fluke. And--" he breaks off, listening to the latest reply and he lights up. "They want to meet us, face to face."
"Say yes," Chin commands immediately. He looks at Kono, her excitement mirroring his own. This is what they've been searching for, what they've waited for for so long.
And it's finally here.
~*~
It takes a few days of arrangements, of urgent calls back to the mainland, discussion among the program's chief staff and the director. But then, finally, they're lowering the dinghy into the water and floating out, nothing more sophisticated than a handheld recorder and camera on board.
It doesn't take very long, hardly a few minutes before Kono spots the dark shape swimming towards them. Breath held almost unconsciously, they watch as the creature comes into view and then breaks the surface.
For a moment, they all stare at each other, the humans taking in the mostly humanoid figure, the pointed fins taking the place of ears, the blurry lines of gills just under the water, the shimmer of scales along definitively human-like arms and torso, the blue eyes staring right back at them.
"Mermaid," Danny blurts. "You're a mermaid."
And the mer grins at him, showing them neat rows of sharp teeth. "Prefer mer," the mer says.
"Oh, god you speak. I mean, of course you speak, I've been talking to you for days, but you speak English, what the hell?"
The mer grabs the side of the boat and before they can react, flips himself up over the edge, sprawling on the bottom of the dinghy. He's still grinning at Danny. "We've watched you for many, many tides."
"Many tides," Danny echoes faintly. "Right."
"Do you have a name?" Kono asks, leaning in. The mer glances at her.
"Yes. It's--" the series of clicks and thrums that follows doesn't make sense to anyone, but Danny frowns.
"That's...Roughly, I think it translates to Steve," he says. The mer shrugs.
"Close enough. Who are you?"
They get through the round of introductions before Chin realizes something.
"Wait. How can you be talking. You have gills, an underwater respiratory system, not lungs."
Steve shrugs again. "I've got both. Comes in handy, sometimes."
Chin takes a moment to think about the possibilities, then says, "I think we're going to have a lot of questions."
Steve grins at him. "That's okay. I've got a lot of questions of my own," he says, glancing at Danny. "Some a bit more specific than others."