“The clear parts of the shell seem to be a polymer resin,” Ra-Havreii added a few moments later.

“The interior appears to be filled with the same oxygenated fluid used in the lifepods,” Melora reported.

Riker swam up and gazed through the translucent ports. “It’s hollow, all right. No sign of internal organs—maybe in the lower part. And there seems to be…algae growing on the inner surface.” He played his helmet light over it. “It’s green…. Photosynthetic?”

“Yes,” Pazlar confirmed.

“The creature has an interesting nervous system,” Ra-Havreii reported. “The wattage is surprisingly high. You could power a light panel with it, which is more than you can say for the humanoid brain.”

Vale swam to the upper portion, which bulged out slightly before tapering to the spire. The honeycomb cells were smaller here, and she realized they spiraled down, growing larger as they went, as in many natural shell formations. But there was a discontinuity in the shell pattern. “There’s some sort of valve here—several plates of that dense polymer that seem to open outward. Maybe ‘hatch’ is a better word.”

Melora’s eyes were wide under her scuba mask. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

“Don’t tempt me,” Vale answered.

“What do you mean?” Ra-Havreii asked.

“Melora,” Vale went on, “what can you tell about the pods at the bottom?”

The science officer swam down to scan them. “They’re made of a more flexible biological material, but they’re still very thick-skinned. I think…yes…they seem to be designed to contain fluids under very high pressure, complete with interior baffles. These conduits seem to be for filling the tanks…. Must use peristalsis to build up pressure.” She looked to Lavena. “Do we have to guess what they’re for, or will you tell us that?”

“Well, once they’re fully grown,” Aili said after a brief exchange with the squales, “two will be filled with oxygen and the other two with hydrogen.”

“My god,” Vale whispered, gazing at the conical shape of the object.

“What is it?” asked Ra-Havreii, still not seeing it.

Vale’s response was preempted by Riker’s awed laughter. “This is fantastic!”

“Will someone tell me what it is?”

Still laughing, Riker crowed, “It’s a baby space capsule!”

For millennia, Anidel sang to the offworlders, the squales had been exploring their world, seeking to quench their bottomless thirst for knowledge. Using living probes adapted from existing life forms, they had explored the depths of their native sea and the seemingly endless reaches of the sky.

But then they had found the sky was not endless after all. Over centuries, they had evolved their aerial probes to rise higher and higher, to survive ever greater cold and ever thinner air. They gained an understanding of the vast, frigid emptiness between bodies in space, but this did not terrify them any more than the emptiness of the air in comparison to the water. After all, their own World Between was as good as vacuum to the creatures of the World Below, the dynamo layer. That was a realm even the squales had not developed the means to reach, for it was impossible for their biotechnology to function there. The void of space seemed far more attainable in comparison.

And so they had studied and learned for centuries. They had derived the laws of gravity by watching the motions of the planets. They had studied the stars, learning much from them about the nature of light. Ultimately they had become aware of the invisible forms of light and developed instruments to study them. A living nervous system was a ready-made radio antenna.

Thousands of years ago, before humans or even Vulcans had ventured into space, the squales had sent forth the first capsule like this. But outside Droplet’s magnetic field, away from the Song of Life, the squales had been disoriented and impaired. The unfamiliar field of the system’s star and the emissions of the exotic elements in the debris disk had caused them discomfort. They had decided they could learn enough about the emptiness through astronomical observation, and had turned their attention back to exploring the profundities of their ocean and improving their biotechnology.

But now, Melo said, the arrival of visitors from space had inspired his pod and others in related disciplines to revive their ancient space program, recreating the design from their extraordinary racial memory. As an echolocating species, they perceived three-dimensional shapes in terms of sound patterns, and could literally speak the form of an object in detail. And they had an eidetic recall for sound patterns, keeping the “blueprints” alive in oral memory. Anidel’s team had needed to fill in certain details degraded over time, but it hadn’t proven too difficult to deduce what was needed.

The key difference, Anidel sang, came from a study of Titan’s field-neutralizing probes. Their design had given the squales some ideas for how to use the capsule’s nervous system to generate a field that would compensate for the effects of extra-Dropletian travel on squale neurology. They had wasted no time incorporating these insights into the design of this capsule, which would be over ten meters high when fully grown in a week or so. “Our thanks to you,”Anidel sang, “for giving us the final key we need to bring this ancient dream again to life.”

Once they surfaced again, it was some time before Vale could speak. “I owe you an apology, Aili. And them. This is…Tell Anidel I am truly humbled. I think maybe we’re the ones who have the most to learn here.”

“She understands,” Aili told her. “They pick up languages very fast.”

“Okay, okay. Don’t rub it in.”

Riker chuckled. “To be fair, it’s only the equivalent of a Mercury capsule,” he said. “They’re a long way from warp drive.”

“Technologically. Not conceptually. Hell, Will, we’ve seen living creatures with warp capability. If it hadn’t been for their dependence on the Song, they might’ve been the ones visiting our planet, a few thousand years ago.”