Issue 154 July 2026

Two hundred meters beneath the surface of Namija-β, in icy, silt-tossed darkness, we tend the pipelines. Six divers, working four at a time, keep the pipes clean of the crystalline barnacle creatures that accumulate on the metal like dust on a shelf. We have other duties, but this one is as endless as the sweep of the currents. The barnacles latch onto any surface that can anchor them in the swirling, buffeting waters, and their roots dig fast, acidic needles burrowing through five-centimeter pipe walls in hours.

It’s worse when they land on a junction: if the system notifies us of contact, we have fifteen minutes to find the seam in violet-black silt-out to clear the junction before it’s ruptured. If we’re lucky, we’re already working that pipe, and all we have to do is follow it.

If we’re not, we wade through the black.

It feels even colder out there. Things that normally keep their distance from the pipelines brush past our legs.

Often we can’t actually see the pipes, or even our hands as we chisel away barnacles: we navigate the dark by haptic feedback and our suits’ HUDs. We test the muck through booted feet for the particular consistency that warns of a mire. We identify our partners by the dying or burned-out diodes in our headlamps. Mayumi’s and Conrad’s are both slightly purple in the top right corner; Emile, who’s been here the longest at six months, has a whole row burned out.

So what does mine look like? I asked them after my first dive. We were drinking tea so hot it scalded the roof of my mouth, but I downed two cups, anxious to chase out the chill lingering in my core.

Yours? Yours is new, they laughed. We see a perfect light, we know it’s Reyna.

* * *

Our season ends when the northern currents begin to predominate. Barnacles migrate and the water carries different sediment, a magnetically charged grit that disrupts comms. The others tell me the current’s start date and intensity are both unpredictable and drill me on the code we use to signal with our lights when comms go down.

From the time we first notice a comms disruption, Emile explains, it could be twelve hours or twelve days before we have to leave.

Emile is a career diver, on his eighth tour. He has a story for every incident—wildlife encounters, water leaks, even pressurization failure—but none of them scared me more than the possibility of working on the pipes not just blinded by silt, but deafened and silenced. I realized why it mattered to them to know that Mayumi only has nine purple diodes while Conrad has sixteen, and why their feet are so sensitive to even the slightest shift in the silt, even through their suits: they’re heightened senses, lifelines of connection when all others are crushed into futility by the depth and the dark.

* * *

I get used to the darkness. I work with eyes half-closed, listening to the brush of my gloves against metal, the scrape of my chisel, the hiss of particulate rushing around my helmet. The helmet’s HUD orchestrates a soft rhythm weaving together my heart rate, oxygen levels, and pipe integrity scans. I breathe in sync. The rhythm only skips once, when something large trails briefly against my shoulder.

It could have been a song by the end of my shift, but a comms crackle interrupted.

Say again? I’m well within range; the barnacles are migrating and my progress clearing them from the pipe is slow.

Another crackle. Hissing might have indicated words. Was the water colder now? I lean, testing the press of the current to gauge how much is flowing south. I look around, my headlamp illuminating a radius of purplish silt and the matte gray pipe still sprinkled with crystalline barnacles.

Say again, Base?

More hissing; something that might have been Mayumi’s name. I turn towards base and flash my high beams in the code for comms failure. When there’s no response, I trudge homeward. The currents are indeed shifting; I have to lean right to keep my balance.

At the hatch, Conrad blinks a flashlight down at me.

Mayumi not responding, he says. She called for help. North. Emile’s light.

I shake my head and blink back, Emile off duty. At base. I point up through the hatch. With you.

Yes.

My hand falters at my headlamp controls. Emile’s light? I repeat.

Yes.

* * *

I lumber north, my steps weightier in the dragging current. Barnacles clink onto my arms and thighs and I brush them off before they can burrow in. Huge black shapes flit past the circle of my headlamp’s glow. Another reason our season is ending: the creatures caught in the current are prey for much larger things.

I blink code into the darkness, looking around for Mayumi’s response. How far would she have gotten? The current is loud now, a muted scream of rushing silt. It drags my body’s heat out of my suit.

Something blinks: white tinged purple in one corner. I exhale so forcefully it fogs up my display.

Hello, she says.

Are you okay?

The light blinks again. Hello. Hello. Hello.

I take a step back. The current yanks my leg and I slip in the muck. Mayumi comes closer—no, not her, just her light: the form beneath it has tentacles, mismatched tendrils graceful in the darkness.

Hello. Hellohellohello—

I push off the pipe and lurch away. The back of my neck tingles as if I can already feel tendrils grazing my skin. Even with the current’s help, my pace is agonizingly slow. I shout unanswered into the hissing comm. My shadow blinks before me with every pulse of the light pursuing me.

Another headlamp glows between me and base and I sigh, relieved. Someone has come to help.

Hello.

The lamp, I realize, has no distinguishing features—no burned-out diodes, no purple fade.

It looks brand-new—a perfect light.

Hello.

* * *

Ⓒ Laura Duerr