The Angler and the Mermaid

Chapter 2: The Baseline

I made Elias remove the camera from the room before I went inside.

He argued that we needed a record of every interaction. I reminded him that he'd said we needed to avoid making this a circus. He said the camera was for safety. I asked whose safety. After a long pause, he agreed to switch it to a fixed view of the tank rather than the medical platform.

The platform itself was a wide, padded table at the waterline. We'd designed it for sea lions that needed brief treatment, not a person with a tail and a good reason to distrust us. I set out a first-aid kit, a handheld scanner, and a bowl of saline. I didn't bring a syringe.

When I stepped into the habitat, the mermaid retreated to the far side.

"I'm not going to grab you," I said. "I want to see your wrist."

She stared at me. Her pupils narrowed, and the silver markings along her shoulders flickered beneath the water.

"I know you understand some of what I'm saying," I continued. "If you don't, you can still show me what you want."

I pointed to the wound. Then I pointed to the saline.

She looked down at her wrist. For a moment, I thought she'd ignore me. Then she swam forward and held out her arm.

The cut was shallow but ragged. Net wire had sliced through the skin. I cleaned it with a saline-soaked pad while she watched every movement. She didn't flinch until I touched the rawest edge.

"Sorry," I murmured.

She made a short sound in her throat. It had an almost musical rise and fall.

I stopped. "Was that a word?"

She tapped the table twice, then pointed at my mouth.

"Speak?"

She nodded.

"I'm speaking. You want me to keep talking?"

She tapped twice again.

I told her my name. Then I said the names of the equipment around us. Water. Light. Door. Wound. I pointed to each thing as I spoke.

When I said "water," she made her low note again. When I said "door," she pressed her palm against the metal hatch.

I tried a question. "Do you have a name?"

She placed her hand over her chest and spoke a sound that came out as three linked notes. My recorder translated it into a flat line.

"Can you say it again?"

She repeated the notes, slower.

I tried to copy them. The final note broke in my throat.

A faint crease appeared between her brows. It might have been amusement. It might have been anger.

"Close," I said. "I'm not good at singing."

She touched the metal table and produced the same three notes again. Then she pointed at me.

"Is that what you want to call me?"

She nodded.

I tried once more. "Neris?"

The name sounded clumsy, but she didn't correct me. She rested her hand on the healed edge of her wrist.

"I'm Mara," I said, touching my chest. "You're Neris."

Her gaze moved between us. She made a soft, descending trill.

I had never heard anything like it. I wanted to record it, analyze its harmonic structure, and put it in the first slide of a presentation titled The First Evidence of Nonhuman Language.

Instead, I put the recorder down.

"Do you want to go back to the sea?"

Her eyes fixed on me. She struck the table once, hard enough to make the saline bowl jump.

"Yes," I said. "I thought so."

A knock came at the hatch.

Neris jerked backward. The movement sent a wave over the table. I stood between her and the door without meaning to.

"Dr. Venn," Elias called. "The review team is here."

I opened the hatch only far enough to speak.

"No one comes in."

"Medical staff needs access."

"I've treated her wound. She needs rest."

"She may have internal injuries."

"We can scan through the water."

"We also need baseline tissue samples."

"She hasn't consented."

The quiet on the other side of the hatch lasted two seconds too long.

"Consent is a complicated issue when we don't know what she can understand," Elias said.

"She knows what a door is. She knows what it means to be touched."

"Mara, this isn't a seminar. The board wants results."

"I'll run a noninvasive scan. That's all."

"We'll talk after the first data review."

He left. I heard the latch click.

Neris had watched the exchange. Her body was held rigid, and her fingers had curled into her palms.

"I'm sorry," I said. "They can't come in without me."

She pointed to the hatch. Then she looked at me and made the three notes that were her name.

I nodded. "I understand."

For the scan, I used an ultrasound wand through a flexible membrane that could be lowered into the tank. Neris agreed to let me place it along her side, but she made me stop every time the instrument pressed too hard. Her organs were arranged differently from a human's, but not so differently that I could pretend I was looking at a fish. The scan showed bruising along her left flank, no obvious fractures.

I recorded nothing but measurements and the scan. No tissue samples. No photographs of her face.

Afterward, I sat on the concrete floor beside the tank. I hadn't eaten since the previous afternoon. My stomach growled.

Neris swam nearer, then disappeared under the shadowed lip of the rock shelf.

"I'm supposed to be working," I said.

She surfaced with a small silver fish between her teeth. She tossed it into a shallow basin that had been left in the water for food.

The fish landed with a wet slap.

I stared at it.

"You want me to eat?"

She tilted her head.

"I don't think so."

I lifted the fish with two fingers. It was dead, but fresh. For one absurd moment, I thought about using it as bait.

Then I laughed. The sound came out rough and tired.

Neris watched my face, then made a short bubbling noise.

That evening, I took my fishing rod home rather than leaving it in the lab.