Hell is High Water

If there was one place in the universe that could be the literal hell, eternal damnation, perdition, Te had found it and had found himself assigned there. The air clung to him, the unfamiliar scents put his mind off kilter. The ever-shifting surface beyond the rocky promontory where he now stood left him dizzy.

Te turned around to face the building that would be his home for as long as his assignment lasted. The steady structure and solid ground around and behind it helped ease his vertigo.

He grabbed the handle on his luggage, activating its hover mode, and stepped toward the building. He’d been assured that everything had been set up for his comfort prior to his arrival, but he had serious doubts. Not a bit of heat was evident from the building, despite the chill.

As he approached, the cameras around the property caught his image. The building recognized him, opening the front door with a mechanical voice saying, “Welcome, Professor Te A’ota,” in his own language.

The heat inside was near blinding, and most welcome. He hurried in, the door closing behind him. “Thank you? Um, building?”

“I am this house’s AI assistant. You may refer to me as ‘house’ or you may choose a name to refer to me as. Do you wish to choose a name for me?” the house asked.

“Uh, no. House is fine.”

“The current temperature inside is forty degrees Celsius, humidity is twelve percent. If you require any adjustments to either, let me know,” the house said.

“No, no, this is perfect.” Te took a deep breath, the feeling of his scales drying and warming revitalizing him.

“Doctor Saira Andersen, from the university, is here to see you,” the house said. “Should I let her in?”

Te flicked his tail in acknowledgement. Nothing happened. “Yes,” he said, flicking his tail in the same way. “This means yes.”

“I will remember that,” the house said, as the door opened.

Saira stepped in, dressed in a full-body cooling suit. “Doctor A’ota? You here?” she called out.

Te switched to speaking English. “Coming.” He met Saira in the entryway.

“A pleasure to finally meet you in person,” she said.

“Likewise. I believe the proper thing to do when welcoming a human into the home is to offer something to drink?” he asked. “Very rude in my culture.”

“This is your home while you’re here, and you determine what is rude and not rude for yourself.” Saira gave a little nod. “That said, I will be certain to not offer you or any other garians a beverage when you visit my home. I do endeavor to be a good host, after all.”

“I too, which to be a good host.” Te switched to his native language. “House, is there a human beverage available in your storage?”

“I can prepare a glass of ice-water in the dining room, if you like,” the house answered in the same language.

Saira chimed in, speaking Te’s language, “That is accepted,” then switched back to English, “yes, please.”

“I did not know you spoke Otolakk, Dr. Andersen.” Te stepped into the dining room and used an insulated mitt to pick up the cold glass and hand it to Saira.

“Just a few phrases but I expect I’ll learn more as we work together.” She drank down half the glass of water. “Please, call me Saira, and may I call you Te?”

“Yes, you may. Shall we sit?”

“Let’s.” Saira followed him into the living room. It had been fitted with furniture that was suitable for humans or garians.

Te turned one of the chairs, so it faced away from the picture window that looked out on the sea and took a seat. Saira sat in a chair near it, facing both Te and the window.

He motioned toward the window with his tail. “The constant movement … I don’t know if I’ll ever get used to it.”

“I understand. I was raised on a ship and never saw an open body of water until I went to university. The constant movement gave me vertigo. Even just a breeze across tall grass was unsettling at first. Now, I find the waves calming.”

“If you say. I will see with time, I suppose.”

“We replaced the environmental systems in this house. Upgraded insulation and materials to handle the temperatures without softening or sagging, added dehumidifiers and a sand bath. Is it too your liking?”

“Very much. I was not expecting such generosity for a visiting professor,” he said.

“We — a bunch of the faculty — got together and demanded it. When we offered to put the CFO up in a tent in Death Valley on Earth, she relented and released the funds to make it happen. This house, is only the first, though, as all the guest houses are being refitted. It can be set for any humidity from five percent to ninety-five percent, and anywhere from five to fifty degrees Celsius.”

Te was stunned. “That is a large investment just to make visitors more comfortable.”

“The university is focused on bringing in more diverse educators from more worlds. That’s kind of the good thing about setting up on a terraformed world in the middle of nowhere.” Saira smiled.

“Is this the university you attended?”

Saira shook her head. “No, I went to Swansea University. On Earth. How about you?”

“This is my first trip off world,” he said. “I grew up in the capital on Oto and went to Kralo Krim.”

“So, you’ve never seen an ocean world?”

“Only in media, until the shuttle dropped me off today.”

“What’s your first impression?”

His tail swished in nervous response. “I thought I had landed in Luklit, closest to what you would call hell.” He forced his tail to stillness. “I hope to understand why humans choose to cover the majority of your worlds with water, when you are land-dwellers.”

“Well, our combined Environmental Engineering course should make that clearer. Just as I expect to learn how the environment on Oto works with so little water.”

Te pushed himself forward slightly with his tail. “And we will learn as we teach how to mold worlds for our respective kinds. There is, though, one thing our course doesn’t cover that I’d like to learn.”

“What’s that?”

Te rocked himself with his tail and pointed at it. “How do humans stay upright and move about so well without a tail to balance?”

Saira laughed. “I’ll recommend some kinesiology books for you. Although, I often wish our ancestors hadn’t ditched their tails. Oh, have you tried on your environmental suit?”

“No. I’m not even sure how to hook it up.”

“I’ll walk you through it.”

They spent an hour going over all the details of his warming suit, from putting it on, setting the temperature and humidity, to taking it off, charging it up and checking for damage. In the end, he knew more about the warming suit than he thought would be involved in creating his own.

When they finished, he sat on the floor and noticed a sound he hadn’t heard before. A rhythmic swish of the waves. “Why can I hear the water?”

“I turned on the external mics,” Saira said. “Just close your eyes and listen to it. It’s soothing, isn’t it?”

“As long as I don’t think about what it is, yes.”

Saira sat next to him on the floor and turned him, his eyes still closed, until he was facing the window. “When you look, just think of it as watching a holo,” she said. “That’s what I did from inside my dorm window until I got used to the movement of the water and the grass.”

Te opened his eyes and looked out at the waves. Steady, rhythmic, rolling. He put his hands on the floor and felt centered, with no dizziness. He took a deep breath of the warm, dry air of his new home.

“I might find the appeal,” he said. “Unless the water gets high.”

“Won’t happen here,” she said with a hint of sadness, “gravity is too low, and the moons are too small to make really spectacular tides. The greatest difference between high tide and low tide is around ten centimeters.”

“Knowing that helps. I saw holos of humans riding giant waves on boards. It was horrifying.”

“You said this place was like your hell. What is your hell, anyway?”

Te watched the waves with a new-found interest. “If you live an evil life, you are sent to a world covered with icy water. You never get warm, you stay sluggish and slow, and your scales soften until they’re in danger of sloughing off at the slightest touch.”

Saira whistled. “That’s rough. We have a saying about doing something regardless of the situation. It’s ‘come hell or high water,’ but that would be redundant for you, wouldn’t it?”