My name is Orpheus. I was born in the middle seas of Terra. I am the oldest of six adult children. I'm often told I look like a Joe, or a Frank; I've been described as "classically handsome", that the lines and angles of my face conform to traditional standards of beauty, so I assume that when people say this, they associate these names with those sorts of aesthetically-masculine qualities. "Thank you", I will say politely, "but my name is Orpheus." It's an unusual name, and one that I am quite proud of. It bears a mark of distinction, and I'd prefer to be called by it.
My mother was a caretaker for the elderly, and my father worked as a maritime engineer. When I was young, we moved from the warm waters of the Mediterranean to the United Irish Republic, where my father had taken a job building tidal power generators. He had always wanted his children to follow in his footsteps, to take up the trade of underwater design and construction. Landlocked and bored, my soul answered the call of the artist. I'd been warned about the tribulations of such a vow of poverty, that I would be happier and more secure if I'd learn which metallurgic properties were most resistant to corrosion in saltwater, or how to convert tidal motion into renewable power. I recognized the nobility in these pursuits, to have a hand in steering our planet away from its past, to be a good custodian for the world and work with it to fuel our needs, rather than to exploit it. I recognize these things, and yet, I feel my purpose is to serve as a custodian for the living soul, to construct the mirrors that let us see those parts of us which hide behind the lens of our eyes. Having shed my father's expectations and earned his disappointment, I was free to pursue a career as a writer and a vocal performer.
I began my career answering job advertisements for commercial voicework, reading copy for ad agencies and providing voiceover for instructional videos. I'd developed a reputation for my delivery, for giving dry and assertive reads that command the attention of a listener. I learned a lot on these jobs, receiving direction from more experienced people in my field, and under their tutelage I was able to find my own niche. During my visits to various industry recording studios I'd also been afforded the pleasure of meeting other creative dreamers, people who chased their own stars across other disciplines. I would improvise skits with other vocal performers in the waiting rooms of these studios, or listen to musical samples created by producers looking to sell an instrumental track for industrial use.
Despite my lack of professional credentials I was often asked by an artist named Darryn what I thought of these short musical loops. Many of them were catchy and inoffensive, ideal for their intended use, but some of them bore a certain flavor, that were entrancing and odd. I'd always commented on these tracks, and asked if I could have a copy of them, should the studios not want them. At first I was told, no, these works are for sale, but over time Darryn and I would see each other again, and our relationship would grow less formal, and more welcoming. It became clear the studios did not have use for these experimental, entrancing music loops; I had never pushed the issue, maintaining respect for my peers and their craft, but after a few years, I thought about asking again. "Do you remember those old musical loops? The short, odd ones?" Darryn would reply, "I do." Under more cordial circumstances, I'd ask again: "Do you think I could purchase a copy of them from you? I find them to be very interesting." "Sure," they said, "don't worry about it." I insisted on paying for the work, and so I began to build a library of lost music, unavailable to anyone else.
...
It was not my ambition to spend my years selling products or delivering industrial safety instruction into a studio microphone. I had my own dreams, my own mirror upon which the light of the world reflected, and I wanted to find some way to share it. Having built a modest savings from my time at these studios, I decided to set out and find my place in the universe. I sold many of my more cumbersome belongings, compacting my material goods into a pair of steamer trunks, and purchased an all-stops ticket on a commercial flight to Neptune. I didn't know where I wanted to be, just that I'd know it if I saw it, and if, by the time I'd reached the edge of the system I was not satisfied, I would simply return home on a direct flight to Terra, and settle into a small apartment overlooking Galway Bay.
Accommodations on these commercial flights are comfortable, if not overly roomy. Space travel takes time, and so passengers are given private quarters to sleep in, connected by narrow but well-decorated hallways. Being a social person, I made a habit of keeping my door open during waking hours, in case that I might come across another interesting soul. As luck would have it, I was roomed across the hall from Stitch, a lagomorphic Neptunian with friendly but tired eyes. Stitch, as I came to learn, was a single mother who traveled a lot on business. She did survey work for a telecommunications company, it was her job to ensure that relay satellites spoke to each other. She had a small son, blessed with a boundless energy. His name was Gritzparylzephyleer, but he preferred to be called Starlight, after his favorite storybook hero, a swashbuckling rogue of some sort. They were kind people, and so we were inclined to strike up conversation, to help pass the time on our journey to Neptune.
Stitch was very interested in my work. She found the idea of making a living by talking into a microphone fascinating. "It must be your work feeding through my networks", she joked. She was the plumber, and I was the water company. I asked about her profession. Did she enjoy it? She told me, it is nice to work with the satellites. She speaks their language, she makes them feel better when they are sick, but she is tired of all the travel. She would like to settle down somewhere, to give Starlight a stable home, to not have to burden him with so much flying around. I could see the fatigue in her eyes. It seemed we were both searching for what the other was trying to leave behind.
Starlight, the young Neptunian, was a strange kid. He would press his face against the window of his room, and whisper to a "Great Fish," beckoning it to him. It was his fixation. He imagined some creature was out there, that he could speak directly to it. Or that it spoke through him. During breakfast he would imagine himself as the Great Fish, gnashing his teeth as he ravaged a stack of pancakes and a few strips of bacon. It seemed playful at first, but as the nights went on, as our ship docked at Venus, and then Mercury, and then Mars, it became somewhat disquieting. I had asked Stitch, "do you know who the Great Fish is?" She laughed a telling laugh. "Oh, you know how boys are." I smiled and nodded, masking my growing unease.
It was some time after we departed from Callisto or Ganymede, one of the Jovian worlds, when I began to feel a cold unpleasantness in the pit of my stomach. We'd seen many worlds, but none had truly spoken to me. Have I been foolish? Will this whole journey be for naught? The thought of my father's disappointment had never dissuaded me from my course, but the idea of my own validation of those sentiments was beginning to give me pause. These thoughts were shattered, like a pane of glass greeting a baseball, as Starlight ran into my quarters, skittering on all fours in that way that Neptunians do. "He's here, he's here," the boy shouted. I asked him, who? Who is here? "The Great Fish! He is here!" I must confess, until this moment I had assumed the child's reference to a great fish was simply the fruit of an overactive imagination, or, perhaps, a reference to me and my tail, as I don't imagine people like myself are a common sight out here in space. It was in that moment that our ship was struck by a tremendous jolt. I feared we'd collided with something. Starlight stood on my bed, and pressed his face against my window. "The Great Fish!" He could see it. And for a moment, I could see it too.
...
A few hours had passed. Our ship hung in space, its engines disabled. The gravity wells had lost power, and passengers hung onto rails, onto shelves, onto anything holdable. I, however, found myself moving quite freely through the ship's narrow hallways. The thought had not occurred to me, except for that moment, that my physiological distinctions would have me well-equipped to manage a deep space crisis scenario. While I depended on my chair to easily navigate spaces designed for bipeds, I found that, in the absence of gravity, those spaces were now designed for me. My tail had allowed me to propel myself through space in the way that we had done back home, in the waters of Terra, for generations. I felt unencumbered. I felt empowered. I felt compelled to act.
Starlight was with me in my quarters when the Great Fish attacked. That's what we've taken to calling it. The flight attendants said it was some manner of Xenofauna, a "shaded whale", or a large and very aggressive fish-like creature, broadly the size of our own starfaring vessel. It seems, by some measure, it had defined some arbitrary bubble of space as its territory, and our long voyage had unwittingly blundered into it. It had caused significant damage to our craft, leaving us adrift, before it was repelled through measures I did not bear witness to. I'm somewhat new to space travel, these things are not known to me. My instincts instructed me to be useful. I swam through the ship, and brought Stitch, the woman from next door, back to my quarters. She was reunited with her son.
...
A few more hours had passed. Life support was stable, and help had arrived. The flight attendants had enlisted my aide in securing the passengers, finding who was missing and leading them back to their assigned quarters. Our vessel was enroute to safety, rigged to the top of an interplanetary rescue vehicle. A sort of deep space tow truck. The thought had never occurred to me that such a thing would exist, but in the moment it felt perfectly obvious. A few members of the rescue crew remained on board our ship with us. A kind doctor attended the passengers, treating their injuries. He was a handsome man, tall and well-built. He had a kind smile to his eyes, I recall feeling eased by his presence. He was accompanied by a Callistan, whose statue overshadowed his own. I had never met a Callistan before. I felt ashamed to assume he was there as some sort of security detail, as some kind of muscle, only to learn that he was the crew's linguist. I recalled the cornucopia of languages I overheard at breakfast and dinner these nights we'd been traveling, and it struck me how useful an interpreter was in the mixed company of space. A sprightly woman made of light also joined us aboard the ship, moving freely, and uninhibited by the lack of gravity. I was told she was a kind of Android, there to lend a hand to the flight crew. They introduced her to me. She said her name was Clover. The flight crew explained how I had used my own physiology to assist in securing my fellow passengers. Clover had altered her own appearance, donning an aquatic tail of her own. It was a comfort to meet her. I asked if she'd like to meet a very brave young man. I introduced her to Starlight.
...
It's been some time since I had arrived at Titan Garden. We'd been towed to the nearest safe harbor after our commercial flight was damaged, and that happened to be a domed colony on Saturn's largest moon. The starline had offered us hotel vouchers, and compensation for our travel expenses. We were to be booked on other flights to continue the remainder of our journeys. Stitch and Starlight had continued home to Neptune. I chose to stay behind on Titan. The city had a roguish charm to it. I'd later learn it was under no governance but its own. It felt like if there were opportunity to be found somewhere in the Sol system, it was here. I had access to my Credit account from Terra, and used part of my modest savings to rent a comfortable apartment in Titan's C-District, a fully-aquatic part of town where you could swim right up to your apartment window. I was not the only amphibious starfarer, and Titan had a district to meet our needs. A bank of hydrolocks allowed us to move between the C-District and the rest of Titan Garden. It felt like home.
I had found my calling in the station's E-District. During my travels I had conceived of a weekly radio program, where I could deliver long, spoken-word performances for a wide radio audience. I would devise these sorts of stream-of-consciousness, first-person narratives, where I would take on the role of a character who finds himself encountering strange, unexplainable or disquieting scenarios, drawn from my own reflections of self, or from the encounters I've had in my journeys. It was my mirror of the universe, a lens through which I could share a slice of the world as I saw it. The performances would be driven by my dry and assertive vocal style, and they would be accompanied by a looping instrumental soundtrack. I'd called the program, The Undertow, and it had found an audience with starfarers throughout the Outer Belt.
The Undertow was given a midnight programming slot on TGR 88.1 FM, broadcasting along the Outer Belt satellite relay network. Starships operate at all hours, so this timeslot was not a hindrance as it would have been back on Terra. People enjoyed listening to my stories while they worked, and I'd expanded the program to include some shorter skits with other vocal performers. These would be informal, spontaneous conversations, assuming a character, and discussing topics of religious, political or intellectual weight. These shorter skits were easy to record, as I could simply ring up some of my old friends from Terra and we'd knock them out over the phone. The grainy crackle of interplanetary communications gave these impromptu skits a sort of warmth. I enjoy recording them.
The format was characterized by my own library of odd or unusual looping musical tracks. Starfarers would often call in to ask where I had gotten them, and how they could get a copy of their own. I'd called around back home to Terra, and found my old friend, Darryn. He greeted me warmly, it had been some time since we'd seen each other. I explained my situation to him, that I had used some of his music as part of a radio program, and that it had been received positively. I asked if he was interested in producing more work in this style. He had grown a successful business back home on Terra producing music for commercial use, but had never found an outlet for his passion projects. He offered me a selection of tracks he had been working on in the time we'd been apart. I made sure he was paid fairly for his work, and told him how to get in touch with me when he has something new to share.
Once The Undertow had gained traction, I tracked down Stitch, the woman from the starliner. She was in town, working on restoring a satellite that had been eaten by Xenofauna. "The Great Fish is at it again, eh?", I'd joked. She laughed a telling laugh. I told her, listen. I've been working on a radio program here on Titan. I'm looking to expand the format. I could use an engineer to help run the show. Would you be interested? She asked about the pay. I'd reported a fair salary. She was quiet, and told me she would have to put in fair notice at her current job. The opportunity was agreeable, and she soon had a stable home for her son at the crossroads of the Sol system. Starlight tells me The Great Fish is a big fan of my program. I smiled and nodded. I don't dare to ask how he knows.