Sounds reverberated around the underwater coral courtroom. The trial's verdict was a foregone conclusion to everyone in the packed chamber; especially the accused astronomer’s son, Ice-Driller. He still held out a small flicker of hope that this convening of the Grand Academy of Science would cause only a ‘deep mark’ on his father’s name. The room was almost frothy, like a feeding frenzy, and Ice-Driller sensed the mob had other ideas. These were not cries for mercy. Dark colors of agitation flashed out from their skin. The bailiffs had already removed one agitated decapod, unable to keep his squeaks low.

The water was warm and trending hotter. The trial had already covered many topics, but the failure and death of a worker decapod was the convenient pretext to attack all of his father’s writings. Construction deaths did not happen often. Decapods were quick, boneless, and flighty, but it was not impossible for one to be crushed by a slab of stone.

The courtroom was now quiet except for the designated pinger who sent out small bursts of sound so everyone could visualize the dark room. The walls, ceiling, and floor were coated with soft mats to keep echoes down. Only the furnishings and the people lit up to the echoes.

“Build-Strong, a construction manager for thousands of tides, is present.” The bailiff announced.

The last witness swam out from an antechamber to a spot near the floor under the adjudicator.

“And how long did you work for Ice-Gazer, the accused?” The prosecutor asked.

“I have worked with him for around five hundred sleeps,” the witness replied. The prosecutor clarified it was over 100 tides.

In the next series of questions, the witness described their prior relationship—his experience with chitin processing, construction of the pressure rooms out of chi-crete—things of no concern to the cosmological facts on trial. They were the minutia only to bolster the competence of the worker in the minds of the jury. The defense objected, the trial moved on. The prosecution moved onto the construction of the scientific station, built at the edge of the ice wall.

There, the construction worker was killed, wedged between the connecting the vertical hallway, and up to the last room. Discussions between the defense and prosecution bounced back and forth about who was actually at fault, but ultimately the liability for building such an extraordinary room, one that stuck out through the ice, was laid at the arms of Ice-Gazer.

“Now describe to me the last room. The Observatory, as the accused called it.”

“This was the trickiest. It was a conical room with a pointed dome made of clear cartilage. And on top of this dome was a small tusk, an ‘ice breaker,’ as the plans labeled it. We placed it in position, then pressurized the room. At the pre-estimated pressure, I released the holds. The room shot up through the last length of ice.”

“Did you inspect your work after installation?”

“Once it was safe, I entered the room.”

“Tell us now, what did you perceive, either through echolocation, or local heat-sense?”

“I dared not stay for long, but I pressed my sound melon against the last wall and sent out echoes into the room. When I was confident (the room would hold), I opened the hatch and listened. No sound of leaks or cracks. In fact, I couldn’t sense much. So much so that the most noticeable thing was the silence. A blank world where no echoes returned. All the myths they taught us were true, the Nullworld exists!”

Pops and squeaks came from the crowd, and a few closest to the walls sent out targeted-sounds through the walls trying to communicate to waiting bodies outside the courtroom. The bailiffs swam up, and the crowd calmed down and floated quietly.

“So you could be visualize nothing past the ice?”

“No! It was the actual end of the Universe! Nothing was echolocated past the observatory.”

There you have it, “Nothing exists past. The. Final. Room.” The prosecutor added staccato to the last sentence. “Did you perceive anything else with any other sense? Smell, heat-color?”

“I went into the room and peered through my skin, my emotional vision, but detected nothing. Emotional darkness in the room. Cold.”

“Did you peer through… um, with one’s… more intimate skin?” The prosecutor got out.

Laughter and snorts went up through the courtroom’s coral stone amphitheater.

“No… Never.” said the manager. “That’s obscene.” They used infrared for very close range emotions. Blues for group cohesion. But the most sensitive skin was in a protected pocket on their underbelly and used for copulation.

“So you cannot confirm the defendant’s claim that he saw something, a ‘large striped ball,’ a massive source of infrared?”

“No.”

“There you have it, nothing to support this mad clam’s claims.” The prosecutor added triumphantly.

“Your honor, I object to that defamation!” Ice-Gazer’s lawyer said.

“Noted. Please strike the remark. The decapod is not a clam,” the Adjudicator said.

“Also, please refer to the doctor by his full title: Doctor of Metaphysics’ or Dr. Mpf.” (The title he was defending) the lawyer added.

Ice-Gazer took the stand for the last time. He shot his body up to the top center of the large room. Above the raised platform, here he was to perch. The accused began in a voice tired of the whole sick show. “Esteemed Colleagues, Members of the court, and Citizens of Deepvent, and various barnacles here for the spectacle,” he signed. “I have attended the same lectures as you all here at the best academy in our universe. I have gone through all the requirements to achieve our highest degrees that this noble institution can bestow on anyone.”

A pause and then he sloughed off his frustration and spoke his mind. “Our whole cosmology is outdated. Our God, Aquarius, god of heat, magma, and the center, is not the only thing in the universe. There is something much larger just beyond the ice!”

The crowd burst forth in shouts. Loud knocks of the judge’s rock mallet on the stone podium rang out. The bailiffs removed an agitated member and everyone settled down.

“Now, I realize this ruptures our commonly held theology,” he said as one remembering the situation he was in. “But I cannot convince you using the facts, nor using my credentials… I can give you the instructions and then let you discover the truth for yourself. I am beyond disappointed that the ice has drifted and obscured the view. But we can still see other things. If you build at a different longitude—towards the bulge—then you will see a large striped crescent hanging in the Nullworld. You have the silver sonographic plates to guide you. You can work out the angles for yourself.” At that, the old decapod shot back to his stone in the front row and crossed his tentacles.

More pips and squeaks came from the audience. “The rabble rouser seeks to implode our cosmology, not enlighten it,” someone exclaimed.

He looked for his son and sent out an ping to locate him. Many others nearby flashed their personal identities, but Ice Gazer did not see his son. He stayed on the dais awaiting further useless accusations.

Outside the courthouse building, Ice-Driller propelled himself away at high speed through the city of Deepvent. He sent out haphazard echolocations and others sensing his jerky movements, gave him a wide berth. Some other citizens replied defensively: ‘don’t hit me hot-soot’ or a more sarcastic variety: ‘look out for speedy-no-shark over there.’ Ice-Driller didn’t care. He was on the verge of losing everything he and his father had worked for.

Ice-Driller knew the Academy would shut down the research center; though the costs were manageable, the peculiar findings were difficult to align with the power structure. It poked too many holes through the thin reasoning of other fields of study, such as Sphereism, Coreology, to name a few. Ice-Driller hated the types who flocked to those positions, all theorists and no rock hard ideas.

Ice-Driller swam amongst the plaza population. Rumors flew between those he passed: “I heard the project will destroy the universe. Breaking the ice-shell will erupt all water into Nullworld.” “Me too, and we’re being invaded because by Hotsmoke to prevent a cataclysm.”

Others were more superstitious: “The ultimate battle is nigh. Our god versus the Nullworld deity. Nothing can stop it!” Read one sign in the plaza.

Ice-Driller almost stopped his swim to counter the vapid claims. But he knew from long tides of trying that a hard mind was impossible to change. Curse the Academy, well at least they will soon be out of power, he thought. The Royal Society funded the Academy, which maintained its status from the dual graces of the Monarch and the congress of leaders. The people worked, the military protected, the leaders led, but the erudite of science had failed to make progress. Now the swarming city-state of Hotsmoke had declared war, Hotsmoke and Deepvent’s military leadership was in charge. Many valueless expenditures of energy were being culled. The military gave no quarter for any idle thinking, let alone the universe upending kind.

The thought, the inverted paradigm—the insurrectionist idea—that their Universe was not a bounded sphere had been slowly moving the minds. Imperceptibly at first, like the silt in slack tide, barely progressing. But in the last dozen tides, Ice-Gazer and his allies had moved this infectious idea into the public superstition and carried everyone’s mind in a strong current. But not everyone was convinced. Ice-Driller had heard every variation of caution. In his mind, it was idle theorizing from the deep-dwellers who never decompressed and ventured from the seafloor.

Bottomdwellers! He thought, but it was not much of an insult. ‘Rockheads’ would have been a better snub.

They disgusted him, and he was going to do something about it. If they wouldn’t swim up, he would bring reality down. His plan was going to be executed. His research would force them to recognize. That was the plan before this talk of war. He was making it up as he swam. In Ice-Driller’s mind, ‘dangerous research’ was a poor pretext for war. That thought would ‘push over in gentile tides,’ as the decapods might say. The real motivation was to capture another vent to replace theirs rumored to have gone cold. Hotsmoke was less hot, and intelligent life hung on a spear’s tip of balance. Society had become intelligent enough to see how little energy was available for surplus. It was eat or be eaten.

As he darted through the coral city, they released the news from nearby megaphones. “ICE-GAZER FOUND GUILTY OF THEOLOGIC DISTURBANCES” the announcer said. Echoes resounded. Writers were already etching those words in tonight’s sonopictorial news.

Ordinarily theological disagreements inside the Academy were ignored, but since the war with Hotsmoke, Deepvent’s military establishment clamped down on idle thought. The Military wanted results, and if it didn’t produce more spears, armor, or victuals, then it was culled. They would push any idle body, refusing to work or fight, into torpor. And an ice-shell research station was not strategic.

The announcers moved on to Ice-Gazer’s penalty: imprisonment in a soundproof dungeon. Induced torpor. A sealed box with heavy insulation to dull any sounds, in a cold location elevated from the seafloor. Sensory deprivation and hibernation.

I’ll free you, Ice-Driller thought.

He turned a corner and was startled by an ping.

He failed to suppress the reflex, and his bioluminescent skin flashed out his unique chromatic imprint. This decapod was uninterested, and ignored Ice-Driller, not knowing his name or the relation to Ice-Gazer on the megaphone news.

Ice-Driller darted around the decapod, and barreled through the narrow alley.

Good, Ice-Driller thought and darted towards his goal.

Squeaks and pings rang out. Ordinary noise for a bustling city, but then a targeted echolocation, a tight beam of sound, hit him from behind. Someone noticed him from afar and glared at him.

Ice-Driller got out of the swimlane, darted down, and threw up silt. Then he pushed his body flat against the coral wall as he expected another echolocation attempt. His siphon pushed water in and out quickly as he respirated heavily from the swim.

Another targeted ping rang out. It hit the nearby wall, and the echoes muffled around him. How little silt in the water could obscure the ground’s truth. He thought.

Up ahead, the city glowing warm and thin streams of hot water leaked up past cooler walls and coral circles marking in negative the swimlanes most used to traverse long city distances. He was near the city’s foundry complex, and past the loud mechanical sounds the foundry made, his research institute’s building sat.

He walked on the seafloor under the swimlane. City decapods glided back and forth, and Ice-Driller stalked from below where ordinary decapods might mingle without impeding those traveling fast. Down on the street, he’d swim slowly to not attract attention. He turned a corner and detected a few other decapods and the large foundry building in front of him.

“REGISTER WITH YOUR LOCAL MILITIA LEADER. YOUR DUTY IS MADATORY.” The megaphone rang out and lit the surrounding area with echoes.

Two decapods were in front of him, conversing. One shot out a friendly but Ice Driller suppressed his response.

Those two did not interfere or ask to identify again. In less populated locales, not showing your colors was rude. But, in this city, it was different. He jetted on past toward the foundry. He hesitated, swimming up, as it might reveal himself, so he continued the crawl towards his goal.

Behind him, another sound, and the two decapods he passed flashed their personal colors. Ice-Driller had low perception at his angle, but someone was searching, checking everybody.

“City Patrol. Show your colors,” a decapod said.

With his tentacles, he kicked up sediment on the seafloor and swam faster in open water. Around him, there were hatches leading to many small homes.

Ice-Driller swam faster, kicking up more sand. He followed under the swimlane, which would take a hard turn ahead. He darted around the corner, straight into another two-decapod patrol. “City Patrol. Identify,” said one. Ice-Driller suppressed his identity. The decapods themselves flashed their colors. Ice-Driller could see a small section of their body was blocked by their uniform, which was a coral stone of double overlapped curves: §. This blocked their bioluminescence, revealing their ranks.

Not flashing your identity at a decapod of authority was worse than rude. It was suspicious. And on the eve of war it certainly was here in Deepvent—it was criminal. The officers spread out and sent out a long distance call to summon other officers in the vicinity. The alert was repeated and echoed down the street as upstanding citizens rebroadcast the sound for others to hear.

The patrolmen split up and attempted to corner Ice-Driller against the building. They called . He lit up.

It took the patrolman a second to respond. “He’s the one we’re looking for!”

“You are under arrest. Come quietly now,” the other said. The other office unfolded a net.

Ice-Driller knew another patrol was behind him, so he darted straight up at full speed. Echolocation pings and replies erupted from below him. The two followed him up.

The industrial structure was several dozen body-lengths high. Ice-Driller could make out the mechanical sounds through the rock walls. Near the top, his infrared sense saw a hot water leak. Ice-Driller swam and found a small opening. He pushed his arms in quickly and wrested the rest of his body through, using his arms for leverage.

The rough opening scraped over his marbled skin. It hurt, but the sound was worse. As he forcibly contorted his sound melon (the largest semi-solid structure in a decapod body) through the narrow opening, his perception of reality became distorted. Ow! Something popped in his melon.

With his head fully in, he and found a small round tool and wedged it into the hole. Then darted toward the far wall. Behind him, an officer was removing the tool and trying to pursue.

Ice-Driller darted around the various pieces of equipment: strainers, condensers, accumulators, and other metallurgical hardware to separate metal spewed by the hydrothermal vent many basements below.

He swam towards the hot water, now becoming uncomfortable. In front of Ice-Driller was an enormous industrial press. Pipes around glowed hot.

The long trapezoidal press head hit the stone slab, instantly about ten long metal poles—spears for war—were pressed into existence.

“Stop,” he heard behind him over the drone of the machinery. The patroller was through the hole and pursuing.

Ice-Driller swam towards the stamping press.

The bottom slab jerked and the metal poles rolled off. A focused worker dropped new metallic pellets on the press bottom.

the press slammed down, the rush of current slowed Ice-Driller down as the massive rock displaced the water and struck the metal shavings. High pressure impact left a die-cast part, which the operator removed with several of his arms, while another loaded pellets into the die. The retracting rock press sucked Ice-Driller in and he used this momentum to shoot through the press open press. The officer did not follow and instead swam around to a locked safety gate.

“Open this gate!” The patrolman asked the press operator.

“Security,” the press operator said. “Who are you?” He asked.

“Open this now!” The officer shot back.

“We can’t. It’s locked for safety reasons!”

Pressures from other presses pushed and moved currents around in unexpected ways. Safety cages and holds let a worker know where to stand, to keep them from being sucked in into the exposed machinery. Ice-Driller had darted through, over, and around all the machines with disregard for his safety. The heat was unbearable. The rich pay for hot water, while these workers get it for free, he thought.

He detected cooler waters and exited the building into the anonymity of the bustling swimlane.

Another ping swept over the lane from above the building. It hit those around him, but he continued. Ahead was the Institute of Ice Sciences, and at the top of the building was an ascender, readied and waiting. The institute was a normal stone building, three above-ground stories, with another ten below. Considered odd by his colleagues, Ice-Driller’s office was on the top floor. Higher levels were far from the heated water circulated below and (potentially) more exposed to predators.

He let out clicks and visualized its location—yes; he recognized exactly where he was. The external hatch to his office was open. It was the predesignated signal that she was ready.

Now another patrol was coming over the top of the foundry, and swept over the nearby decapods with targeted sound. He was swimming perpendicular to the traffic for the last dash to his building. Their sounds hit him, lighting him up for everyone to distinguish. The patrollers raced toward him, over the traffic in the swimlanes and towards Ice-Driller.

At the top of the building, his accomplice waited, wrapping four of her prehensile arms together in angst, five more arms wrapped around the ascender’s basket, and the final one gingerly holding the release. She had been out in cold water, exposed on the top of the roof for what seemed like an entire sleep, waiting for Ice-Driller. The commotion was unmistakable.

“Quick! The entire city can see you swimming.” the assistant said.

“Did you grab everything?”

“Yes, get in.”

“—The pressure suits?” Ice-Driller said while climbing in.

“Yes! And too late if we didn’t.” She said and pulled the release.The craft’s vertical ascent pinned them to the floor. One roped harpoon hit the ascender, but bounced off ineffectually. “Good for him,” she said. “We’d have pulled him up to his doom.”

“Thanks my mate.” Ice-driller said between breaths. He flashed a more intimate signal to his spouse.

“There’s no time for that!” She flashed red back rapidly. “Help me with the pressure wraps.” Study-Up said. She opened a storage box and dumped out their counter-pressure wraps, made of elastic webbing.

The ascender was a small tube used to ferry materials vertically through Europa’s oceans to the ice-shell above. It had a few small hutches at the bottom for them to sleep in, supplies tied down in the center, and a pilot’s cockpit where the controls were. It was pill shaped except for small fins to change the plane of ascent.“Here’s your hard-shell,” Study-Up said. She passed a custom formed shell to Ice-Driller, grown from the periostracum of domesticated gastropods.With their ten adroit tentacles, they dressed themselves quickly. Already they felt the effects of lower pressures: the noises they made changed in pitch as one of their sound-making organs expanded, and the pains. Blood pressures lowered, and any exposed skin expanded. The counterpressure devices, both the wraps and the hard-shell worked. They no longer felt underpressured. No one could follow them, not at their speed. The average decapod from the city had never been so high, nor so fast.“What a jam you’ve got my name into.” Study-Up said.

“Your father warned you about me.”

“But did I listen?” She shot a chirp at him.

“Nope.”

They both scurried to the cockpit. Then Ice-Driller released gasses, slowing their vessel’s climb. They settled in to the long ascent up to low pressure.