THE THEORY OF BUBBLES
It was dark down here. And cold.
Otubrab puckered his face and dove harder, following the light jiggling from Bellicosity’s tail. Immense jagged shadows covered the valley’s slopes... and, now and then, Otubrab could hear rumbling, faint and faraway. If he stopped to listen, even for an instant, he would lose Bellicosity. what had brought Bellicosity down here in the first place?
Ahead, the sea floor leveled, and Bellicosity slowed down to study one of the huge silhouettes. He advanced carefully, looking from boulder to boulder. Otubrab coasted up behind him and looked too. This was the deepest he’d ever been. This was against the rules.
Bellicosity flicked a fin at a huge rock. “Under that ‘un. You’ve never seen anything like him.”
“Like whom?”
“Stay here.”
Bellicosity darted to a cavity under the rock and peeked in. “FREAKI” he yelled, then shot back to Otubrab. They were both still. They watched and listened.
“Hear anything?” whispered Bellicosity.
“At times, I think I hear a distant rumble,” said Otubrab.
Bellicosity listened. “Can’t hear it. I’ll do it again.”
He darted to the rock and eyed the blackness in the cavity.
“HEY WEIRDO. YA GOT COMP-AN-Y?”
He quickly swam back.
Again, they were still.
Otubrab stared so hard at the cavity he imagined seeing something wiggle inside. “Can’t you hear sort of a... a... faint rumble?” he whispered.
Bellicosity listened. “I hear nothin’. Wavaboo wouldn’t rumble anyway. Don’t think he’s gonna come out.”
He swam up to the cavity. “Hey Sevenaboo! Come out, see us little fishies.”
Otubrab angled for a better fix on the rumble but, unmistakably, in the cavity, something snake-like churned. It squirmed and swelled until, in a writhing knot of red and white tentacles, an octopus emerged.
Bellicosity smirked at Otubrab. Otubrab looked. This octopus was... not exactly right.
“Now SEVENABOO, not con-sid-er-ate of you to keep your finned friends wait’n,” said Bellicosity.
The octopus moved his gaze from his snarled tentacles to Bellicosity. “My name is Wavaboo.”
“But you’ve only got seven tentacles. Isn’t Sevenaboo a better name?”
“I have eight tentacles.”
“Eiqht? Your tentacles are so tangled up, you don’t know how many you’ve got. Nobody does. Nobody ever will!”
“Your logic... is more tangled than my tentacles. You say nobody knows how many I have, then you say I have seven.” Wavaboo’s yellow eyes pinched together. “Extremely illogical. I’d take tangled tentacles over tangled brains anytime.”
But Wavaboo looked back down at his tentacles and his eyes grew concerned. Otubrab looked too. He’d never seen such chaos.
“Seven, eight, three hundred ten-ta-cles—what’s the difference?” said Bellicosity. “As messed-up as yours are, you’d be better off with none.”
“MESSED-UP?” Wavaboo’s eyes flared. “I suppose if one is... simple-minded enough that’s all one sees. Looking at it logically, they’re an extraordinarily intricate arrangement—intricate enough to exceed the best theories on knots and tangles. But then... simple fish know nothing of the Theory of Knots and Tangles.” Wavaboo’s eyes floated apart. “Oh, the possibilities... the possibilities... the possibilities.”
“Look out!” said Bellicosity. “He’s got theeee-ries! And what good have your flotsam theeee-ries done? Goon, you’re as tangled now as you ever were.”
“A little... time,” said Wavaboo. “There’s much to consider. Twists, and turns, and bends, but also! how twists affect bends, and...” Wavaboo looked back up at Bellicosity, his eyes wobbling in his head. “Yes...in time, I’ll be an expert on knots and tangles. Theory. And practice. After all,” he looked back down at his tentacles, seeing I’m the way I am... I have no choice.”
“Th’ol TANGLE expert, huh?” said Bellicosity. “On getting into them or out of them?”
“Actually...” said Wavaboo, rubbing between his eyes with the free tip of one tentacle, “actually, it’s the same thing...” His eyes focused afar-off. “Assuming causal symmetry holds, assuming unimpeded reversalism—which has not been absolutely proved, mind you—if you know how to get into tangles, the reverse will get you out.” Wavaboo gazed back at Bellicosity and his face hardened again.
Otubrab blinked. “Definitely...very, theoretical,” he said to himself.
“What’d ya make of it, Tub?” Bellicosity grinned back. “We have the makings of a the-o-ret-i-cal ex-pert here?”
Managing tentacles... is complicated,” said Wavaboo, stretching to see whom else Bellicosity was talking to. “I don’t wonder that fish, possessed only of a few little fins and a little tail, can’t comprehend. Oh, the differences between fins and tentacles.... Just ask your friends what octopi do with their tentacles, and you will get a bewildering assortment of answers—They pry crabs apart with them, they crawl into bottles with them, they carry their eggs with them everywhere they go, and they stick them out straight to camouflage themselves as large eight-legged star fish. You’re even likely to hear they strangle Airheads with them, dragging them down into the unfathomable, murky depths of the tossing sea.”
Wavaboo smiled at that thought. “Umm... anyway—the answers you will get, some sounding practical and being absurd; some sounding incalculably absurd and being eminently practical. How paradoxical it is! Even the wisest octopus doesn’t know all uses for tentacles.
“But,” Wavaboo pointed a tentacle at Bellicosity, “ask what fish do with their fins, and you will get one, constant, simple answer. They swim. That’s it. They swim.”
Wavaboo looked at Bellicosity, then Otubrab, and massaged the wrinkles above his eyes. “Embellish it as you like—with our fins, we swim fast or slow, straight or crooked, in this direction or that.” He paused. “But it’s the same, really. Unimpressive possibilities. Fins cannot even grasp things. Even with my tentacles severely tangled, as you say, I can do that. A tentacled creature, knotted or unknotted, is more dexterous than a finned creature can ever be.”
Wavaboo studied the two fish.
Otubrab noticed that one particular tentacle in the massive knot gently pulled and tugged, trying to slither free. He half-expected it to escape. But after stretching the knot slightly one way, then another, the lone tentacle gave up its rebellion and the knot returned slowly to its original shape.
“And an Octopi’s complexity goes beyond what you see,” continued Wavaboo. “Did you know that an octopus has three hearts? Three. More than the both of you put together.
“And symmetry. Octopi have more planes of symmetry than any fish.” Wavaboo withdrew the tentacle from his forehead. “You know, it’s possible that’s what a tangle is—a lack of a certain kind of symmetry.” He refocused on Bellicosity. “So, little fish, your very simplicity prevents you from comprehending the possibilities of managing tentacles.” He chuckled. “It is difficult indeed to get tangled with only fins and a tail. Theoretically impossible.”
Wavaboo studied the little fish a second longer, then, tentacles gyrating, he flounced into his den.
“Told ya he’s strange,” said Bellicosity.
Otubrab blinked. “How did you ever find…?” But there it was again—definitely a rumble. It wasn’t Wavaboo. He listened carefully... It was gone. He looked back at Bellicosity. “Have you ever thought about that—how versatile tentacles would be?”
“Oh, versatile alright. You can tangle them up in hundreds of ways.”
“Not all octopi are tangled up, and tentacles do seem to have more... possibilities, than just fins.”
Bellicosity’s face wrinkled. “Flotsam and jetsam, I don’t believe it! Do ya work at being a such a SUCKER, or does it come naturally?” He flared his lips out like a sucker.
Otubrab looked away. But again, there was that sound. “You don’t hear that?”
“Hear what?” said Bellicosity, turning for the bank. “I find the biggest weirdo in the sea, show him to you—you turned instantly try to out-weird him. Goo-ood work.” He turned around “Ought ‘a call you Weird-rab, or O’sucker.” He turned back and swam. “Gonna be late again, snail tail?”
Otubrab looked at the cavity. The Theory of Knots and Tangles... Narrowhead never lectured on such things. Bellicosity had probably ruined any chance of Wavaboo explaining…
“TUB-HEAD!!”
“Coming.”
They bolted up the valley, then south through the eel grass on the bank’s ridge. At the sand bed, the smallest fry saw Bellicosity barreling in and gave him wide berth, but he was too pooped to tease them. Otubrab puffed in behind him.
In an instant, Narrowhead nosed out of the kelp. Among the little fish, movements ceased; the water itself seemed to acquire a chill. Narrowhead was a behemoth of a sea perch. The spines of his dorsal fin stuck out grotesquely past the webs, like those of a rockfish or a snapper; and his small, squeezed-in face—which appeared badly fitted to his gigantic, dusky-colored body—always looked angry.
A few strokes put Narrowhead at center sand. His ancient grey eyes, which seemed to harbor permanent scorn for small fry, inspected the little fish. He aimed a particularly contemptuous glance at Bellicosity. Otubrab knew the look would be returned.
Then he spoke.
“It is time to delve into serious matters. I speak of a fry’s duty to its school.” He swam slowly to the edge of the sand bed, then turned back.
Otubrab didn’t understand this. The fry remained painfully still during lectures, while Narrowhead moseyed all over. If swimming around helped Narrowhead get ideas out, then it should help the fry get them in. But no— according to Narrowhead, fidgeting during lectures was intolerably rude of fry.
With his chin jutting out and his eyes looking over it, Narrowhead droned on about, “duty.” The school might suffer a mollusk shortage, or shrimp shortage, or a water spider shortage, but so long as it had Narrowhead, it wouldn’t suffer a word shortage. Otubrab itched for a lecture on how far a sea perch had ever journeyed from the kelp bed and returned, or the last time a member of the school had actually seen a Great White.
“Let us think about survival,” said Narrowhead finally. “Consider our friends, the decapod crustacea.”
The young sea perch looked at each other.
“Crabs,” said Narrowhead, “Crabs’ Have any of you ever eaten a mature rock crab?”
Otubrab had eaten very small, soft-shelled crabs but, a mature rock crab? Impossible.
“So, none of you has ever eaten one? And why not?” Narrowhead asked, as if they all should have.
The young perch looked at each other, reluctant to say the most obvious thing.
“Their shells,” said one tiny fellow, finally.
“Yes, nearly impenetrable carapaces.”
The little fish relaxed. “They have big pincers,” came another answer I
“And formidable chela,” said Narrowhead. “Carapaces, chela—these are specializations for survival. To a rock crab, they mean survival. Without them, the creature is doomed.”
“WE do not have carapaces or chela.”
“You’ve noo-ooticed,” snickered Bellicosity. Most of the fry giggled.
“Silence!“ demanded Narrowhead.
Nor do we have tentacles, thought Otubrab.
“Do sea perch have specializations for survival?” asked Narrowhead, looking at the fry like he’d wasted the question on them, but expecting an answer anyway. “For sea perch, what is the key to survival?”
The fry looked at each other. No one answered.
“Then I expect none of you shall miss our next class when we discuss this vital topic.”
Most of the young sea perch quickly swam off.
Narrowhead started for the kelp but realizing the sand bed was not empty, he turned toward Otubrab. “What?”
“…just how... complex are sea perch?”
Narrowhead eyed him suspiciously. The silence grew heavy. Otubrab wished he had not asked the question. “What I mean is... what... what do octopi do with their tentacles?”
“Please repeat,” said Narrowhead, his eyes not moving.
“What do octopi do with their tentacles?”
“A great many things. Have you a specific question on their utilization of them?”
“... I guess I just want to know what they do most often with them.”
Narrowhead thought for a moment, “I suppose, most often they clean their lairs.”
“And what do fish do with their fins?”
Narrowhead’s eyes enlarged, and he twitched. “What kind of asininity is this?”
“I... I just want to know the proper way to explain to other creatures what we do with our fins.”
“I see.” Narrowhead took a deep breath, his face pinching tightly. “Have you been asked this lately?”
“No.”
“I should think it would be terribly obvious what we do with our fins. WE SWIM!”
“Uh... yes... well, that’s what I thought I should say.”
Otubrab slowly backed away and swam until he was out of Narrowhead’s sight.
What he should have asked, was—
“Otubrab? In the surf again?”
He spun around. “Kinesia, I’ve... I’ve…” He looked at her.
“You’ve... you’ve... what?”
“... been thinking about Narrowhead’s lecture.”
She flinched. “That must be a first.”
Otubrab smiled and looked down.
“Well, I’m floating here, dying to know what Narrowhead has finally said that deserves your contemplation.”
“It’s partly what he does say, and partly what he doesn’t. You know what he talks about all the time.”
“He is horrible, isn’t he? We’re trying to fix that.”
“Kinesia, do you feel special—I mean, being a sea perch and all?”
“Why would a sea perch be more special or less special than any other creature?”
“Lock at us. We’re made of the simplest parts—fins and tails.”
“What would you like?”
“... something like tentacles.”
Kinesia backed up and squinted. “No, they wouldn’t be very catching on you.”
“Kinesia!”
“Otubrab! Simple creatures don’t ask the questions you ask.” She smiled. “But I should have expected this.”
“What?”
“You getting hooked on the absurdity of whether sea perch are up to the task of... being. Suppose you decide we’re not. What will you do? You are a sea perch, you know. There’s no changing that.”
“But survival—being so simple could affect it.”
“Doesn’t it seem that if we were not up to the task of being, we would not be?”
She didn’t understand. She confused the whole business. He hoped the big fish would listen to her, but even for a fish who knew the school like she did, getting Narrowhead replaced would be like swallowing a whale.
“What does an octopus do with its tentacles?”
Kinesia thought. “They pull themselves about.”
“What does a fish do with its fins?”
“Um.... swim?” She waited. “I don’t get it.”
“There’s nothing to get.”
“Simple? Otubrab, your riddles swamp me. I’m not going to try to figure this one out.”
“Shhh,” he said. He swiveled sideways.
Kinesia froze.
“Do you hear that?”
She listened. “No.”
“...a distant rumble. I’m sure of it.” He angled for a better fix. “... such a peculiar rhythm.”
Kinesia strained to hear. “You’re certain?”
“Yes. What is it?”
He started swimming, turning sideways to fix on the sound. Kinesia twisted her pectoral fins into a so-long salute and watched him go.
It was coming from the north. He swam slowly at first. It wasn’t the hum the pilings sang out when Airheads worked on the dock; it was softer, slower, and it came from the seaward side of the bank—far from the docks. He swam faster. It grew louder, but he couldn’t categorize it. It wasn’t a propeller or a rippler sound. It wasn’t a whale’s song. It probably wasn’t a creature sound, and it didn’t sound like an Airhead sound. He kept going.
He was out of the school’s territory, much farther than he believed he should have gone, when he saw the first shimmers of light—not shimmers of sea perch, or milk fish, or fish at all—but of the water itself, as if something extraordinary was happening, as if the very water was frolicking with joy. It was like—he swam closer—bubbles! The water was crazy with them—gigantic bubbles, sparkling, rumbling, swirling bubbles, thicker than kelp in a forest. Some huge. There looked to be bubbles within bubbles, and perhaps bubbles within them. They were fast, ripping skyward, shedding smaller bubbles, wobbling. They thundered. The water dance in their reverberations. Just being there was like getting zapped by an electric eel.
He swam closer. Bubbles kept coming, thousands upon ludicrous thousands of them. Small down beyond the ridge, they expanded as they rose, speeding faster and faster, wobbling more recklessly. They often collided; sometimes they popped. The biggest ones flattened on top and broke apart. He could probably fit inside a big one. Yes! here was something a sea perch could do that a versatile octopus couldn’t. Zooming skyward, inside a bubble—it would be the ride of a life.
What in the sea were they doing here?
He dove alongside the plumes. Suddenly, he saw them—the most bedazzlingly complicated creatures imaginable. Two of them. Parts oozed from them, parts hung off them, parts coiled around them, crazy parts in orange and yellow and silver—silver particularly on dangling parts.
Did the bubbles come from…? —he blinked—YES! Directly from the creatures, where their mouths should have been. He watched. They flailed crazily—they made ungainly Wavaboo look as graceful as a manta—but they went practically nowhere • They ascended slowly, sweeping their big-finned legs back and forth. He followed. They kept looking up through their own bubbles. Otubrab looked up too.
A rippler! They ascended in its shadow.
It was mad. There had to be Airheads aboard. A strange encounter—these bubble-blowers and Airheads?
They went up and up.
The first bubble-maker broke surface and hooked an arm on the rippler. The other followed. An Airhead peered over the side of the rippler and extended an arm.
“Airheads!” Otubrab gasped. “They’re Airheads! They’re in the water, but they’re Airheads! They look like Airheads on the dock, except—”
The first bubbling-making Airhead pried off its fins, then squirmed out of its dorsal cylinder.
Otubrab spun around, “Parts, that can be just taken off.”
The Airhead in the rippler hoisted up the dangling parts of the wet airheads. The wet ones heaved themselves aboard, rocking the rippler and sending the dry Airhead scrambling for a hold. Otubrab poked his eyes above the surface as they shed even more parts—belts, straps, bags. With each part doffed, the bubble-makers looked more like ordinary Airheads, like the one in the rippler. Otubrab had never imagined such possibilities. Narrowhead was leaving too much out of their education.
Otubrab ducked to wet his eyes. A zipping crackle shot just above his head. He popped back up. One of the wet Airheads was peeling off its skin! But... it didn’t hurt- the Airhead laughed with the other two. It hunched the skin, a thick black coating, up around its shoulders; the others grabbed it, pulling it off over the wet Airhead’s head.
“Interchangeable skin!” Otubrab mumbled. “Is everything about Airheads interchangeable?”
The creature peeled more interchangeable skin down to its knees, then sat down and tugged it off over its feet. Except for slight wetness, the Airhead who had just stripped its skin looked exactly like the one from the rippler.
Otubrab moistened his eyes again and popped back up to be sure he had seen it all correctly.
The Airheads waved their spidery arms in the air and wagged their round heads on their long skinny necks and made those raspy sounds that Airheads make in the air.
Otubrab swam closer.
The Airheads worked levers and knobs on the rippler; the craft roared to life, its propeller whipped around, and it pounded off over the water, leaving Otubrab in its wash.
He dove and watched its shadow glide across the sand.
Parts, that can be taken off. Parts, that are part of you one instant and not the next. Interchangeable parts. Incredible. More versatile than tentacles. He had to be the first sea perch ever to witness Airheads doffing interchangeable parts, clear down to interchangeable skin.
He stirred his pectoral fins. They were small and simple. They flipped back and forth and tilted up and down a bit. They couldn’t change shape. Tails were more flexible, but they couldn’t twist like tentacles. They couldn’t grasp and, certainly, they weren’t removable. Sea perch were too simple to get tangled up. How had they survived all these years?
Going home, he detoured to the pilings under the dock, where, spying around quickly—rules against playing under the dock were strict—he eased his face into the air. Airheads were on the dock, but they weren’t using thudders or rumblers. They weren’t doing anything.
He sank back down and stroked to the bank, to a dip in the ridge. He peered down the grassless slopes. He’d broken enough rules for one day... But Narrowhead never talked about bubble-blowing Airheads or interchangeable parts. Surely, he knew. There were so many secrets from fry.
He slipped into the valley. It was darker and colder without Bellicosity. Each time he stopped to turn back, he thought about bubbles and interchangeable parts and swam deeper, and deeper still, until he was threading his way between tall boulders on the valley’s floor. He stopped at Wavaboo’s cavity and looked in. “Wavaboo?”
“Umm,“ he thought he heard someone mumble, but then there was a silence.
“Wavaboo?” he called more loudly.
“Ummm... er, yes?“
Several writhing tentacles and two huge yellow eyes appeared in the darkest shadows. The tentacles stopped twisting. The great eyes studied him. Otubrab shivered uncontrollably.
“You’re Bellicosity’s... confederate, are you not?”
“Confederate? I don’t think so—not confederate.”
Wavaboo’s eyes pinched together so hard they became pointed.
“...I’m not like him.”
“You look like him.”
“But I’m different.”
The great yellow eyes probed as if trying to look inside him and see the difference. “What do you want?”
“I was hoping to talk to you about survival.” Otubrab glanced at the suction cups on Wavaboo’s muscular tentacles. “I must find out what the key to a sea perch’s survival is. Do you know?”
Wavaboo’s eyes went nearly round. “Logically, a creature should be an expert on its own survival. It shouldn’t have to go around asking other creatures.” He thought for a moment anyway. “No, I guess I don’t. Why do you ask me? Don’t you have experts in your school?”
“Yes, uh, but they don’t seem to know very much. And the reason I want to know about survival, is so that I can survive.”
“Most... illogical.”
“Wanting to survive?”
“No. Of course not, but experts who don’t know very much? Your school is so illogical.”
“Yes, it is.”
Wavaboo rubbed his pulsating head. “Most creatures have obvious adaptations for survival—the clam’s shell, the crab’s pincers, the urchin’s spins, the eel’s electricity. But it isn’t clear what a sea perch’s are. Logic certainly isn’t one of them.” He shook his head.
“Are special adaptations the only way?”
“That or luck.”
“Well, can you suggest improvements for sea perch, to make them more survivable?”
“They should definitely be more logical. That can’t help but enhance survivability. Beyond that... it strikes me that sea perch are small. Perhaps if you were larger and stronger. Sharks have survived—”
“Sharks? Yeah. Fine. How do sea perch go about becoming more like sharks?”
“You asked me to suggest improvements; you didn’t ask about implementation. And I don’t know.”
“We sea perch do have a survival problem.”
“No more than any other creature,” said Wavaboo.
Otubrab’s eyes widened. “What’s yours?”
“Could it be more obvious? I cannot prove that I have eight tentacles.”
“Does that affect survival?”
“Certainly! Survival is more than breathing water. An octopi’s glory is its tentacles; its reason for being is the management and use of eight of them. Eight... such a symmetric number.”
“Are you absolutely certain you have eight?”
“Of course I am. I’m an octopus. If I only had seven, I’d be a septopus, and there’s no such thing as a septopus. I’m an octopus or I’m nothing at all. And I’m certainly not nothing, now am I?”
“It’s clear you’re not nothing, but I don’t see how that proves you’re an octopus. why are octopi more likely to exist than septopi? In fact,” said Otubrab, feeling superbly logical, “since I’m not sure there is no such thing as a septopus and that you’re not one of them, it seems to me that I should have one name for you as an octopus and another for you as a septopus. Sevenaboo is a good septopus name, so I shall call you Sevenaboo half of the time and Wavaboo half of the time, until you prove you are one or the other? Either way, I will have called you by an appropriate name at least some of the time when you finally prove what you are.”
Otubrab paused. His first big effort at being logical felt wrong. Maybe, as with so many of Narrowhead’s teachings, one had to get accustomed to it even if it didn’t quite fit.
“Yes,” he continued. “It’s the most logical thing to do. Is that alright?”
“Certainly not’ It confuses everything. It makes me sound like two creatures... or, a switchable creature. Logic’s job is to dispel confusion, not cause it.”
“But I’m confused already. I don’t know how many tentacles you have, and I don’t see why eight is more logical than seven, and I would feel very illogical if at some time I discovered you had seven and really were a septopus when I had been thinking of you as an octopus.”
“Fish cannot understand,” said Wavaboo, his yellow eyes sagging. “Eight is such a versatile number.”
“Even if you had eight, you wouldn’t be normal, would you? I don’t know of another octopus who’s as tangled up as you are.”
“Problems and possibilities,” moaned Wavaboo, “problems and possibilities.” He enlarged one eye. “That’s what life is you know. That’s how it’s supposed to be.”
Otubrab thought while Wavaboo closed one luminous yellow eye and tried rapid a succession of tugs and pulls. If anything, the knot got tighter.
“But a problem is when things are not as they’re supposed to be,” said Otubrab.
“Yes.”
“...then things are supposed to be the way... they’re not supposed to be? That’s illogical!”
“Fish do insist on looking at one side of things. It would be illogical if there were only problems, but there are possibilities. That makes it logical again.”
“It’s confusing.”
Wavaboo’s eyes dimmed. “And you don’t even have tentacles to manage. They would... octuple your confusion.”
“How many bubbles do you suppose you could capture with your tentacles?” said Otubrab, looking at Wavaboo’s tentacles. “I’ve just seen so many bubbles—more than I thought existed.”
“Where?”
“The Airheads were making them, by the thousands.”
Wavaboo lurched out of his den. “Airheads? Around here?”
“No. They’re in the air now.”
“An excellent place for them,” said Wavaboo.
“Do you suppose a sea perch could get completely inside a large bubble?”
Wavaboo’s eyes widened, “Why would you want to?”
“Why not? I don’t see anything illogical about it.”
“Do you know The Theory of Bubbles?”
“The Theory of Bubbles?”
“Yes, what they are, how they work. Before getting inside one, shouldn’t you know those things? Shouldn’t you at least ask, why am I doing this? Will it accomplish anything? Is it safe? Do you even know what bubbles are made of?”
“Are they made of anything?”
“Certainly! Everything is made of something.”
Otubrab thought. He had bitten many bubbles, and nothing had ever come out—except smaller bubbles. “Big bubbles are made of small ones.”
“And what are small ones made of?” asked Wavaboo.
“Smaller ones still.”
“What are the smallest ones made of?”
“Nothing?”
“No! A lot of nothing is still nothing. They must be made of something—it’s a principle.”
Otubrab was annoyed. Narrowhead had never taught anything like that. It sounded logical.
“These bubbles that you saw,“ said Wavaboo, “which direction did they move?”
“Up.”
“Did any of them go down?”
Otubrab had not only never seen a bubble going down, but the very idea was also insulting to a logical fish. “No! Of course they didn’t go down!”
“What does that suggest?”
Otubrab thought.
“Well, what else is up?” asked Wavaboo after a moment.
“Water. Then air. Air!”
“Does not that suggest that bubbles may be full of air?”
“That’s it!” said Otubrab. “Bubbles are full of air! They want to join the air above the surface! They speed up near the surface because the closer they get the more anxious they get! And Airheads make so many bubbles because they’re full of air, and—”
“Wait!” Wavaboo jiggled his head. “You’re not being logical about this. Nor methodical.” He scratched the side of his head. “Some of what you have said may be true. Most of it is questionable.”
“Which parts are true and which parts aren’t?”
“It’s not easy to say.” Wavaboo paused. “You imply bubbles think about what they do—which is difficult to imagine, since they all do the same thing. If they did think, one would occasionally do something the others didn’t, such as go down instead of up. They can’t be thinking if they’re all doing the same thing the same way.”
“Then why do they go up?”
“Perhaps water forces them up. And where Airheads get the air necessary for all their bubbles—that is a mystery.”
“Perhaps they get it from nowhere.”
“No! It comes from somewhere. Everything does.”
“Perhaps it’s in their interchangeable parts.”
Wavaboo’s eyes opened to an incredible size. He looked at Otubrab. “Perhaps it is,” he said slowly, “perhaps it is.”
“How can we prove it?”
“My dear little fish, proving things is not a trivial undertaking. The odds are against you. If the observations of a whole lifetime supported an idea, they wouldn’t prove it absolutely. They may seem to make it more and more sure, but at any time a single contrary observation can disprove it. It’s best to think of possibilities.”
Otubrab’s eyes drooped. “Well, is air dangerous?”
“That depends on to whom, and how much. Airheads obviously live in it. Either it is not good for them, and they don’t realize or don’t care, or it is not harmful. Some say it makes them stupid. I’m not certain.” Wavaboo paused. “They are peculiar. Even if air does Airheads no harm, it may be harmful to other creatures. Fish cannot survive in it you know.”
“You think getting inside of a bubble would kill me?”
“No. Theoretically, that is equivalent to jumping into the air and falling back into the water. Have you ever done that?”
“Hundreds of times.”
“Hum, unusual for a sea perch,” said Wavaboo. “And it doesn’t seem to harm you?”
“No.”
“You’ve never noticed any ill effects?”
“No. They tickle, and I’ve bitten many, many bubbles, but they don’t hurt.”
“Perhaps that’s how the Airheads see it too,” said Wavaboo. “Ticklish, but harmless.”
“Isn’t it possible they’re helpful? Isn’t it possible bubbles help Airheads survive and would do the same for sea perch?”
Wavaboo looked at Otubrab. Sea perch did seem to need something.
Wavaboo and Otubrab spoke all night, getting deeply into the Theory of Bubbles. When the grey-green of morning arrived, Wavaboo went to his chores and Otubrab wended his way back out of the valley through towering black rocks and ceaseless questions.
Inside a bubble, what was it like?
Why did small bubbles rise more slowly than big ones? Small things were almost always in a bigger hurry than large ones. Old fish, for example, got terribly preoccupied with what was being done, but rarely over how quickly. His own hurrying was often the cause of his clashes with Narrowhead. Narrowhead had once asked him, “Why is it that small fry are always in such a hurry? They’re the ones with the most time.”
If air was in such a hurry to get back, why did it come down in the first place? Was there such thing as errant air? Were some bubbles—to use Narrowhead’s word—”born recidivists?” Or could air be brought down forcefully, against its will?
Was Wavaboo right, that it didn’t have a will?
If he could find a bubble going down, it would contribute immeasurably to The Theory of Bubbles.
He swam wearily over the ridge and jiggled the warmth of that shallow water into his skin.
Bubbles appeared, but from where? Never had he witnessed them being born, except when watching Airheads. Could Airheads be the source of all bubbles? How big could bubbles be? How small?
Air wasn’t simple. He swam into the kelp suspecting he knew more about interchangeable parts and the Theory of Bubbles than any fish in the school. Wavaboo was no freak. He was logical.
“Tangled up your fins yet, squid-head?”
“Bellicosity, I’ve seen the rumble.”
“Great! Otubrab, a rumble is a sound—you don’t see it, you hear it.”
“I’ve seen what causes it. Bubbles! Thousands of bubbles.”
“Who cares about bubbles?”
“Airheads are making them. They’re beautiful. And big—bigger than we are.”
“Bubbles—they’re just stupid nothings.”
“No! They’re full of air, the same air Airheads breathe.”
“Who cares about air?” Bellicosity swam away.
“It’s important enough that Airheads have interchangeable parts full of it,” called out Otubrab. “They probably know things about air better that we don’t.”
For the next several days, whenever Otubrab could squirm out of school duties, he stole away to the pilings under the dock or the shallows along the shore, searching for Airheads. Twice more, festooned in interchangeable parts, they took to the sea, once plopping out of a rippler and once donning their parts on the beach and walking- backwards! -into the sea. Both times, Otubrab followed, analyzing parts and theorizing about bubbles. The more he observed the Airheads’ extraordinary parts, the more disconcerting became his little fins. They were not comparable.
Using rules of logic he learned from Wavaboo, he made two deductions about air and Airheads. The first was, wherever you find Airheads, you will find air (perhaps only in the form of bubbles); they either need it, or like it a great deal. Which, he could not say. He felt at an awful of handicap theorizing about air, being a fish. Hours watching Airheads on the dock had taught him it was pretty strange up there. Not only did Airheads put interchangeable parts onto their bodies, they sometimes put their bodies INTO interchangeable parts, enormous ones, in which they rumbled around on the docks and beaches. The biggest of these, called “bulldozers” by Airheads, were larger than sharks—though they never, so far as he observed, came underwater.
His second deduction was that, like the crab’s hard shells and the octopi’s tentacles, the interchangeable parts of the Airheads, the hoses and tubes entangling them as they swam underwater, were specializations for survival. No other reason seemed possible. But what specializations!
If Airheads could be that specialized, why not fish?
By fastening seashells together, he would make sea perch armor—something akin to a crab’s shell, something to withstand a sea wolf’s teeth.
He began the dangerous job of collecting shells near the beach, in water too shallow to cover his dorsal fin. He picked shells with serrated edges, shells as smooth as tide-polished stones, shells with tiny brittle knobs, shells with splendidly curved ridges, shells with striations, shells with spicules—he collected all kinds. Some, on their glassy inner surfaces, had faint waves of orange and yellow and silver—the very colors of the Airheads’ parts.
But it was a baby pearly nautilus he was carrying back to the kelp, to bury with the rest of his collection, when an unmistakable voice rang out.
“Otubrab! What is that in your mouth?”
He dropped it and looked at Narrowhead. “A shell.”
“Surely you know that you eat the meat and leave the shell alone.”
“I’m not trying to eat it.”
“Then what in the sea do you have it for?”
“…nothing.”
“What do you mean, nothing? I’m not the first big fish to see you packing around a shell lately.”
“Alright. I’m going to make something with it.”
“WHAT?”
“Armor, Sea perch need something—we have NO specializations for survival!”
“NO SPECIALIZATIONS? of all the... Sea perch have superb specializations!”
“Look! We have no shells, no pincers, no tentacles! We don’t use interchangeable parts!”
“So, your whole species is remiss in your judgement!”
“Not remiss... exactly- “
“Well then WHAT? EXACTLY?”
Otubrab mumbled something which even to him sounded like a mumble because he didn’t know—”exactly!” Something had gone wrong somewhere. Most creatures had exotic parts and appendages while sea perch depended on luck for survival. Unless sea perch could control luck…
“My imperious little fellow,” Narrowhead twitched, “that your infantile eyes do not see it does not—I repeat, NOT!—MEAN IT IS LACKING. IF WE HAD NO SPECIALIZATIONS FOR SURVIVAL, WE WOULD NOT HAVE SURVIVED! Before disparaging your species, before denigrating your very kind, perhaps you should acquaint yourself with a few FACTS! An excellent place to do that is at my next lecture. I shall expect your undivided attention.” He swam away.
“...facts?” mumbled Otubrab. But... simple sea perch did seem to be doing what other creatures required complicated parts to do. Simplicity was complicated—which, Otubrab knew, wasn’t logical, but it seemed to be true. It was so illogical, Otubrab decided not to think about it until Narrowhead’s survival lecture.
Instead, he would study knots and tangles.
It was theoretically impossible to tangle a sea perch’s fins and tail. But the kelp forest had millions of vines and it had to have tangles—it seemed theoretically impossible that it wouldn’t.
He would start by untangling two-vine tangles. If he couldn’t logically see which vine had to be pulled to undo the tangle, he would try all the possibilities—with two vines there could only be a few possibilities. After two- vine tangles, he would attack three-vine tangles, then four- or five- and on up to eight-vine tangles. After mastering eight-vine tangles, he would untangle Wavaboo’s tentacles and prove that simple-looking sea perch could perform complicated feats.
He looked all day. Tangles were hard to find in the forest. The forest’s vines, tendrils, and leaves wove and twisted around each other, but they never got tangled.
He tried creating tangles. He twisted a small vine around a larger one, looping inside and out in such complicated fashion that he became disorientated. When he floated back to admire his tangle, the vines began swaying and in seconds they untangled themselves.
He tried more combinations. Theoretically, some should result in tangles. But every attempt ended the same way—the kelp untangled itself. The only way he could create a tangle was to put himself at the center. Grabbing a long, shredded leaf, and spinning like a propeller, he twisted it loosely around himself. While twisting and swirling this tangle, hopping to make it more complicated, being unable to see because it wrapped over his eyes, he bumped into something rather moveable. It wasn’t a kelp vine. He backup up and nudged it again. It just floated there. He squirmed out of his leaf.
“WHAT IN THE SEA ARE YOU DOING IN HERE?” Narrowhead blared.
“...studying tangles.”
“TANGLES? You risk life and fin by coming in here over piffling tangles?”
“...they can be important.”
“Otubrab, listen to me. You are becoming quite a misfit. Initially, we attributed it to the idiosyncrasies of youth, or perhaps the influence of your ‘friend’ Bellicosity. Why you fraternize with him…” Narrowhead’s eyes zipped skyward. “But of late your behavior goes beyond that: you spend too much time alone, you avoid the sensible activities of the other youngsters, you ask impertinent questions—it’s apparent you pay no attention to my lectures—and you do such idiotic things as swimming in here.” Narrowhead looked at the thick kelp. “Anything could be hiding in here.” He looked back at Otubrab. “Do you value your membership in this school?”
“Yes.”
“As for tangles, AVOIDANCE is all a little fish needs to know. Stay away from them!”
They looked at each other.
“Do you understand that?”
Otubrab nodded, then turned and jostled his way back out of the forest, leaving shredded kelp leaves rocking in his wake. He swooped down behind the nearest sand bar; Kinesia glided in from the other side.
“Another run-in with Narrowhead?”
“I smacked right into him.”
“Ah, weren’t looking where you were going again, uh?”
“I was. It was just that I couldn’t see very far because...”
“Because?”
Otubrab looked elsewhere. “Do you think sea perch are lucky?”
“I suppose it’s an individual thing—some are, others aren’t.”
“How do you tell if you’re lucky or not?”
“I would say if you get eaten alive, or you die young, you’re unlucky.” Kinesia smiled. “And if you live a long, happy life, you’re lucky.”
“Knowing when you’re dead isn’t quite soon enough though is it?”
“Otubrab, are you really worried about dying?”
Otubrab snapped sideways and listened. “It’s them! I’ve got to find Bellicosity. He doesn’t believe a sea perch can get inside of a bubble.” He flashed toward the grass. Kinesia just watched him go.
“Bellicosity!”
Bellicosity popped out of the grass. “Flotsam Otubrab! Ought ‘a tie your tail in a knot—squealing like that.”
“I’ll do it! Today, I’ll do it!”
“Get inside a bubble?” Bellicosity glanced around for big fish. “I don’t hear anything.”
Otubrab stopped. “I do. Bubbles, I tell you!”
Bellicosity listened. “Can’t hear ‘em.”
“I’m going.” Otubrab turned north.
“Wait. Airheads? Completely in the water?”
“Completely underwater—like you and me.”
“Tub-head, this better be good, or your tail’ll be a knot.”
Otubrab blazed north along the ridge and Bellicosity struggled to keep up. The rumble became so loud Bellicosity wondered how he’d missed it.
Otubrab shot for the plumes when they appeared. Bellicosity looked. It was just as Otubrab had said: two Airheads entangled in parts, bubbles as amazingly, gargantuanly big as he had claimed—a fish would lose the Airheads if he got among them.
Otubrab had thought it through. He would dive toward a medium-sized bubble as it expanded, piercing it exactly when it became his size. Inside, he’d look around quickly before it divided—bubbles always divided when they got a little bigger than him. Too big a bubble, and it would be too quick and too fragile to penetrate; too small a bubble, and he wouldn’t get completely inside. The choice of a bubble was not trivial, not by any means.
There were almost too many bubbles. It took enormous concentration to follow the good ones among the others. He judged distance, size, speed, position. He practiced over and over.
“BUBBLES AWAYYY!”
He shot down, blinking pesky small bubbles out of his face. He swam faster and faster. His bubble pulled away from those around it. It wobbled, it swelled. He swam faster. Bellicosity watched. The bubble accelerated toward his face. It expanded wildly! Otubrab closed his eyes!
There was a dull gurgle…
He opened his eyes. He was still in... water. Bubbles were everywhere—small ones—but he was in water. He wasn’t in a bubble. He looked up. His bubble didn’t exist anymore. A haze of little spheres sparkled all around him. He swam out of the bubbles and back to Bellicosity.
“They burst too easily to get inside that way.”
“Burst?” said Bellicosity. “You BLASTED it—into billions of itty-bitty ones. Completely smashed, ruined, and deee-stroyed.” Bellicosity watched the little worlds of air wobbling up while Otubrab puffed to regain his breath.
“Ramming isn’t the answer,” said Otubrab. “I’m going to slip into one on its way up.”
“The flotsam stinkers’ll probably disintegrate if anything but air gets inside,” said Bellicosity.
“Another try...”
Otubrab plunged toward the Airheads. From the warm water Bellicosity watched as the Airheads did nothing.
Otubrab angled back and forth, watching individual bubbles. Suddenly, he shot up under a medium-sized one, trailing it as it accelerated skyward; the instant it was his size, he nudged it, trying like a devilfish to keep his eyes open. But they closed. There was a pop, a gurgle; he opened his eyes. Water again! Stupid water.
He spun around. Myriads of tiny white spheres surrounded him. He hardly noticed the bubbles growing thicker and noisier or the gurglings and clanking of the Airheads growing louder. His theories—
“OTUBRAB! BELOW YOU!”
He glanced at Bellicosity then swam out of the Airheads’ path.
Bellicosity raced down. “Don’t they frighten you?”
“We’re faster than they are. It would be theoretically impossible for them to catch us even if they wanted to, and they don’t want to.”
Otubrab studied the tiny bubbles left behind by the larger, swifter ones. They hung suspended in the water, drifting slowly as though they weren’t sure they should be going up.
“I wonder if these bubbles are different than non-Airhead bubbles?” said Otubrab.
Bellicosity watched the Airheads.
“Do you suppose bubbles are as difficult to get out of as they are to get into?” asked Otubrab.
“Na, if ya get inside one—and ya never will—getting out will be a piece of shrimp,” said Bellicosity.
“There must be a secret to preventing destruction.”
For a while they drifted silently, Otubrab watching bubbles weave their wobbly paths skyward, and Bellicosity watching the Airheads floundering.
“Tub, lets follow um.”
They swam after the Airheads.
“Why do small bubbles hold together so much better than large ones?” asked Otubrab. He bolted forward, intercepted a small bubble, and turned around with it in his mouth. He bobbed it, then released it.
The Airheads moved toward the dock.
“You didn’t get inside,” said Bellicosity. “You never will. You’ll have to be content just bobbl’n little bubbles.”
Otubrab said nothing.
As they followed the Airheads, Bellicosity occasionally darted after a small bubble. When he caught one, he munched it, breaking it into thousands of smaller ones, so tiny they didn’t raise or sparkle; they just dissolved into the water. They didn’t seem like bubbles at all.
At the dock, the Airheads doffed their parts, then climbed out of the water. Otubrab and Bellicosity turned south and swam back to the kelp forest.
