Water Memory by Tim Fahlstedt

Utopia Science Fiction Magazine | March 2025

Ice, several meters thick, formed a barrier between the ocean and the cold, uncaring galaxy. Bright light from two suns passed through the opaque mass, warming the water. Strands of kelp, dark green, bright yellow, and deep red, reached toward its warm embrace. Crustaceans, reptiles, and mollusks warmed their bodies just beneath the ice before descending into the dark depths. The ice groaned and mumbled from the heat. Ocean currents magnified its voice. The ice talked to those who listened.

Ki-Ki had listened for as long as she could remember. Her father, Pa-Ko, had taught her the ice’s language. A sharp crack meant she had to move, fast, away from the sound. When she heard the rhythmic rumble that so often filled the bright water near the ice, she could relax, that sound being the ice’s heartbeat. When silence prevailed, as it did now, anything could happen. Not necessarily something dangerous, but whoever stayed near the silence accepted the risk of uncertainty.

When Ki-Ki retracted three of her five claws that had been burrowed into the ice, the ocean current caught her thin body and swept it along until she came upon an area where the heartbeat could be heard. Even when moving, Ki-Ki managed to keep her soft, green stomach facing up toward the ice. That way, she could photosynthesize the sunlight and present nothing but hard, blue chitin to potential predators emerging from the depths.

After a couple of minutes, she grabbed the ice with her two front claws to slow down, then sank her three rear claws into the ice. Ki-Ki opened her mouth, swallowed the water, and pushed it out through her gills. Plankton, krill, and fragments of kelp remained in her stomach, too large to pass through the body. Their energy would supplement what she could get directly from the suns. A thousand lives could merge with hers in a matter of minutes. In some ways, they’d always been a part of her. Everything and everyone under the ice existed in a connected system. A closed loop, larger than any individual life form.

A sound, other than the heartbeat, moved through the ice. Claws tapping and scratching in the distance. Ta-Pa-Ka-Pa. Ta-Pa-Ka-Pa. A question. Language.

Ki-Ki stopped filtering and looked around. Some distance away, the blue carapace of another kin moved toward her. Claws crawling across the ice, stopping occasionally to repeat the question. As this kin moved closer, Ki-Ki noticed the turquoise rear claw and knew him to be male. The chitin on his blue back had barely any of the algae that the elders wore with pride growing on it, and his claws hadn’t been chipped from continuous use. Ki-Ki lifted her front claws and tapped an answer: Ki-Ki-Pa-Ka.

The male stopped and tapped again. Gu-Ru-Pa-Ka. He dug all five claws into the ice, closed his eyes, and filtered the water through his body. Ki-Ki saw how his muscles gradually locked as his body entered stasis and his mind merged with the ocean. He wished to speak.

With five claws deep in the ice and water rushing in her mouth and out her gills, Ki-Ki left the confines of her brain and entered the ocean. She filtered the same water as the young male. Was one with him.

“I am Gu-Ru,” he said.

“I am Ki-Ki. You’re young, Gu-Ru. And not a kin from my shallows. Why are you so far from home?”

“My shallows are two weeks to the south.” Gu-Ru expelled water through his gills with increased speed and pressure. “Predators came upon me and the other kin there. Stingers. They killed many.”

“So you search for safety?”

“Yes.”

“The shallows here are safe, six hours to the west. Many of my kind go there, young and old.” Ki-Ki paused, causing the water moving through her to slow down. “Do you bring memories from your home?”

“Only what I experienced myself, and some from my parents. The attack left us no time to transfer.”

“A shame. Still, you may seek shelter in our shallows,” Ki-Ki said. “Share what you brought, and widen our understanding.”

“Thank you,” Gu-Ru said.

A shockwave traversed the water as Gu-Ru returned to his body, flexed his muscles, and stopped filtering. Ki-Ki, still thinking and feeling through the ocean itself, felt his claws against the thick ice as he made his way west, toward the shallows. For two days she stayed in stasis, filtering the water, absorbing the sunlight, and gaining weight. During that time, there were other voices in the water, distant murmurs of familiar kin. Cave-dwellers had been sighted, migrating to deeper caves warmed by volcanic vents in anticipation of the coming winter. Voices spoke of the suns growing dimmer with every passing day, and the water becoming colder. Winter and darkness meant that finding food, energy, and life would become a struggle. The time for burrowing came ever closer.

When the two days had passed, Ki-Ki returned to her body, filling muscles that had been frozen with blood and withdrawing her claws from the ice, one at a time. She moved against the current, to the west, using her front and middle claws to hold onto the ice and propelling herself forward with her rearmost claw. It took a lot of energy to move up current in such a way, but after filtering for so long she had more than enough to reach the shallows. Should a predator see her, as she moved toward safety, she’d let go of the ice and go east with the current. Ki-Ki knew from experience that had passed through the kin of her shallows for generations that not even a stinger would be able to keep pace with her when she moved in such a way, occasionally pushing with her claws against the ice to generate more speed.

Already the suns became more distant and the ice grew thicker, allowing less and less light through until the kin couldn’t see far enough to navigate or detect predators. They needed the safety of the shallows.

As she came closer to her destination, Ki-Ki saw other kin nearing the shallows from various directions, heading home to burrow into the ample space of the thick winter ice. Some stopped during their migratory journey to tap messages to each other or filter the water together with old acquaintances. Young and old alike, some large and strong with thick layers of algae and barnacles on their backs, others bare with bright blue chitin clearly visible, and some crippled by predators, treacherous ice, or age, with claws missing or hanging limply by their sides.

In the distance, the safe shallows rose from the depths like an underwater island, steep reefs disappearing down into the darkness marking its borders. Within, corals, anemones, and a dozen varieties of kelp provided shelter to countless lifeforms who depended on the sunlight to survive. At the edge of the shallows, still clinging to the ice, Ki-Ki stopped and looked around, studying the many kin around her. Most were familiar. She saw one of the males she had children by, a young female that had mated with one of her sons the previous year, and an ancient kin with only three claws that had been at the shallows every winter for as long as she could remember. A couple of kin from other shallows had come too, to share distant memories or to seek shelter, like Gu-Ru.

Ki-Ki tapped the ice. Ta-Ra-Ka-Pa. She waited, then tapped again. Ta-Ra-Ka-Pa.

A female Ki-Ki’s age passed through the crowd and crawled toward Ki-Ki at full speed, stopped near Ki-Ki, and held one of her claws in front of her. Ki-Ki reached forward and touched it.

The female tapped the ice. Ki-Ki.

Ki-Ki answered. Ta-Ra.

For a few moments, they stood still, claws touching, then anchored themselves to the ice, entered stasis, and filtered.

After spring, summer, and fall in solitude above the volcanic depths, Ki-Ki found it hard to concentrate on a single voice in the hectic water of the shallows. Stories filled every drop, ideas flowed freely, and ancestors were remembered. The ocean bubbled with energy as it entered Ki-Ki’s body, carrying Ta-Ra’s voice with it.

“Sister.”

“I’ve missed you,” Ki-Ki said, uncertain whether Ta-Ra could distinguish her voice in the crowd or not.

Ta-Ra’s water flowed through Ki-Ki’s body. “A gulper,” she began. “Swallowed many kin last month. Far from here. I met survivors at — ”

Hundreds of kin, filtering the same water, made it impossible for Ki-Ki to understand the rest of the story, even though she stayed in stasis while Ta-Ra filled the water with her memories and sensations. Then a sting of sadness, colder than ice, caught Ki-Ki’s attention.

“Father Pa-Ko is dying.”

Water pulsed from Ki-Ki’s gills. “Who will listen?”

“He wants you,” Ta-Ra answered. “Come.”

Even outside stasis, Ki-Ki remained aware of the commotion on the shallows. The water moved in ways that it otherwise wouldn’t, the current altered by filtering kin. Knocking, tapping, and scratching on the ice could be heard from every direction.

She followed Ta-Ra through the crowds, to the shallows’ calm heart.

The water moved slower there, shielded from the underwater currents by the filtering occurring around them. The elders told their stories slowly, the vibrations in the water being quiet and focused. Ki-Ki saw an old female, covered in scars and barnacles, sink to the bottom. She’d told her story and had passed on her knowledge to future generations. Her heavy, lifeless body would provide sustenance and shelter for the countless lifeforms that called the bottom of the shallows home. Death always led to life, the female living on through the stories and the scavenged energy from her body. Stories and energy that would circulate through the closed body of the ocean for eternal time.

Young kin sat motionless, listening. In stasis and careful not to disturb the water that contained so much information. Some of the elders, like the female, died before winter came in full and gave life to the scavengers by doing so. Others burrowed in the ice when they’d finished their stories. Their bodies thawed come spring and gave life to new generations.

The cycle of life and death kept repeating, again and again. The echoes of past generations were ever present in the shallows, and long-lost whispers were occasionally heard on the current. Every winter, elders gave their stories to the living before sinking from the ice while young females burrowed into it with life growing inside them. Come spring, a new generation of kin would climb, filter, and listen to the voices of the past. Ki-Ki had raised offspring thrice. Two had reached adulthood, both males. Both had since left for other shallows, bringing stories and wisdom that had passed from kin to kin for generations with them. Ki-Ki’s third, a female, had lost her footing where no current could carry her and had sunk to the abyss. Ki-Ki had seen it happen and had retold her daughter’s story to Ta-Ra. The body had returned to the ocean and the story would be carried by the kin for generations, as a memento and a warning.

Pa-Ko’s once powerful body had grown thin and shriveled, parts of his blue shell hollow. Only a few pale strands remained of the algae that’d thrived on his broad back. One claw hung limp at his side, so worn that it could no longer pierce the ice. Ki-Ki had filtered with him numerous times, but after this, his body would dissolve and take on new forms. She had to carry his stories for him, even if it meant giving up some of her own.

He tapped the ice to acknowledge her presence. Ki-Ki. Then entered stasis without waiting for an answer. She followed his lead, filtering in silence while waiting for the stories that the water would inevitably carry to her.

“Sixteen winters,” Pa-Ko said. “I’ve burrowed sixteen times and emerged again as many. The seventeenth will be the last. Listen to my story, Ki-Ki, like I listened to my mother’s. You will carry her too, and all those who came before her. Are you ready for that, Ki-Ki?”

Ki-Ki waited, reluctant to disturb the water with her voice. When Pa-Ko remained silent, she shaped the water passing through her body into a word. “Yes.”

Already she had so many memories and stories to carry. Those she’d lived through herself, those of other elders she’d listened to, and those she’d heard repeated in the shallows during calm evenings. No kin could remember it all, but the collective could. Bits and pieces carried by everyone, to maintain the experience that had taken millennia to accumulate. To accomplish such a feat, duplicates had to be forgotten. Pieces of irrelevant information removed to make room for what mattered.

“I was born in a shallow five months north,” Pa-Ko said. “Your mother took me here during my fifth summer, and I’ve not seen that shallow since. Travelers have told me that it no longer exists.”

Ki-Ki listened. She could still remember the first male she’d mated with. The offspring they’d had together knew them both. Ki-Ki remembering the male was superfluous. She forgot him to make room for other memories. Pa-Ko’s and others’.

“My mother was Ko-La. Two winters before my birth, she lost her grip and sank toward the abyss. Cave-dwellers saw her and caught her with their soft hands. They carried her back to the ice, then swam around in circles, listening to her claws against the ice until they had to return to their caves to breathe.”

Through the story, Ki-Ki and future kin could remember Ko-La, and remember that friendship and cooperation between species would always benefit everyone involved.

Ki-Ki had met a gulper once. She’d seen it open its mouth and had dug her claws deep into the ice to avoid being swallowed along with the water around her. She’d seen the eyeless creatures inside the gulper, digesting everything caught in its massive stomach so that the nutrients could be absorbed by the gulper itself. The numerous stories she’d heard about such encounters could safely be forgotten, none of them being as detailed or recent as her own.

She listened for hours. Remembering and forgetting while the water that’d filtered through Pa-Ko’s body washed through her, full of stories. By the time they’d finished, Ki-Ki had changed. Her father, her father’s mother, and other ancestors that he’d carried with him now lived within her while some of her memories were carried away by the current. Pa-Ko and the long-dead had found a temporary home within her, and when the time came, Ki-Ki would prolong their existence with her dying words.

Pa-Ko dug into the ice for the last time, using the four still usable claws to the best of his abilities. He could do nothing but burrow, his stories having been told and his life at an end. If he made any more memories, they’d die with him. When night came, his hole froze solid, and unlike the younger kin, he wouldn’t wake up come spring. His story had been told.

Ki-Ki stayed outside the ice for a couple of days, filtering in the shallows. The weight she gained would help her get through winter, and she wanted to listen to the water before the long silence that awaited her after burrowing.

Only the ice’s rhythmic heartbeat and the echoes of voices filled the water. Echoes containing more stories than any one mind could hold.

END

Originally published in the March 2025 issue of Utopia Science Fiction Magazine.

Tim Fahlstedt is a Gotlandic author of science fiction and fantasy. He currently lives in Stockholm, where he, in addition to writing, occupies himself with literature studies, role-playing games, and learning new languages. A lifelong fascination for folklore, religion, and mysticism permeates much of his writing, often combined with his love of nature and the natural world. Tim writes in Swedish and English.