A Voyage through the Micro-Verse to Save Life on Planet Earth

Day 4: 0030 hours… Before we unfurl our drift anchor and set the ship ready for the night I order the crew to make all hatches and other points of ingress doubly secure.   This does little to ease my anxiety.   At four bells on the first watch I distribute a jigger of whiskey to every man – to help settle nerves.   This is hailed as my best command decision to date. Day 4: 0700 hours The crew is on edge this morning, less congenial than normal, and I am fairly certain of the reason.   Like them, the incident with the mysterious intruder shook me to the very core of my scientific convictions.   There simply is no explanation for the disappearance of the remains of the algal protist – no answer to this mystery.   But I feel compelled to take action, to do something to preserve the mission and make my ship and crew safe.   I will therefore acquiesce to my urge to put some distance between the Cyclops and this region of the pond universe.    I acknowledge that

Day 3: 1430 hours... Emerging from the region of shadow, sunlit water fills our forward view with the now familiar close-yet-distant blur of watery blues, greens, and soft yellows.   I post Barron to the crow’s nest to keep watch, and am about to order Gyro to take us up a hundred centimeters when the engine master’s rumble bellows over the voice pipe.   “Collision!   Close the shutters!   Repeat: collision!” Gyro throws the release for the crash doors.   The steel plates slam down over the glass panes of the pilothouse an instant before we hear a thunderous crunching sound, and are thrown forward against controls and railings.   The noise of the impact reverberates through the ship – an out-of-tune timpani. The screech of metal against something of similar hardness provides an upper register to this chaotic chord.   Then all becomes eerily quiet. “I think we hit something,” offers Lyra, pulling herself up from the deck, her wry conclusion left hanging in the air.

Day 3: 0600 hours At four bells I am pleased to report another uneventful night after holding station at a depth of three hundred centimeters.   Although no one else heard it, I was pulled twice from my slumber by a series of strange clicking sounds.   This morning when I queried Lyra about the sounds she theorized that they may be produced by yet another crustacean relative, noting that this behavior is similar to several tropical shrimp species.   However, the first light of day reveals no such animal near the Cyclops . We enjoy a breakfast of robust Venezuelan-grown coffee, toast with jam, and a delicious salad made of the chloroplast gleaned from a damaged algal protist we collected the previous day.   Lyra informs us that the disc-like structures filling the chloroplast are composed largely of chlorophyll molecules.   They have a flavor akin to that of sweet peas.   With this culinary success we look forward to more micro world delicacies!   While I enjoy the

1755 hours... I awake to a throbbing head and Lyra’s concerned face shifting into focus.   The bell from the engine order telegraph signals that we are in “emergency full reverse.”   Leaning into the tilting deck, I climb to my feet while   about our condition.   Gyro reports that we’ve been pulled off course by a current of overwhelming veracity.   “Can you steer us out of the current?” I ask with alarm of my wheelman.   “Sorry, Skipper,” shouts Gyro.   “We aren’t getting enough bite against the rudder to turn in this hell current.” “Set her to rights if you can, Mr. Gyro, and hold position against the current.” “Aye, sir,” answers the steersman. With aching slowness the deck becomes level.   By holding position in the smoother current we are graced, thanks to Gyro’s skills, a reprieve from the previous turbulence.   Now we can get a look at the source of the strange powerful current –the feeding vortex of a monstrous copepod, the same species as the one we

Day 1: 1130 hours… We sight Duckweed Base without further incident.   As we approach the encampment I am struck by how many times have I looked over a small pond, or eddy along the Potomac, and seen the brilliant green of duckweed rafts mottling the still water.   These tiny aquatic plants, were it not for scale, looked quite similar to the more familiar lily pads – yet a trio of duckweed leaves would fit easily on the tip of your finger.    The Micro Expeditionary Corps had constructed Duckweed Base upon just such a trio of leaves.   The base comprised a watchtower the height of six men, a cluster of yurts, and an arrival stage identical to the one at Dragonfly Sky-base. Tarah banks the flyer and circles low as she sets the wings for our landing.   I can barely feel when the skids touch the landing stage, so expert is Tarah’s landing.   I thank the pilot for her skilled services, invoke the wish that we meet again, shake her hand, and join the crew w