By Jon Sleeper
The crowd cheered as fisherman Thomas Browne came into port.
Cheering. A sound he'd always wanted to hear since he was a child. He lived for it.
But to two figures on the dock who were not cheering, the man's expression was the final straw. They turned away from the crowd and seemed to vanish in flash of deep blue light. Nobody noticed.
[[I'm sorry, brother. I never realized that the plight of your Children was as great as mine,]] said one.
[[I know, I know. We inhabit the same Sea, brother, but I guess we don't communicate enough. When you get to be my age you tend to overlook the newer Siblings.]]
[[Gimme a break, Bro. I'm fifty million or so after all.]]
[[Well, I'm nearly three hundred mil, and I still have to learn how to deal with these humans.]]
[[Well, Ape has given us an option for dealing with certain offenders. Shall we set things in motion?]]
[[You're a sly one, Orca. I don't think I'll underestimate you warm-blooded types again.]]
[[And I'll help you learn about humans, Sharkey. You need to know...]]
Thomas Browne was your normal, everyday fisherman. But he had one bad personality flaw. He never accepted responsibility for his own actions. Never. Always blaming someone--or something-- else for his failures.
In this case it was sharks.
He was a dismal failure at being a fisherman (Forrest Gump he wasn't). Granted, much of the area had been overfished in recent years. But it didn't take too much skill to make a good living in those parts. But Thomas never bothered to learn.
Until one day, by luck alone, he caught a shark. Then another, and another. He knew that sharks ate the kind of fish that he was looking for. So he reasoned that they were the cause of his problem. Then he gained something that he'd never had. Skill at catching sharks.
He did some research, and knew that there was a market for shark fins. Only the fins, for making soup. So he changed his occupation. So things changed for the worse. That is, for the sharks.
Without sharks, certain species that were harmful to both fishing and man were on the increase. Orca had ordered some of his Children to take up the slack, but Sharkey's Children were the ones meant for that job. Things hadn't reached a critical point quite yet. But the decision had been made to nip this thing in the bud before they went that far.
The two Guardians signed on to the ship where Mr. Browne was going to show others how he does what he does. To show off, mainly. All the better, Sharkey thought evilly. For once Orca was in full agreement.
So when Mr. Browne caught nothing he was puzzled. "I guess today is just one of those days..." He said aloud, shrugging. "I'm not heading back to port until I catch something, though."
It was then that Sharkey decided to make his move. With Orca's help, there was a gigantic flash, and the boat was suddenly gone, as if it had never existed. Mr. Browne and his companions were in the water. What th..?? Thomas thought, panicked and treading water.
[[Well, brother. It's your show now,]] Orca said. [[Have fun.]] and he vanished.
Sharkey resisted the urge to just eat the four. But that wouldn't serve his purposes at all. Instead he went deep and changed into one of his extinct Children. Ninety feet of shark, with a mouth big enough to swallow Thomas and his friends whole and not even know he'd done it. But having seen the movie "Jaws" (what a misrepresentation that was) Sharkey knew exactly what to do.
He swam around and around the humans, flexing his huge tail. Feeling their thrashing in the water as they panicked even more. As a bit of more fun, he broadcasted the music he'd heard from the movie right into their minds. Sharkey did this for a full five minutes. Then he said those words that all humans dread to hear, if they've done something wrong to a Guardian. [[YOU OWE ME.]] Sharkey said ominously.
Sharkey didn't have land-dweller ears per se, but even he could hear them without needing to resort to telepathy. "What... what did I do??" Thomas screamed in stark terror.
[[Do I have to say anything? You have acted without respect for those you share your world with. You have killed wantonly, using only our fins, and throwing away the rest. You have over-fished us. But most of all, you have been disrespectful to the Whole.]]
"What are you going to do to us?" One of the others screamed.
[[I have no real quarrel with you two. But you need to learn understanding. You will all be... changed for a while. Thomas, your companions will go free after a month.
[[But as for you, you're mine.]]
Thomas didn't like the sound of that.
The first thing he felt was his clothes vanish. Then, a small bump formed on his back. His hair was rapidly disappearing. A webbing joined his fingers, his toes were in a similar fix and on both the nails were shrinking, leaving a smooth surface. He glanced up at once of his companions.
He noticed that one of his companions' skin had changed color (he'd lost his hair, too). Dark gray above, white below. His nose... it looked odd. It was starting to push outward, actually getting larger on his face while his nostrils got bigger. His lower jaw was doing the same as his eyes moved wider apart, neck getting longer and thicker. He briefly opened his mouth as Thomas heard a cracking noise coming from it, the edges of his mouth were being pulled back. His teeth looked much sharper than before. Then he was pulled below the surface by some force.
There was an odd feeling from the base of Thomas's spine. A tail had emerged, he felt a small vertical, flat protrusion on the end. His legs had stated to shrink. He felt back a moment at the bump. It was a dorsal fin.
Then it hit him, My God! He's turning me into a shark! As the realization hit him it seemed to accelerate the process. He felt his own jaw move forward, his nose move outward. His forehead shrank quickly, head reorienting on his neck. He noticed his neck was actually getting longer and thicker! He felt creases in it! Not opened up yet, but...
Thomas's ears were mere holes, even those were plugging. His legs had shrunk even more, they were half the size they'd been. His tail getting thicker, stronger. The flat surface at the end was definitely a caudal fin, the top part larger than the bottom, he could feel. His neck cracked and he was forced to look upward. Suddenly he couldn't breathe! His nostrils had plugged themselves! He panicked! Then was pulled below the surface. The creases opened, and he bubbled air for a moment as he was forced to exhale his final breath of air he'd ever take.
As if on cue his fingers fused, and his arms started to shrink and flatten. He stroked his tail fin once, and water moved over his gills. Gills! His neck filled out as all five gill slits opened up. He could feel more fins where his penis used to be, as it divided into two things he knew were called "claspers". His dorsal fin reached full size as he started to swim more strongly.
A second, smaller dorsal fin had formed behind the first. His legs were nearly nothing, and shrank out of existence. His arms shrank their final few inches into pectoral fins. His body filled out any remaining hollows that would impede the smooth moment of water. The last thing Thomas felt before he heard the voice again was a powerful, streamlined body, tuned by Nature to be the perfect eating machine. He smelled blood in the water...
Opening his eyes, he could only look forward and see a snout that ended in a point that wsa just out of view. He tested his jaw a moment (he had no tongue), and found it loose and strong. As he swam, he could feel water flowing cleanly over every fin, every patch of skin; flowing into his slightly open mouth over his gills and out of the slits. Along his sides he felt minute pressure differences in the water. For a moment the feelings filled him with wonder, So this is what it's like. To swim like a shark... He thought. It was totally effortless, as easy as walking. It's going to be strange to never breathe air again...
The voice, coming from the huge shark below, appeared in his mind, and was oddly apologetic. [[Thomas, you are about to pay me back. You will be a shark in mind as well as body, but you will retain your human point of view, and know what you are being punished for. Contrary to what humans would think, I'm actually a pretty good guy. It's people like you who give us a bad name. I wish you a long life as you are. Eat hardy.]] With that, Sharkey vanished.
It was then that Thomas was overwhelmed with new instincts. The smell-of-blood had appeared again in his nostrils. He stroked his powerful tail once and sped off towards the promise of food, and an uncertain future. But--just perhaps--a bit more understanding.
© 1997, Jonathan D. Sleeper.