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The first thing I noticed on the way out were the bright blue lights of the city. There were two other fish-people in the small craft, and as we approached the coast, the water colour changed from murky green I never would have guessed, to a brilliant blue-green, like the early evenings on the most splendid of days. The boat slowed noticeably, and I looked up to see, for the first time, the stars over the city. The same stars I am a dancer at the local space station's main stage performance.
I treaded water leisurely, to graceful and precise music I picked up on the walkie-talkies. My partner, the Captain, was one of the alien crew. All three of us communicated in a language of his picked up in close co-ordinates with Earth. We were on a busy adventure squad sent by the local governor's office to join the local dancers in the most widely watched event. The celebratory celebrations were to take place on the world's largest space station – a ridiculously large glass structure floating in the central oceans, six hundred kilometres under the surface. It resembled the pyramids of Egyptian cities. I turned to see my fellow contestants. The other two were a little taller than me, with pointed ears and green skin. Their names were Sagan and Topo.
I had never seen this much water before; I wasn't used to living on a floating city. Unlike my fellow dancers in our rural community, I have always breathed air and lived in a kind of glass bubble. Strangely, I was not intimidated by the extraterrestrial beings. One of the greatest qualities of being five foot tall, one hundred and ten pounds, and standing on two feet is that you can appear as a convincing eight-foot tall arachnoid, howling at the moon, with the power to zap the stars out of the sky. I looked them in the eyes, and the third looked me straight in the eye and smiled. The only trouble was building my cover story.
If we beat the first world record as the most popular contestants in the event, we were in with a chance. We'd have to wear brand new costumes with flashing lights and waterproof, magnetic make-up. It was my first time on Earth, so I walked a little farther out onto the water, trying to get accustomed to the vastness of it. We had all been told to look up, out of the glass dome, above the atmosphere, and wait for the signal.
The others were busy breaching the water and training. We were ten metres below the space station's surface – deep enough to swim to the pyramid and have the crowds waiting for us. All four of us had been wearing lifejackets and breathing apparatus during the surface boat ride over. We would have to don them again when we reached the first checkpoint.
I turned away from the lights of the city, and swam back to the boat, turning my tail into legs and wading inside. Sagan and Topo were already putting on their costumes, sealed by magnetised boots. My partner's costume included a brand new gigantic fish tail. I put on my oxygen tank and the wings of my dancing costume, designed to flap as dramatically as possible underwater.
The motor boat's engine kicked in and we darted toward a city-lit arm of the ocean. The pilot was already wearing half his suit, the helmet and a belt. The coastline appeared out of the deep blue, and looked nothing like Earth. The pilot raced toward the pyramid, charged with huge firepower and lasers, ready to defend us if necessary.
The skylight of our glass bubble vessel was opened. I pulled on the front of my space suit and the two other robots assisted me from the boat; our propulsion system took the load off the pilot as he set the vessel to do a one-eighty degree spin while we all got out. We were flung onto firm ground, and then into the clear before us. The seven of us were left to look up at six silvery and rectangular glints, which were suspended in the air. There were six of them, and two of us. We were the only ones of us there. Sagan tapped the small blue box near the pyramid and we were encased in a blue glow. The other five minutes were going to be spent in the pyramid. We walked up, through the night.
At the entrance to the pyramid, we were welcomed with clangs and flashes and music. The dancer on the pyramid wore a full mask and a metallic front. My partner, the Captain, wanted to give the signal. The electric chair was set at the edge of a viewing pit in the middle of a carpeted area, and he held a blue box to his ear, giving instructions. It was a power point device I had never seen before. He was wearing a headset and walked on ahead. We headed into the building. The Captain was first. The four others turned to me, wearing full costumes, but no masks. I shrugged, and we headed down one of the side corridors.
The building was colossal, and the corridors were dimly lit. I took two steps at a time, peering into each room as I went. The others trailed after me with their weapons ready, alert and listening to the instructions in their headset. The Captain turned left, and I headed right. I slipped through a door, left the outer room – which was a strange mix of alien and home – and stepped into a huge hall. There were long tables covered with all sorts of drinks and food. There was a table full of soft drinks, a table full of food, a table full of desserts, and even a card table with a deck of cards.
I sat down, took out one of the sandwiches, munched it, and then started looking around. The wall to the left of me was a sea of silver, which I guessed was a window, and there was an unhindered view of the entire glass surface of the pyramid. I could see the square dance hall, and long tables, and people sitting around socialising and eating. I ate another sandwich slowly, leaving time for the other four to enter.
There was an alien from an un-famous planet just to the left, and I expected to see Topo or Sagan walk in any moment. I nibbled slowly, waiting. After what seemed like an hour, I got up and headed into the hall. It was just as stunning as the room I had been in. This time, I was closer to the window. I looked down to see the pyramid and the floor before it, and the seating tiers around the dance area, each seating area with a glowing diner or two, and a couple of massive fish lying on the floor of the glass ocean, and a small crowd of aliens, looking at them.
I looked back into the conference room, and all of them were in there. We were all huge, which made it kind of embarrassing. I walked back into the conference room and tapped the Captain, and pointed to the window. I could see the ocean just beyond the floor, with countless fish and animals. A number of them were looking towards the dance hall. The Pyramid was brightly lit, almost glowing from all the lights, flashing for the video cameras. The Captain nodded and looked out the window; I nodded back to him.
The light in the conference room was turned down, and bathing a mirror on the back wall. We were each wearing our blue vests with the lights on through the transparent fabric. Topo and Sagan started heating up, while the Captain turned off the music. He whispered instructions into his headset, and he waited for the dots to get into place. I looked down at the floor of the dance hall, and saw the lights of the square moving in place, and in formation. The five dots moved to the end of the dance floor, near the two dancers at the end. The points of bright white light formed a line as if they were a row of dancers, old style, on the edge of the dance floor. But they moved smoothly, in a line, and the Captain nodded a signal. The music started playing, and the Captain lowered his hands from his ears.
The dancers started moving to the beat. Everyone was very still at first. I was on the edge of my seat, my whole body on edge waiting for the moving lights to start the link to the dots and react to the signal. The dots danced in the order they were designed to. Some of the figures were traditional, others modern, and there were timed versions of some of the most popular dances. There were also timed medleys of one dance form and another dance form, and the Captain changed the tempo to match. The five lights had their classic movements and looked as perfect as they could be. We were all looking at the dance floor, and the lights, and the dancers.