It had to be said, even if I would never say it out loud. Jim was right. Moving the chair out of the pod and putting down the pads, I slept like a rock. It was the best sleep I had had in a long time, and the rocking of the waves probably helped. Or maybe it was the fresh air.

“It was the fish.”

“Huh?”

“Your energy level and body condition improved from eating the fish. They still lack some nutrients and vitamins, but the results aren’t bad. This leads me to my next conclusion that may or may not be a good thing.”

“And that is?”

“I think you might be mentally retarded.”

I slapped my shoulder implant without thinking about it, and it hurt like hell. Jim didn’t comment for once.

“Okay, joking aside. The trash and other signs of intelligent life—and trust me, I use that term lightly—means some underground organization probably used this planet.”

“Why underground?”

“If they mapped it, with the quality of those fish, there’d be a spaceport, merchants, and probably even some tourist spots here. I’m not ruling that out, but it’s kept private if those luxuries exist here. Maybe some pirate boss uses this place as his personal hangout.”

“The fish are that good?”

“If we compare them to what is on the market, then yes. Five-star restaurants would pay a fortune to get their hands on these. Chances are, you caught the cheap-end stuff, too. The shit 1st graders could hook.”

“First, fuck you. Second, I’m a master at fishing.”

“Based on your towel, you are definitely a master baiter.”

“Dammit, Jim. I’m going to fuck you up for real.”

“Please keep your hands to yourself. Hey, odd question. Why did you put an ocular cybernetic implant into your shoulder?”

“That-you know-because it’s a great location!”

“No… your orbital socket would be a great location. Your shoulder is fucking stupid. Hell, even your palm would—no! No! Don’t ever listen to me. I’m wrong.”

“Whatever,” I sighed. Jim reminded me of a high schooler. His jokes, attitude, and resentment toward being told what to do.

“It was a tattoo, wasn’t it?” Jim asked, and he’d extended himself out of the shoulder, so he saw my reaction. “Oh! I’m right. What was the tattoo?”

“I-that-I don’t know what you are talking about.”

“It was ‘mom’ inside a heart, wasn’t it?”

“No.”

“Ohhh, don’t tell me it was fucking Ariel from Little Mermaid?”

My face flushed involuntarily, and I knew I had lost this round. Fuck.

“Ha-haha! That’s priceless.” Jim laughed so hard he was hanging limply from the orbital socket on my shoulder. Sighing, there wasn’t much I could do. That stupid AI knew me too well. Scrounging through my spare clothes, I found a pair of old shorts. After yesterday’s swim, I ditched the pants, shirt, socks, and shoes. I stowed them away in one of the bins.

“You think your pale flesh can handle that much sun?”

“Gotta get used to it.”

Twisting the hatch door handle, I pushed it open and hopped onto the floating deck. On top of the plastic bag full of fish parts was the longest turd I’d ever seen.

“What the hell? Is that shit?” Jim asked as they approached, but it suddenly uncoiled and shot toward them like an arrow.

“Ahh, it’s a shit eel!” I screamed and kicked it out into the water.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

“Pfft. Ha hahaha! Shit eel?” Jim couldn’t stop laughing. “What the fuck is a shit eel? HAHA!”

“Dammit, Jim. I’m going to fight you until one of us dies.”

“Just don’t feed my components to a shit eel,” Jim chuckled. “Looks like it ate most of the innards.”

“Need to add storage to my list of things,” I grumbled and downed a portion of water. While my hunger wasn’t currently bad, I contemplated whether I should eat one of my rations. “Go ahead and start printing the pieces for the printer. I’m going to fish and maybe pick up some trash.”

“Already queued up everything while you were sleeping. I’ll tell you when to pull things off or swap materials.”

Scanning the sea, I didn’t find any landmarks.

“Are we drifting? I can’t tell if we are moving or not.”

“We are, but based on the sun, we seem to be moving in an arc.”

“Circle?”

“Hard to say. Sometimes we move faster and others slower, so we shift slightly. We could easily move out of this path if we had a sail.”

“If you know all that, you can’t pinpoint the Uncharted Waters?”

“We’ve not seen the stars since crashing. I don’t have any way to map anything. My navigation math is simply based on assuming the sun has a fixed rotation in this solar system and that this planet follows a standard ellipsoid pattern. We have no landmarks. Nothing identifiable at all. Last, I’m not sure how big this planet is, but it’s at least ten times larger than Earth. Using seriously advanced calculations I don’t have the energy for, I might be able to tell you which hemisphere and maybe a rough longitude. At best, the accuracy would approach 30%. The question is, why would you care? Salvaging that ship is going to cost more than replacing it. Especially on a planet like this,” Jim continued, but my eyes glazed over. Although I originally studied to become an engineer and was one of the best in my class, manually doing the math bored me. “Oh, and that’s if the place it went down in wasn’t so deep that it drifted someplace far away. And… that assumes the underwater pressure didn’t crush your ship into oblivion.”

“You do know you could have just said no, right?”

“I forgot! Shouldn’t expect an intellectual conversation with someone that watches the Little Mermaid.”

“Says the bastard that admires prose that uses the word spaghetti.”

“Hmph.”

“Hmph.”

I’ve never been married, but I suspect this is how conversations go with couples married for longer than ten years. Just pure nonsense, but somehow the two communicate at a higher functioning level than others can comprehend. In the silence, I heard a thumping sound next to my floating dock. Leaning over the side, I spotted a plastic jug with a lid. For some reason, I instantly thought of pickles—not my sister’s cat.

Pulling it up, I opened it and took a whiff, but there was no smell, and it was bone dry. Staring at the jug and the water, I realized there was something I could do to solve part of the food problem.

“What are you deep in thought about?”

“Salt.”

“Huh? Oh! That’s actually not a bad idea. If you are lucky, that jug could create about 85 grams (roughly 3 oz) of salt, which is enough to cure about half a kilogram (1 lb) of fish.”

“What do I need to do to produce the salt?”

“Well, you’ll need to open one of the interior panels and find a section of tubing. Then you’ll need to use the laser cutter on the panel, take out a small wedge from each corner, and bend up the sides to create a wide flat pan. There should be some liquid weld in your tools, so after you bend the sides up, weld the corners back together. Make sure it doesn’t leak.”

“How high should the sides be?”

“3 centimeters at most. You want a wide flat pan, so the water evaporates faster. However, do not directly pour water into it. First, use that jug and tie a cloth or your t-shirt around the opening before filling it. That’ll filter some of the debris. Then let it sit in the sun for about an hour, and the rest of the dirt and other debris will settle. When the water clears, use the tube and siphon about 90% of the water into the pan. Dump the rest back into the ocean, and repeat.”

“That’s not too hard.”

“Salt-curing a fish is more involved and time-consuming. Not to mention you have no way to protect it from scavengers like your shit eel.”

“One bridge at a time,” I told him and got to work. The hardest part was removing the metal panels inside the pod. Inside the walls were all kinds of wires, insulation, and steel tubing. Staring at it, Jim also was a little unsure.

“Just how old is this damned thing?”

“Why?”

“No one uses coil steel tubing anymore. This is good for us and will still work for your project. As long as it can siphon the water out, it’s fine. You might need to use the laser cutter to soften the metal and bend it some.”

Cutting out all the pieces, I stashed the insulation in a plastic bag. It was a rigid foam but highly buoyant. I thought about making trolling lines; this foam would make for an excellent bobber to let me know if something was on the line. After working a few more hours, I realized there was no way I could bend the panel into a box. Instead, I cut off the edges using the frame of the floating platform as a guide. Then used the liquid weld to piece my makeshift pan together.

I’d drawn the water a while ago, so it had long settled. Inserting the tubing into it, I sucked on the opposite end until the water flowed into the flat pan. Once the jug was almost empty, I stopped and pulled the siphon out. The pan was big enough that I could probably put another two jugs’ worth of water into it. However, that was if the seas remained calm. As it was, anything over two jugs of water would get sloshed around so much from the waves that it’d dump a lot out. I couldn’t even think of a way to solve that issue, so I could only put it aside for later.

After rinsing the jug, I filled it again and put it to the side. I designated the left corner closest to the pod as my salt-making area. Fishing was done off the side furthest from the pod. The busy work kept me from thinking about my low odds of survival. With all that done, I felt good about today’s work.

Drinking my allotment of water, I sat down to fish.