<span class="SFPTagline"> From SCIFIPEDIA </span>

"De Profundis" is a 5,000-word short story by Murray Leinster, about an intelligent sea creature which has its first encounter with humans. The story was first published in the Winter, 1945 issue of Thrilling Wonder Stories.

Spoiler Warning: Plot details and/or information about the ending follow. If you wish to enjoy the work first, stop reading here and return at another time.

Plot

The story is written in the form of a scientific report submitted by Sard, a member of the species Shadi, who live in the deepest part of the ocean. The Shadi communicate telepathically, and they live isolated from others of their species for most of the year because of an uncontrollable desire to kill and eat each other. The only exception to this is at a time called “peace tides”, when they come together to breed. Sard tells of what happened to him while he was listening to a lecture by a Shadi scientist named Morpt, who teaches, among other things, how a Shadi can travel into shallower waters by exhaling air from the swim-bladder. Morpt’s lecture is of course telepathic, and the listeners are not actually in his presence; one of the ways professors benefit from such lectures is that sometimes a young Shadi will ask a question that carelessly gives away too much information as to his actual location, allowing the professor to find the student’s cave and feed.

During the lecture, Sard senses an object descending nearby. He goes to feed, and finds that the object is a metallic cylinder, with 2 beings inside. It is a research submersible, whose cable had broken. Sard is intrigued by the thoughts of these two people—a man and a woman from the surface. They do not feed on each other, and cling to each other without fear. They are on a scientific expedition, and without windows, they despair for their lives. Sard tells Morpt what he has found, careful not to disclose the location of his cave or the submersible, and Morpt suggests taking it back to the surface. Sard agrees, and senses a strange emotion from the two occupants as he does so—hope. Sard and the object reach the surface of the ocean, where Sard discovers that the surface really is made of gas (air), just as some had speculated. The two occupants get out of the submersible and into a lifeboat. It is nighttime, and Sard breaches the surface, where the man and the woman see Sard as a giant sea serpent. They resolve not to tell their collegues about Sard, for fear they will be thought insane. Sard returns to the ocean depths, where he finds that his cave has been occupied in his absence, so he feeds on the younger Shadi. When the peace tides come, Sard submits his report.

Morpt concludes that some of Sard’s account is real, and some is imagined, probably because Sard’s mind was distorted by his trip to the surface. No creatures, say Morpt, can live together all the time without feeding on each other, and no creatures could live in gas, outside of the ocean. Further, the distinctions between different kinds of light (color) that Sard read in the creatures’ minds was “patent nonsense”; and the psychology of these creatures, as described by Sard, is “the stuff of dreams.” Morpt concludes that further trips to the surface should be discouraged.

Additional Notes

This story has been reprinted in, among other places, Isaac Asimov Presents The Great SF Stories 7 (1945).