Why is it there are no fish at all? And why is it no-one asks this question? I remember my grandfather asking me when I was six, and my first reaction was: what is fish? Then he told me a strange tale that intrigues me since that time. He loved to tell tales and I loved to listen to them, and yet this was the only story that survived my childhood and is in my head even today.
A long time ago humans lived on only one planet called Earth. Where exactly Earth was or whether it existed at all, no-one knows today. But there's another thing no-one knows, or only a few people. That seas and oceans were not the huge empty water tanks as today, but were full of life. Fish, crabs, corals, algae and other strange creatures dwelled them. Some so small that it couldn't be seen by the naked eye, some so big as a house. Some lived near the shores in the sunlight, some thousands of meters deep in the pitch dark tranquility, bothered only by undersea volcanoes.
Humans loved these aquatic creatures. To eat them. This was the prevalent form of love those days. Just as these days. There even was a trade to catch fish, called fishery. It was such a typical livelihood that fishmen grouped into associations and corporations. One of them was the Bering Fish Alliance. It was no more unique than any other, except for the fact that it's the only one that still exists. Although there are no fish anymore.
In the middle of the 32nd century, a particularly mild winter came to Earth. Those days the sea froze in winter, but in this one year it happened otherwise. Whether this was the cause or something else, I don't know, but it's certain that this was the winter when the fish died out. In a single month. All of them. Not just fish but every creature that inhabited the sea.
This is how the Third Food Crisis broke out. Famine decimated the population, society collapsed, and emigration to other planets that started only two decades ago boomed. Dozens of colonizer ships launched every day, some so poorly equipped in the panic that the crew starved to death before the arrival. The hegemony of Earth over the colonies was finally ended.
Naturally it was the end for the fishermen too. Those who survived started a new life. Fish corporations dissolved. But the president of the Bering Fish Alliance at that time, a man called Hemingway, did not give up so easily. He was always susceptible to mysticism, and such an inexplicable disaster was a good medium for his fantasy. He formed the alliance into a secret society, and no-one heard of them since then.
When I asked my grandfather how *he* heard of them, he just hummed.
This was a hundred and thirty years ago. And how it came to my mind right now? I was waken up this morning from a hundred years of stasis, because we're reaching the galaxy designated by the Malt Directive to be our new home. Although shivering after the stasis (called PSS) lasts a few days, and every move hurts, I hurried to the observing hall to see where we arrived. I felt dizzy when I saw it. A fish shaped galaxy group.
I've been watching it for over an hour and it's no illusion. It does look like a fish. I asked a few people around but of course no-one mentioned fish. They don't know what it is. But I do recognize it, since my grandfather drew it for me. I'm not a religious man, but I don't believe in coincidences. And if it's not a coincidence that we're heading towards such a galaxy, there's only one explanation. That the Bering Fish Alliance really exists, even today, and it controls if nothing else our fleet. And I have to find them.
