Scuttlebutt

"First Mate Thomas O'Reilly requesting audience, captain."

    Captain Glabbal paused in the midst of his painting. Confound it, he had just gotten the suspension correct! He sighed, sending a rush of bubbles through his gills. "Confirm audience, computer." If he made it fast, he could get back to painting before the more soluble pigments began to run.
   The First Mate entered, his face grimly set. He stepped briskly to the wall of Glabbal's tank and saluted. "Captain, I'm afraid I have an urgent matter to discuss."
   "At ease, First Mate," said Glabbal. The human untensed slightly, although he still seemed very much ill at ease. "What could be so pressing as to come calling at fourth shift? Are we under attack?"
   "No sir, it's..." O'Reilly looked briefly embarrassed. "It's about... cuttlefish."
   "Cuttlefish?" The Captain rolled the unfamiliar word around in his mouth. "I'm not familiar with the term."
   "Well then, sir," said O'Reilly, "are you familiar with this?"
   He held his tablet flat against the side of the tank. Glabbal floated in for a closer look. "It appears to be... yes, definitely, a Prall-Kataph, of my homeworld. Goodness, I haven't seen one in years. We used to breed them as pets, you know." He peered. "My word, they've definitely done wonders with the breeding nowadays, haven't they. Such a brilliant coloring, and pronounced fins. Where did you find this photo?"
   The captain's confirmation did nothing to soften O'Reilly's grim look. If anything, it deepened. "You recall the intergalactic treaty passed three days ago, sir?" he said. "Open and free information on the ecosystems of every settled planet in the Allied Conglomerate, available to all."
   Captain Glabbal stroked his gill with a webbed finger. "Yes, of course," he said. "As far as treaties go, not the most controversial. Your point?"
   "My point, sir, is that this photo was not taken on your home planet. It was taken on mine."

   The captain paused mid-stroke. "Surely... convergent evolution has been considered?" he said slowly. "The galaxy is a large place, there must be some animals that look the same regardless of-"
"With respect, sir," said O'Reilly, "the only reason this came to light, was because Midshipman Yallangshan was showing us animals from his planet. This came up." He pressed the tablet up to the screen again. It showed another Prall-Kataph, this time with short, stubby tentacles and wide fins, almost wings. It was swimming in a deep red liquid. "His planet doesn't even have water.
   "And this," he said, "was what Private Skallin said it looked like." The tablet displayed a massive creature, floating above a city like a blimp. The tentacles stretched down hundreds of meters, trawling the clouds. "He comes from a gas planet. Apparently it's a apex predator there."
   He flicked through dozens of pictures. "This ship has a crew from over seventy different planets. Every single one of them has seen an animal that is a variation on what you call Prall-Kataph and what my people call cuttlefish. Every. Single. One.
   "And that's not the most disturbing part. You know that smuggler we picked up on the Glemmok asteroid fields? He's a Grontor, and they get real old. He's been around. They're born in deep space, you know, send their eggs out into the void and they come swimming back. Well, he looked at those pictures and he laughed. He wove me this tall tale, how these things are all over the galaxy like seeds, drifting through space till they find a planet and settle in, adapt to the environment. But the kicker is, they never go off-world again, so they're not the ones making the seeds. He doesn't know what is, only that it's old, and it's big, and it's got a lot of tentacles.
   "It was a good long whopper, and I was laughing all the way up from the brig. Only, it doesn't seem nearly as funny now."
   Captain Glabbal floated in his tank. He was flabbergasted, and only a Abbrajeen Mer can flabbergast like they really mean it. He could faintly smell the tang of his paints leaking out of their equilibrium into a brown slosh, but there were far more pressing matters on his mind. "Who else knows about this?" he asked finally.
   "Literally everyone, sir. The entire crew are talking about it, and it's only a short matter of time before the rest of the galaxy makes the connection."
   "Ah. Well.
   "I suppose, First Mate," said the captain, "that the only thing we can do... is to be very nice to cuttlefish."
   The human coughed. "You might not want to know what we do for parrots, then..."