“What do you think, Harry?” Barnes said, pointing to the screen.
“Is this what you got before?” Harry said. “Looks like it, except the spacing is different.”
“Because this is definitely nonrandom,” Harry said. “It’s [[146]] a single sequence repeated over and over. Look. Starts here, goes to here, then repeats.”
00032125252632 032629 301321 04261037 18 3016 06180
82132 29033005 1822 04261013 0830162137 1604 083016
21 1822 033013130432 00032125252632 032629 301321 0
4261037 18 3016 0618082132 29033005 1822 04261013 08
30162137 1604 08301621 1822 033013130432 000321252
52632 032629 301321 04261037 18 3016 0618082132 290
33005 1822 04261013 0830162137 1604 08301621 1822 03
3013130432 00032125252632 032629 301321 04261037 1
8 3016 0618082132 29033005 1822 04261013 0830162137
1604 08301621 1822 033013130432 00032125252632 032
629 301321 04261037 18 3016 0618082132 29033005 1822
04261013 0830162137 1604 08301621 1822 033013130432
0003212525252632 032629 301321 04261037 18 3016 06
18082132 29033005 1822 04261013 0830162137 1604 083
01621 1822 033013130432 0003212525632 032629 301321
“He’s right,” Tina said.
“Fantastic,” Barnes said. “Absolutely incredible, for you to see it like that.”
Ted drummed his fingers on the console impatiently. “Elementary, my dear Barnes,” Harry said. “That part is easy. The hard part is—what does it mean?”
“Surely it’s a message,” Ted said.
“Possibly it’s a message,” Harry said. “It could also be some kind of discharge from within the computer, the result of a programming error or a hardware glitch. We might spend hours translating it, only to find it says ‘Copyright Acme Computer Systems, Silicon Valley’ or something similar.”
“Well…” Ted said.
“The greatest likelihood is that this series of numbers originates from within the computer itself,” Harry said. “But let me give it a try.”
Tina printed out the screen for him. “I’d like to try, too,” Ted said quickly.
Tina said, “Certainly, Dr. Fielding,” and printed out a second sheet.
“If it’s a message,” Harry said, “it’s most likely a simple substitution code, like an askey code. It would help if we [[147]] could run a decoding program on the computer. Can anybody program this thing?”
They all shook their heads. “Can you?” Barnes said.
“No. And I suppose there’s no way to transmit this to the surface? The NSA code-breaking computers in Washington would take about fifteen seconds to do this.”
Barnes shook his head. “No contact. I wouldn’t even put up a radio wire on a balloon. The last report, they have forty-foot waves on the surface. Snap the wire right away.”
“So we’re isolated?”
“We’re isolated.”
“I guess it’s back to the old pencil and paper. I always say, traditional tools are best—particularly when there’s nothing else.” And left the room.
“He seems to be in a good mood,” Barnes said.
“I’d say a very good mood,” Norman said.
“Maybe a little too good,” Ted said. “A little manic?”
“No,” Norman said. “Just a good mood.”
“I thought he was a little high,” Ted said.
“Let him stay that way,” Barnes snorted, “if it helps him to crack this code.”
“I’m going to try, too,” Ted reminded him.
“That’s fine,” Barnes said. “You try, too.”
TED
“I’m telling you, this reliance on Harry is misplaced.” Ted paced back and forth and glanced at Norman. “Harry is manic, and he’s overlooking things. Obvious things.”
“Like what?”
“Like the fact that the printout can’t possibly be a discharge from the computer.”
“How do you know?” Norman said.
“The processor,” Ted said. “The processor is a 68090 chip, [[148]] which means that any memory dump would be in hex.”
“What’s hex?”
“There are lots of ways to represent numbers,” Ted said. “The 68090 chip uses base-sixteen representation, called ‘hexadecimal.’ Hex is entirely different from regular decimal. Looks different.”
“But the message used zero through nine,” Norman said. “Exactly my point,” Ted said. “So it didn’t come from the computer. I believe it’s definitely a message from the sphere. Furthermore, although Harry thinks it is a substitution code, I think it’s a direct visual representation.”
“You mean a picture?”
“Yes,” Ted said. “And I think it’s a picture of the creature itself!” He started searching through sheets of paper. “I started with this.”
001110101110011100111010100000 111101011101
11110110110101 100110101010100101
100101111010000 11010010100010101100000
111011111110101 1001010110 1001101010101101
1000111101000010101100101 10000100
1000111101000010101 1001010110
111111011011101100100000
001110101110011100111010100000 111101011101
11110110110101 100110101010100101 10010
1111010000 11010010100010101100000
111011111110101 1001010110 1001101010101101
1000111101000010101100101 10000100
1000111101000010101 1001010110
111111011011101100100000
001110101110011100111010100000 111101011101
11110110110101 100110101010100101 10010
1111010000 11010010100010101100000
111011111110101 1001010110 1001101010101101
1000111101000010101100101 10000100
“Now, here I have translated the message to binary,” Ted said. “You can immediately sense visual pattern, can’t you?”
“Not really,” Norman said.
“Well, it is certainly suggestive,” Ted said. “I’m telling you, all those years at JPL looking at images from the planets, I have an eye for these things. So, the next thing I did was go back to the original message and fill in the spaces. I got [[149]] this.”
• •00032125252632• •032629• •301321• •04261037• •18•
•3016• •0618082132• •29033005• •1822• •04261013•
•0830162137• •1604• •08301621• •1822• •033013130432•
•00032125252632• •032629• •301321• •04261037• •18•
•3016• •0618082132• •29033005• •1822• •04261013•
•0830162137• •1604• •08301621• •1822• •033013130432•
•00032125252632• •032629• •301321• •04261037• •18•
•3016• •0618082132• •29033005• •1822• •04261013•
•0830162137• •1604• •08301621• •1822• •033013130432•
•00032125252632• •032629• •301321• •04261037• •18•
•3016• •0618082132• •29033005• •1822• •04261013•
•0830162137• •1604• •08301621• •1822• •033013130432•
•00032125252632• •032629• •301321• •04261037• •18•
•3016• •0618082132• •29033005• •1822• •04261013•
•0830162137• •1604• •08301621• •1822• •033013130432•
•00032125252632• •032629• •301321• •04261037• •18•
•3016• •0618082132• •29033005• •1822• •04261013•
•0830162137• •1604• •08301521• •1822• •033013130432•
•00032125252632• •032629• •301321• •04261037• •18•
•3016• •0618082132• •29033005• •1822• •04261013•
•0830162137• •1604• •08301621• •1822• •033013130432•
•00032125252632• •032629• •301321• •04261037• •18•
•3016• •0618082132• •29033008• •1822• •04261013•
•0830162137• •1604• •08301621• •1822• •033013130432•
•00032125252632• •032629• •301321• •04261037• •18•
“Uh-huh …” Norman said.
“I agree, it doesn’t look like anything,” Ted said. “But by changing the screen width, you get this.”
Proudly, he held up the next sheet.
• •00032125252632• •032629• •301321•
•04261037• •18• •3016• •0618082132• •29033005•
•1822• •042610134, •0830162137• •1604•
•08301621• •1822• •033013130432•
•00032125252632• •032629• •301321• •04261037•
•18• •3016• •0618082132• •29033005• •1822•
•04261013• •0830162137• •1604• •08301621•
•1822• •033013130432• •00032125252632•
•032629• •301321• •04261037• •18• •3016•
•0618082132• •29033005• •1822• •04261013•
•0830162137• •1604• •08301621• •1822•
•033013130432• •00032125252632• •032629•
•301321• •04261037• •18• •3016• •0618082132•
•29033005• •1822• •04261013• •0830162137•
•1604• •08301621• •1822• •033013130432•
•00032125252632• •0326294, •301321• •04261037•
•18• •3016• •0618082132• •29033005• •1822•
•04261013• •0830162137• •1604• •08301621•
•1822• •033013130432• •00032125252632•
•032629• •301321• •04261037• •18• •3016•
[[150]] “Yes?” Norman said.
“Don’t tell me you don’t see the pattern,”
Ted said. “I don’t see the pattern,” Norman said.
“Squint at it,” Ted said.
Norman squinted. “Sorry.”
“But it is obviously a picture of the creature,” Ted said. “Look, that’s the vertical torso, three legs, two arms. There’s no head, so presumably the creature’s head is located within the torso itself. Surely you see that, Norman.”
“Ted …”
“For once, Harry has missed the point entirely! The message is not only a picture, it’s a self-portrait!”
“Ted …”
Ted sat back. He sighed. “You’re going to tell me I’m trying too hard.”
“I don’t want to dampen your enthusiasm,” Norman said.
“But you don’t see the alien?”
“Not really, no.”
“Hell.” Ted tossed the papers aside. “I hate that son of a bitch. He’s so arrogant, he makes me so mad. … And on top of that, he’s young!”
“You’re forty,” Norman said. “I wouldn’t exactly call that over the hill.”
“For physics, it is,” Ted said. “Biologists can sometimes do important work late in life. Darwin was fifty when he published the Origin of Species. And chemists sometimes do good work when they’re older. But in physics, if you haven’t done it by thirty-five, the chances are, you never will.”
“But Ted, you’re respected in your field.”
Ted shook his head. “I’ve never done fundamental work. I’ve analyzed data, I’ve come to some interesting conclusions. But never anything fundamental. This expedition is my chance to really do something. To really … get my name in the books.”
Norman now had a different sense of Ted’s enthusiasm and energy, that relentlessly juvenile manner. Ted wasn’t emotionally retarded; he was driven. And he clung to his youth out of a sense that time was slipping by and he hadn’t yet accomplished anything. It wasn’t obnoxious. It was sad.
[[151]] “Well,” Norman said, “the expedition isn’t finished yet.”
“No,” Ted said, suddenly brightening. “You’re right. You’re absolutely right. There are more, wonderful experiences awaiting us. I just know there are. And they’ll come, won’t they.”
“Yes, Ted,” Norman said. “They’ll come.”
BETH
“Damn it, nothing works!” She waved a hand to her laboratory bench. “Not a single one of the chemicals or reagents here is worth a damn!”
“What’ve you tried?” Barnes said calmly. “Zenker-Formalin, H and E, the other stains. Proteolytic extractions, enzyme breaks. You name it. None of it works. You know what I think, I think that whoever stocked this lab did it with outdated ingredients.”
“No,” Barnes said, “it’s the atmosphere.”
He explained that their environment contained only 2 percent oxygen, 1 percent carbon dioxide, but no nitrogen at all. “Chemical reactions are unpredictable,” he said. “You ought to take a look at Levy’s recipe book sometime. It’s like nothing you’ve ever seen in your life. The food looks normal when she’s finished, but she sure doesn’t make it the normal way.”
“And the lab?”
“The lab was stocked without knowing the working depth we would be at. If we were shallower, we’d be breathing compressed air, and all your chemical reactions would work—they’d just go very fast. But with heliox, reactions are unpredictable. And if they won’t go, well …” He shrugged.
“What am I supposed to do?” she said.
“The best you can,” Barnes said. “Same as the rest of us.”
[[152]] “Well, all I can really do is gross anatomical analyses. All this bench is worthless.”
“Then do the gross anatomy.”
“I just wish we had more lab capability. …”
“This is it,” Barnes said. “Accept it and go on.”
Ted entered the room. “You better take a look outside, everybody,” he said, pointing to the portholes. “We have more visitors.”
The squid were gone. For a moment norman saw nothing but the water, and the white suspended sediment caught in the lights.
“Look down. At the bottom.”
The sea floor was alive. Literally alive, crawling and wiggling and tremulous as far as they could see in the lights. “What is that?”
Beth said, “It’s shrimps. A hell of a lot of shrimps.” And she ran to get her net.
“Now, that’s what we ought to be eating,” Ted said. “I love shrimp. And those look perfect-size, a little smaller than crayfish. Probably delicious. I remember once in Portugal, my second wife and I had the most fabulous crayfish. …”
Norman felt slightly uneasy. “What’re they doing here?”
“I don’t know. What do shrimps do, anyway? Do they migrate?”
“Damned if I know,” Barnes said. “I always buy ‘em frozen. My wife hates to peel ‘em.”
Norman remained uneasy, though he could not say why. He could clearly see now that the bottom was covered in shrimps; they were everywhere. Why should it bother him?
Norman moved away from the window, hoping his sense of vague uneasiness would go away if he looked at something else. But it didn’t go away, it just stayed there—a small tense knot in the pit of his stomach. He didn’t like the feeling at all.
HARRY
“Harry.”
“Oh, hi, Norman. I heard the excitement. Lot of shrimps outside, is that it?”
Harry sat on his bunk, with the paper printout of numbers on his knees. He had a pencil and pad, and the page was covered with calculations, scratchouts, symbols, arrows.
“Harry,” Norman said, “what’s going on?”
“Damned if I know.”
“I’m just wondering why we should suddenly be finding life down here—the squid, the shrimps—when before there was nothing. Ever.”
“Oh, that. I think that’s pretty clear.”
“Yes?”
“Sure. What’s different between then and now?”
“You’ve been inside the sphere.”
“No, no. I mean, what’s different in the outside environment?”
Norman frowned. He didn’t grasp what Harry was driving at.
“Well, just look outside,” Harry said. “What could you see before that you can’t see now?”
“The grid?”
“Uh-huh. The grid and the divers. Lot of activity—and a lot of electricity. I think it scared off the normal fauna of the area. This is the South Pacific, you know; it ought to be teeming with life.”
“And now that the divers are gone, the animals are back?”
“That’s my guess.”
“That’s all there is to it?” Norman said, frowning.
“Why are you asking me?” Harry said. “Ask Beth; she’ll give you a definitive answer. But I know animals are sensitive to all kinds of stimuli we don’t notice. You can’t run God knows how many million volts through underwater cables, to light a half-mile grid in an environment that has never seen light before, and not expect to have an effect.”
[[154]] Something about this argument tickled the back of Norman’s mind. He knew something, something pertinent. But he couldn’t get it.
“Harry.”
“Yes, Norman. You look a little worried. You know, this substitution code is really a bitch. I’ll tell you the truth, I’m not sure I’ll be able to crack it. You see, the problem is, if it is a letter substitution, you will need two digits to describe a single letter, because there are twenty-six letters in the alphabet, assuming no punctuation—which may or may not be included here as well. So when I see a two next to a three, I don’t know if it is letter two followed by letter three, or just letter twenty-three. It’s taking a long time to work through the permutations. You see what I mean?”
“Harry.”
“Yes, Norman.”
“What happened inside the sphere?”
“Is that what you’re worried about?” Harry asked.
“What makes you think I’m worried about anything?” Norman asked.
“Your face,” Harry said. “That’s what makes me think you’re worried.”
“Maybe I am,” Norman said. “But about this sphere…”
“You know, I’ve been thinking a lot about that sphere.”
“And?”
“It’s quite amazing. I really don’t remember what happened.”
“Harry.”