“I feel fine—I feel better all the time, honest to God, my energy’s back, headache’s gone—and earlier I remembered everything about that sphere and what was inside it. But every minute that passes, it seems to fade. You know, the way a dream fades? You remember it when you wake up, but an hour later, it’s gone?”
“Harry.”
“I remember that it was wonderful, and beautiful. Something about lights, swirling lights. But that’s all.”
“How did you get the door to open?”
[[155]] “Oh, that. It was very clear at the time; I remember I had worked it all out, I knew exactly what to do.”
“What did you do?”
“I’m sure it will come back to me.”
“You don’t remember how you opened the door?”
“No. I just remember this sudden insight, this certainty, about how it was done. But I can’t remember the details. Why, does somebody else want to go in? Ted, probably.”
“I’m sure Ted would like to go in—”
“—I don’t know if that’s a good idea. Frankly, I don’t think Ted should do it. Think how boring he’ll be with his speeches, after he comes out. ‘I visited an alien sphere’ by Ted Fielding. We’d never hear the end of it.”
And he giggled.
Ted is right, Norman thought. He’s definitely manic. There was a speedy, overly cheerful quality to Harry. His characteristic slow sarcasm was gone, replaced by a sunny, open, very quick manner. And a kind of laughing indifference to everything, an imbalance in his sense of what was important. He had said he couldn’t crack the code. He had said he couldn’t remember what happened inside the sphere, or how he had opened it. And he didn’t seem to think it mattered.
“Harry, when you first came out of the sphere, you seemed worried.”
“Did I? Had a brutal headache, I remember that.”
“You kept saying we should go to the surface.”
“Did I?”
“Yes. Why was that?”
“God only knows. I was so confused.”
“You also said it was dangerous for us to stay here.” Harry smiled.
“Norman, you can’t take that too seriously. I didn’t know if I was coming or going.”
“Harry, we need you to remember these things. If things start to come back to you, will you tell me?”
“Oh sure, Norman. Absolutely. You can count on me; I’ll tell you right away.”
THE LABORATORY
“No,” Beth said. “none of it makes sense. First of all, in areas where fish haven’t encountered human beings before, they tend to ignore humans unless they are hunted. The Navy divers didn’t hunt the fish. Second, if the divers stirred up the bottom, that’d actually release nutrients and attract more animals. Third, many species of animals are attracted to electrical currents. So, if anything, the shrimps and other animals should’ve been drawn here earlier by the electricity. Not now, with the power off.”
She was examining the shrimps under the low-power scanning microscope. “How does he seem?”
“Harry?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t know.”
“Is he okay?”
“I don’t know. I think so.”
Still looking through the microscope lens, she said, “Did he tell you anything about what happened inside the sphere?”
“Not yet.”
She adjusted the microscope, shook her head. “I’ll be damned.”
“What is it?” Norman said.
“Extra dorsal plating.”
“Meaning?”
“It’s another new species,” she said.
Norman said, “Shrimpus bethus? You’re making discoveries hand over fist down here, Beth.”
“Uh-huh … I checked the sea fans, too, because they seemed to have an unusual radial growth pattern. They’re a new species as well.”
“That’s great, Beth.”
She turned, looked at him. “No. Not great. Weird.” She clicked on a high-intensity light, cut open one of the shrimps with a scalpel. “I thought so.”
“What is it?”
[[157]] “Norman,” she said, “we didn’t see any life down here for days—and suddenly in the last few hours we find three new species? It’s not normal.”
“We don’t know what’s normal at one thousand feet.”
“I’m telling you. It’s not normal.”
“But, Beth, you said yourself that we simply hadn’t noticed the sea fans before. And the squid and the shrimps—can’t they be migrating, passing through this area, something like that? Barnes says they’ve never had trained scientists living this deep at one site on the ocean floor before. Maybe these migrations are normal, and we just don’t know they occur.”
“I don’t think so,” Beth said. “When I went out to get these shrimps, I felt their behavior was atypical. For one thing, they were too close together. Shrimps on the bottom maintain a characteristic distance from one another, about four feet. These were packed close. In addition, they moved as if they were feeding, but there’s nothing to feed on down here.”
“Nothing that we know of.”
“Well, these shrimps can’t have been feeding.” She pointed to the cut animal on the lab bench. “They haven’t got a stomach.”
“Are you kidding?”
“Look for yourself.”
Norman looked, but the dissected shrimp didn’t mean much to him. It was just a mass of pink flesh. It was cut on a ragged diagonal, not cleanly. She’s tired, he thought. She’s not working efficiently. We need sleep. We need to get out of here.
“The external appearance is perfect, except for an extra dorsal fan at the tail,” she said. “But internally, it’s all screwed up. There’s no way for these animals to be alive. No stomach. No reproductive apparatus. This animal is like a bad imitation of a shrimp.”
“Yet the shrimps are alive,” Norman said.
“Yeah,” she said. “They are.” She seemed unhappy about it.
“And the squid were perfectly normal inside. …”
[[158]] “Actually, they weren’t. When I dissected one, I found that it lacked several important structures. There’s a nerve bundle called the stellate ganglion that wasn’t there.”
“Well …”
“And there were no gills, Norman. Squid possess a long gill structure for gas exchange. This one didn’t have one. The squid had no way to breathe, Norman.”
“It must have had a way to breathe.”
“I’m telling you, it didn’t. We’re seeing impossible animals down here. All of a sudden, impossible animals.”
She turned away from the high-intensity lamp, and he saw that she was close to tears. Her hands were shaking; she quickly dropped them into her lap. “You’re really worried,” he said.
“Aren’t you?” She searched his face. “Norman,” she said, “all this started when Harry came out of the sphere, didn’t it?”
“I guess it did.”
“Harry came out of the sphere, and now we have impossible sea life. … I don’t like it. I wish we could get out of here. I really do.” Her lower lip was trembling.
He gave her a hug and said gently, “We can’t get out of here.”
“I know,” she said. She hugged him back, and began to cry, pushing her face into his shoulder.
“It’s all right. …”
“I hate it when I get this way,” she said. “I hate this feeling.”
“I know. ….. .
‘And I hate this place. I hate everything about it. I hate Barnes and I hate Ted’s lectures and I hate Levy’s stupid desserts. I wish I wasn’t here.”
“I know. …”
She sniffled for a moment, then abruptly pushed him away with her strong arms. She turned away, wiped her eyes. “I’m all right,” she said. “Thanks.”
“Sure,” he said.
She remained turned away, her back to him. “Where’s the [[159]] damn Kleenex?” She found one, blew her nose. “You won’t say anything to the others. …”
“Of course not.”
A bell rang, startling her. “Jesus, what’s that?”
“I think it’s dinner,” Norman said.
DINNER
“I don’t know how you can eat those things,” Harry said, pointing to the squid.
“They’re delicious,” Norman said. “Sautéed squid.” As soon as he had sat at the table, he became aware of how hungry he was. And eating made him feel better; there was a reassuring normalcy about sitting at a table, with a knife and fork in his hands. It was almost possible to forget where he was.
“I especially like them fried,” Tina said.
“Fried calamari,” Barnes said. “Wonderful. My favorite.”
“I like them fried, too,” Edmunds, the archivist, said. She sat primly, very erect, eating her food precisely. Norman noticed that she put her knife down between bites.
“Why aren’t these fried?” Norman said.
“We can’t deep-fry down here,” Barnes said. “The hot oil forms a suspension and gums up the air filters. But sautéed is fine.”
“Well, I don’t know about the squid but the shrimps are great,” Ted said. “Aren’t they, Harry?” Ted and Harry were eating shrimp.
“Great shrimp,” Harry said. “Delicious.”
“You know how I feel,” Ted said, “I feel like Captain Nemo. Remember, living underwater off the bounty of the sea?”
“Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea,” Barnes said.
[[160]] “James Mason,” Ted said. “Remember how he played the organ? Duh-duh-duh, da da da daaaaah da! Bach Toccata and Fugue in D minor.”
“And Kirk Douglas.”
“Kirk Douglas was great.”
“Remember when he fought the giant squid?”
“That was great.”
“Kirk Douglas had an ax, remember?”
“Yeah, and he cut off one of the squid arms.”
“That movie,” Harry said, “scared the hell out of me. I saw it when I was a kid and it scared the hell out of me.”
“I didn’t think it was scary,” Ted said.
“You were older,” Harry said.
“Not that much older.”
“Yes, you were. For a kid it was terrifying. That’s probably why I don’t like squid now.”
“You don’t like squid,” Ted said, “because they’re rubbery and disgusting.”
Barnes said, “That was the movie that made me want to join the Navy.”
“I can imagine,” Ted said. “So romantic and exciting. And a real vision of the wonders of applied science. Who played the professor in that?”
“The professor?”
“Yes, remember there was a professor?”
“I vaguely remember a professor. Old guy.”
“Norman? You remember who was the professor?”
“No, I don’t,” Norman said.
Ted said, “Are you sitting over there keeping an eye on us, Norman?”
“How do you mean?” Norman said.
“Analyzing us. Seeing if we’re cracking up.”
“Yes,” Norman said, smiling. “I am.”
“How’re we doing?” Ted said.
“I would say it is highly significant that a group of scientists can’t remember who played the scientist in a movie they all loved.”
“Well, Kirk Douglas was the hero, that’s why. The scientist wasn’t the hero.”
[[161]] “Franchot Tone?” Barnes said. “Claude Rains?”
“No, I don’t think so. Fritz somebody?”
“Fritz Weaver?”
They heard a crackle and hiss, and then the sounds of an organ playing the Toccata and Fugue in D minor.
“Great,” Ted said. “I didn’t know we had music down here.”
Edmunds returned to the table. “There’s a tape library, Ted.”
“I don’t know if this is right for dinner,” Barnes said.
“I like it,” Ted said. “Now, if we only had seaweed salad. Isn’t that what Captain Nemo served?”
“Maybe something lighter?” Barnes said.
“Lighter than seaweed?”
“Lighter than Bach.”
“What was the submarine called?” Ted said.
“The Nautilus,” Edmunds said.
“Oh, right. Nautilus.”
“It was the name of the first atomic submarine, too, launched in 1954,” she said. And she gave Ted a bright smile.
“True,” Ted said. “True.”
Norman thought, He’s met his match in irrelevant trivia. Edmunds went to the porthole and said, “Oh, more visitors.”
“What now?” Harry said, looking up quickly.
Frightened? Norman thought. No, just quick, manic. Interested.
“They’re beautiful,” Edmunds was saying. “Some kind of little jellyfish. All around the habitat. We should really film them. What do you think, Dr. Fielding? Should we go film them?”
“I think I’ll just eat now, Jane,” Ted said, a bit severely. Edmunds looked stricken, rejected. Norman thought, I’ll have to watch that. She turned to leave. The others glanced toward the porthole, but nobody left the table.
“Have you ever eaten jellyfish?” Ted said. “I hear they’re a delicacy.”
“Some of them are poisonous,” Beth said. “Toxins in the tentacles.”
[[162]] “Don’t the Chinese eat jellyfish?” Harry said.
“Yes,” Tina said. “They make a soup, too. My grandmother used to make it in Honolulu.”
“You’re from Honolulu?”
“Mozart would be better for dining,” Barnes said. “Or Beethoven. Something with strings. This organ music is gloomy.”
“Dramatic,” Ted said, playing imaginary keys in the air, in time to the music. Swaying his body like James Mason.
“Gloomy,” Barnes said.
The intercom crackled. “Oh, you should see this,” Edmunds said, over the intercom. “It’s beautiful.”
“Where is she?”
“She must be outside,” Barnes said. He went to the porthole.
“It’s like pink snow,” Edmunds said. They all got up and went to the portholes.
Edmunds was outside with the video camera. They could hardly see her through the dense clouds of jellyfish. The jellyfish were small, the size of a thimble, and a delicate, glowing pink. It was indeed like a snowfall. Some of the jellyfish came quite close to the porthole; they could see them well.
“They have no tentacles,” Harry said. “They’re just little pulsating sacs.”
“That’s how they move,” Beth said. “Muscular contractions expel the water.”
“Like squid,” Ted said.
“Not as developed, but the general idea.”
“They’re sticky,” Edmunds said, over the intercom. “They’re sticking to my suit.”
“That pink color is fantastic,” Ted said. “Like snow in a sunset.”
“Very poetic.”
“I thought so.”
“You would.”
“They’re sticking to my faceplate, too,” Edmunds said. “I have to pull them off. They leave a smeary streak—”
[[163]] She broke off abruptly, but they could still hear her breathing.
“Can you see her?” Ted said.
“Not very well. She’s there, to the left.”
Over the intercom, Edmunds said, “They seem to be warm. I feel heat on my arms and legs.”
“That’s not right,” Barnes said. He turned to Tina. “Tell her to get out of there.”
Tina ran from the cylinder, toward the communications console.
Norman could hardly see Edmunds any more. He was vaguely aware of a dark shape, moving arms, agitated. …
Over the intercom, she said, “The smear on the faceplate—it won’t go away—they seem to be eroding the plastic—and my arms—the fabric is—”
Tina’s voice said, “Jane. Jane, get out of there.”
“On the double,” Barnes shouted. “Tell her on the double!”
Edmunds’s breathing was coming in ragged gasps. “The smears—can’t see very well—I feel—hurts—my arms burning—hurts—they’re eating through—”
“Jane. Come back. Jane. Are you reading? Jane.”
“She’s fallen down,” Harry said. “Look, you can see her lying—”
“—We have to save her,” Ted said, jumping to his feet.
“Nobody move, “ Barnes said.
“But she’s—”
“—Nobody else is going out there, mister.”
Edmunds’s breathing was rapid. She coughed, gasped. “I can’t—I can’t—oh God—”
Edmunds began to scream.
The scream was high-pitched and continuous except for ragged gasps for breath. They could no longer see her through the swarms of jellyfish. They looked at each other, at Barnes. Barnes’s face was rigidly set, his jaw tight, listening to the screams.
And then, abruptly, there was silence.
THE NEXT MESSAGES