Beth said, “Fish. Eating.”
Barnes nodded. Tina twisted the dials. “Tuning it out.” They again heard the undifferentiated hiss. The tension in the room lessened. Norman felt tired and sat down. Harry sat next to him. Norman noticed that Harry looked more thoughtful than concerned. Across the room, Ted stood near the hatch door and bit his lip. He looked like a frightened kid.
There was a soft electronic beep. Lines on the gas-plasma screens jumped.
Tina said, “I have a positive on peripheral thermals.”
Barnes nodded: “Direction?”
“East. Coming.”
They heard a metallic clank! Then another clank!
“What’s that?”
“The grid. He’s hitting the grid.”
“Hitting it? Sounds like he’s dismantling it.”
Norman remembered the grid. It was made of three-inch pipe.
“A big fish? A shark?” Beth said.
Barnes shook his head. “He’s not moving like a shark. And he’s too big.”
Tina said, “Positive thermals on in-line perimeter. He’s still coming.”
Barnes said, “Go active.”
The pong! of the sonar echoed in the room.
Tina said, “Target acquired. One hundred yards.”
“Image him.”
“FAS on, sir.”
There was a rapid succession of sonar sounds: pong! pong! pong! pong! Then a pause, and it came again: pong! pong! pong! pong!
Norman looked puzzled. Fletcher leaned over and whispered, “False-aperture sonar makes a detailed picture from several senders outside, gives you a good look at him.” He smelled liquor on her breath. He thought: Where’d she get liquor?
[[209]] Pong! pong! pong! pong!
“Building image. Ninety yards.”
Pong! pong! pong! pong!
“Image up.”
They turned to the screens. Norman saw an amorphous, streaky blob. It didn’t mean much to him.
“Jesus,” Barnes said. “Look at the size of him!”
Pong! pong! pong! pong!
“Eighty yards.”
Pong! pong! pong! pong!
Another image appeared. Now the blob was a different shape, the streaks in another direction. The image was sharper at the edges, but it still meant nothing to Norman. A big blob with streaks …
“Jesus! He’s got to be thirty, forty feet across!” Barnes said. “No fish in the world is that big,” Beth said.
“Whale?”
“It’s not a whale.”
Norman saw that Harry was sweating. Harry took off his glasses and wiped them on his jumpsuit. Then he put them back on, and pushed them up on the bridge of his nose. They slipped back down. He glanced at Norman and shrugged.
Tina: “Fifty yards and closing.”
Pong! pong! pong! pong!
“Thirty yards.”
Pong! pong! pong! pong!
“Thirty yards.”
Pong! pong! pong! pong!
“Holding at thirty yards, sir.”
Pong! pong! pong! pong!
“Still holding.”
“Active off.”
Once again, they heard the hiss of the hydrophones. Then a distinct clicking sound. Norman’s eyes burned. Sweat had rolled into his eyes. He wiped his forehead with his jumpsuit sleeve. The others were sweating, too. The tension was unbearable. He glanced at the video monitor again. The sphere was still closed.
He heard the hiss of the hydrophones. A soft scraping [[210]] sound, like a heavy sack being dragged across a wooden floor. Then the hiss again.
Tina whispered, “Want to image him again?”
“No,” Barnes said.
They listened. More scraping. A moment of silence, followed by the gurgle of water, very loud, very close.
“Jesus,” Barnes whispered. “He’s right outside.”
A dull thump against the side of the habitat.
The screen flashed on.
I AM HERE.
The first impact came suddenly, knocking them off their feet. They tumbled, rolling on the floor. All around them, the habitat creaked and groaned, the sounds frighteningly loud. Norman scrambled to his feet—he saw Fletcher bleeding from her forehead—and the second impact hit. Norman was thrown sideways against the bulkhead. There was a metallic clang as his head struck metal, a sharp pain, and then Barnes landed on top of him, grunting and cursing. Barnes pushed his hand in Norman’s face as he struggled to his feet; Norman slid back to the floor and a video monitor crashed alongside him, spitting sparks.
By now the habitat was swaying like a building in an earthquake. They clutched consoles, panels, doorways to keep their balance. But it was the noise that Norman found most frightening—the incredibly loud metallic groans and cracks as the cylinders were shaken on their moorings.
The creature was shaking the entire habitat.
Barnes was on the far side of the room, trying to make his way to the bulkhead door. He had a bleeding gash along one arm and he was shouting orders, but Norman couldn’t hear anything except the terrifying sound of rending metal. He saw Fletcher squeeze through the bulkhead, and then Tina, and then Barnes made it through, leaving behind a bloody handprint on the metal.
Norman couldn’t see Harry, but Beth lurched toward him, holding her hand out, saying “Norman! Norman! We have to—” and then she slammed into him and he was knocked [[211]] over and he fell onto the carpet, underneath the couch, and slid up against the cold outer wall of the cylinder, and he realized with horror that the carpet was wet.
The habitat was leaking.
He had to do something; he struggled back to his feet, and stood right in a fine sizzling spray from one of the wall seams. He glanced around, saw other leaks spurting from the ceiling, the walls.
This place is going to be torn apart.
Beth grabbed him, pulled her head close. “We’re leaking!” she shouted. “God, we’re leaking!”
“I know,” Norman said, and Barnes shouted over the intercom, “Positive pressure! Get positive pressure!” Norman saw Ted on the floor just before he tripped over him and fell heavily against the computer consoles, his face near the screen, the glowing letters large before him:
DO NOT BE AFRAID.
“Jerry!” Ted was shouting. “Stop this, Jerry! Jerry!”
Suddenly Harry’s face was next to Ted, glasses askew. “Save your breath, he’s going to kill us all!”
“He doesn’t understand,” Ted shouted, as he fell backward onto the couch, flailing arms.
The powerful wrenching of metal on metal continued without pause, throwing Norman from one side to the other. He kept reaching for handholds, but his hands were wet, and he couldn’t seem to grasp anything.
“Now hear this,” Barnes said over the intercom. “Chan and I are going outside! Fletcher assumes command!”
“Don’t go out!” Harry shouted. “Don’t go out there!”
“Opening hatch now,” Barnes said laconically. “Tina, you follow me.”
“You’ll be killed!” Harry shouted, and then he was thrown against Beth. Norman was on the floor again; he banged his head on one of the couch legs.
“We’re outside,” Barnes said.
And abruptly the banging stopped. The habitat was motionless. They did not move. With the water streaming in through a dozen fine, misty leaks, they looked up at the intercom speaker, and listened.
* * *
[[212]] “Clear of the hatch,” Barnes said. “Our status is good. Armament, J-9 exploding head spears loaded with Taglin-50 charges. We’ll show this bastard a trick or two.”
Silence.
“Water … Visibility is poor. Visibility under five feet. Seems to be … stirred-up bottom sediment and … very black, dark. Feeling our way along buildings.”
Silence.
“North side. Going east now. Tina?”
Silence.
“Tina?”
“Behind you, sir.”
“All right. Put your hand on my tank so you—Good. Okay.”
Silence.
Inside the cylinder, Ted sighed. “I don’t think they should kill it,” he said softly.
Norman thought, I don’t think they can.
Nobody else said anything. They listened to the amplified breathing of Barnes and Tina.
“Northeast corner … All right. Feel strong currents, active, moving water … something nearby. … Can’t see … visibility less than five feet. Can barely see stanchion I am holding. I can feel him, though. He’s big. He’s near. Tina?”
Silence.
A loud sharp crackling sound, static. Then silence.
“Tina? Tina?”
Silence.
“I’ve lost Tina.”
Another, very long silence.
“I don’t know what it … Tina, if you can hear me, stay where you are, I’ll take it from here. … Okay … He is very close. … I feel him moving. … Pushes a lot of water, this guy. A real monster.”
Silence again.
“Wish I could see better.”
Silence.
[[213]] “Tina? Is that—”
And then a muffled thud that might have been an explosion. They all looked at each other, trying to know what the sound meant, but in the next instant the habitat began rocking and wrenching again, and Norman, unprepared, was slammed sideways, against the sharp edge of the bulkhead door, and the world went gray. He saw Harry strike the wall next to him, and Harry’s glasses fell onto Norman’s chest, and Norman reached for the glasses for Harry, because Harry needed his glasses. And then Norman lost consciousness, and everything was black.
AFTER THE ATTACK
Hot spray poured over him, and he inhaled steam. Standing in the shower, Norman looked down at his body and thought, I look like a survivor of an airplane crash. One of those people I used to see and marvel that they were still alive.
The lumps on his head throbbed. His chest was scraped raw in a great swath down to his abdomen. His left thigh was purple-red; his right hand was swollen and painful.
But, then, everything was painful. He groaned, turning his face up to the water.
“Hey,” Harry called. “How about it in there?”
“Okay.”
Norman stepped out, and Harry climbed in. Scrapes and bruises covered his thin body. Norman looked over at Ted, who lay on his back in one of the bunks. Ted had dislocated both shoulders, and it had taken Beth half an hour to get them back in, even after she’d shot him up with morphine.
“How is it now?” Norman said to him.
[[214]] “Okay.”
Ted had a numb, dull expression. His ebullience was gone. He had sustained a greater injury than the dislocated shoulders, Norman thought. In many ways a naïve child, Ted must have been profoundly shocked to discover that this alien intelligence was hostile.
“Hurt much?” Norman said.
“It’s okay.”
Norman sat slowly on his bunk, feeling pain streak up his spine. Fifty-three years old, he thought. I should be playing golf. Then he thought, I should be just about anywhere in the world, except here. He winced, and gingerly slipped a shoe over his injured right foot. For some reason, he remembered Levy’s bare toes, the skin color dead, the foot striking his faceplate.
“Did they find Barnes?” Ted asked.
“I haven’t heard,” Norman said. “I don’t think so.”
He finished dressing, and went down to D Cyl, stepping over the puddles of water in the corridor. Inside D itself, the furniture was soaked; the consoles were wet, and the walls were covered with irregular blobs of white urethane foam where Fletcher had spray-sealed the cracks.
Fletcher stood in the middle of the room, the spray can in hand. “Not as pretty as it was,” she said.
“Will it hold?”
“Sure, but I guarantee you: we can’t survive another one of those attacks.”
“What about the electronics. They working?”
“I haven’t checked, but it should be okay. It’s all waterproofed.”
Norman nodded. “Any sign of Captain Barnes?” He looked at the bloody handprint on the wall.
“No, sir. No sign of the Captain at all.” Fletcher followed his eyes to the wall. “I’ll clean the place up in a minute, sir.”
“Where’s Tina?” Norman asked.
“Resting. In E Cyl.”
Norman nodded. “E Cyl any drier than this?”
“Yes,” Fletcher said. “It’s a funny thing. There was [[215]] nobody in E Cyl during the attack, and it stayed completely dry.”
“Any word from Jerry?”
“No contact, sir, no.”
Norman flicked on one of the computer consoles.
“Jerry, are you there?”
The screen remained blank.
“Jerry?”
He waited a moment, then turned the console off.
Tina said, “look at it now.” She sat up, and drew the blanket back to expose her left leg.
The injury was much worse than when they had heard her screaming and had run through the habitat and pulled her up through the A Cyl hatch. Now, running diagonally down her leg was a series of saucer-shaped welts, the center of each puffed and purple. “It’s swollen a lot in the last hour,” Tina said.
Norman examined the injuries. Fine tooth-marks ringed swollen areas. “Do you remember what it felt like?” he said. “It felt awful,” Tina said. “It felt sticky, you know, like sticky glue or something. And then each one of these round places burned. Very strong.”
“And what could you see? Of the creature itself.” “Just—it was a long flat spatula—thing. It looked like a giant leaf; it came out and wrapped around me.”
“Any color?”
“Sort of brownish. I couldn’t really see.”
He paused a moment. “And Captain Barnes?”
“During the course of the action, I was separated from Captain Barnes, sir. I don’t know what happened to Captain Barnes, sir.” Tina spoke formally, her face a mask. He thought, Let’s not go into this now. If you ran away, it’s all right with me.
“Has Beth seen this injury, Tina?”
“Yes, sir, she was here a few minutes ago.”
“Okay. Just rest now.”
“Sir?”
[[216]] “Yes, Tina?”
“Who will be making the report, sir?”
“I don’t know. Let’s not worry about reports now. Let’s just concentrate on getting through this.”
“Yes, sir.”
As he approached Beth’s lab, he heard Tina’s recorded voice say, “Do you think they’ll ever get the sphere open?”
Beth said, “Maybe. I don’t know.” “It scares me.”
And then Tina’s voice came again:
“Do you think they’ll ever get the sphere open?”
“Maybe. I don’t know.”
“It scares me.”
In the lab, Beth was hunched over the console, watching the tape.
“Still at it, huh?” Norman said.
“Yeah.”
On the tape, Beth was finishing her cake, saying, “I don’t think there’s a reason to be scared.”
“It’s the unknown,” Tina said.
“Sure,” Beth said onscreen, “but an unknown thing is not likely to be dangerous or frightening. It’s most likely to be just inexplicable.”
“Famous last words,” Beth said, watching herself.
“It sounded good at the time,” Norman said. “To keep her calmed down.”
Onscreen, Beth said to Tina, “You afraid of snakes?”
“Snakes don’t bother me,” Tina said.
“Well, I can’t stand snakes,” Beth said.
Beth stopped the tape, turned to Norman. “Seems like a long time ago, doesn’t it.”
“I was just thinking that,” Norman said.
“Does this mean we’re living life to the fullest?”
“I think it means we’re in mortal peril,” Norman said. “Why are you so interested in this tape?”
“Because I have nothing better to do, and if I don’t keep [[217]] busy I’m going to start screaming and make one of those traditional feminine scenes. You’ve already seen me do it once, Norman.”
“Have I? I don’t remember any scene.”
“Thank you,” she said.
Norman noticed a blanket on a couch in the corner of her lab. And Beth had unclipped one of the workbench lamps and mounted it on the wall above the blankets. “You sleeping here now?”
“Yeah, I like it here. Up at the top of the cylinder—I feel like the queen of the underworld.” She smiled. “Sort of like a tree house when you were a kid. Did you ever have a tree house when you were a kid?”
“No,” Norman said, “I never did.”
“Neither did I,” Beth said. “But it’s what I imagine it would be, if I had.”
“Looks very cozy, Beth.”
“You think I’m cracking up?”
“No. I just said it looks cozy.”
“You can tell me if you think I’m cracking up.”
“I think you’re fine, Beth. What about Tina? You’ve seen her injury?”
“Yes.” Beth frowned. “And I’ve seen these.” She gestured to some white eggs in a glass container on the lab bench.
“More eggs?”
“They were clinging to Tina’s suit when she came back in. Her injury is consistent with these eggs. Also the smell: you remember the smell when we pulled her back in?”
Norman remembered very well. Tina had smelled strongly of ammonia. It was almost as if she’d been doused in smelling salts.
Beth said, “As far as I know, there’s only one animal that smells of ammonia that way. Architeuthis sanctipauli.”
“Which is?”