Sphere

Sphere Page 8

Behind her on the monitor, the sphere closed.

"Huh!" Harry said. "How long was it open all together?" "Thirty-three point four seconds," Tina said.

They stopped the tape. Tina said, "Anybody want to see it again?" She looked pale.

"Not right now," Harry said. He drummed his fingers on the arm of his chair, stared off, thinking.

No one else said anything; they just waited patiently for Harry. Norman realized how much the group deferred to him. Harry is the person who figures things out for us, Norman thought. We need him, rely on him.

"Okay," Harry said at last. "No conclusions are possible. We have insufficient data. The question is whether the sphere was responding to something in its immediate environment, or whether it just opened, for reasons of its own. Where's Ted?"

"Ted left the sphere and went to the flight deck."

"Ted's back," Ted said, grinning broadly. "And I have some real news."

"So do we," Beth said.

"It can wait," Ted said.

"But - "

" - I know where this ship went," Ted said excitedly. "I've been analyzing the flight data summaries on the flight deck, looking at the star fields, and I know where the black hole is located."

"Ted," Beth said, "the sphere opened."

"It did? When?"

"A few minutes ago. Then it closed again."

"What did the monitors show?"

"No biological hazard. It seems to be safe."

Ted looked at the screen. "Then what the hell are we doing here?"

Barnes came in. "Two-hour rest period is over. Everybody ready to go back to the ship for a last look?"

"That's putting it mildly," Harry said.

The sphere was polished, silent, closed. They stood around it and stared at themselves, distorted in reflection. Nobody spoke. They just walked around it.

Finally Ted said, "I feel like this is an IQ test, and I'm flunking."

"You mean like the Davies Message?" Harry said.

"Oh that," Ted said.

Norman knew about the Davies Message. It was one of the episodes that the SETI promoters wished to forget. In 1979, there had been a large meeting in Rome of the scientists involved in the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence. Basically, SETI called for a radio astronomy search of the heavens. Now the scientists were trying to decide what sort of message to search for.

Emerson Davies, a physicist from Cambridge, England, devised a message based on fixed physical constants, such as the wavelength of emitted hydrogen, which were presumably the same throughout the universe. He arranged these constants in a binary pictorial form.

Because Davies thought this would be exactly the kind of message an alien intelligence might send, he figured it would be easy for the SETI people to figure out. He distributed his picture to everybody at the conference.

Nobody could figure it out.

When Davies explained it, they all agreed it was a clever idea, and a perfect message for extraterrestrials to send. But the fact remained that none of them had been able to figure out this perfect message.

One of the people who had tried to figure it out, and had failed, was Ted.

"Well, we didn't try very hard," Ted said. "There was a lot going on at the conference. And we didn't have you there, Harry."

"You just wanted a free trip to Rome," Harry said.

Beth said, "Is it my imagination, or have the door markingschanged?"

Norman looked. At first glance, the deep grooves appeared the same, but perhaps the pattern was different. If so, the change was subtle.

"We can compare it with old videotapes," Barnes said. "It looks the same to me," Ted said. "Anyway, it's metal. I doubt it could change."

"What we call metal is just a liquid that flows slowly at room temperature," Harry said. "It's possible that this metal is changing."

"I doubt it," Ted said.

Barnes said, "You guys are supposed to be the experts. We know this thing can open. It's been open already. How do we get it open again?"

"We're trying, Hal."

"It doesn't look like you're doing anything."

From time to time, they glanced at Harry, but Harry just stood there, looking at the sphere, his hand on his chin, tapping his lower lip thoughtfully with his finger.

"Harry?"

Harry said nothing.

Ted went up and slapped the sphere with the flat of his hand. It made a dull sound, but nothing happened. Ted pounded the sphere with his fist; then he winced and rubbed his hand.

"I don't think we can force our way in. I think it has to let you in," Norman said. Nobody said anything after that. "My hand-picked, crack team," Barnes said, needling them. "And all they can do is stand around and stare at it."

"What do you want us to do, Hal? Nuke it?"

"If you don't get it open, there are people who will try that, eventually." He glanced at his watch. "Meanwhile, you got any other bright ideas?"

Nobody did.

"Okay," Barnes said. "Our time is up. Let's go back to the habitat and get ready to be ferried to the surface."

DEPARTURE

Norman pulled the small navy-issue bag from beneath his bunk in C Cylinder. He got his shaving kit from the bathroom, found his notebook and his extra pair of socks, and zipped the bag shut.

"I'm ready."

"Me, too," Ted said. Ted was unhappy; he didn't want to leave. "I guess we can't delay it any longer. The weather's getting worse. They've got all the divers out from DH-7, and now there's only us."

Norman smiled at the prospect of being on the surface again. I never thought I'd look forward to seeing Navy battleship gray on a ship, but I do.

"Where're the others?" Norman said.

"Beth's already packed. I think she's with Barnes in communication. Harry, too, I guess." Ted plucked at his jumpsuit. "I'll tell you one thing, I'll be glad to see the last of this suit.

They left the sleeping quarters, heading down to communications. On the way, they squeezed past Teeny Fletcher, who was going toward B Cylinder.

"Ready to leave?" Norman said.

"Yes, sir, all squared away," Fletcher said, but her features were tense, and she seemed rushed, under pressure.

"Aren't you going the wrong way?" Norman asked.

"Just checking the diesel backups."

Backups? Norman thought. Why check the backups now that they were leaving?

"She probably left something on that she shouldn't have," Ted said, shaking his head.

In the communications console, the mood was grim. Barnes was on the phone with the surface vessels. "Say that again," he said. "I want to hear who's authorized that." He was frowning, angry.

They looked at Tina. "How's the weather on the surface?"

"Deteriorating fast, apparently."

Barnes spun: "Will you idiots keep it down?"

Norman dropped his day bag on the floor. Beth was sitting near the portholes, tired, rubbing her eyes. Tina was turning off the monitors, one after another, when she suddenly stopped.

"Look."

On one monitor, they saw the polished sphere. Harry was standing next to it.

"What's he doing there?"

"Didn't he come back with us?"

"I thought he did."

"I didn't notice; I assumed he did."

"God damn it, I thought I told you people - " Barnes began, and then stopped. He stared at the monitor.

On the screen, Harry turned toward the video camera and made a short bow.

"Ladies and gentlemen, your attention, please. I think you will find this of interest."

Harry turned to face the sphere. He stood with his arms at his sides, relaxed. He did not move or speak. He closed his eyes. He took a deep breath.

The door to the sphere opened.

"Not bad, huh?" Harry said, with a sudden grin.

Then Harry stepped inside the sphere. The door closed behind him.

They all began talking at once. Barnes was shouting over everyone else, shouting for quiet, but no one paid any attention until the lights in the habitat went out. They were plunged into darkness.

Ted said, "What's happened?"

The only light came through the portholes, faintly, from the grid lights. A moment later, the grid went out, too.

"No power ..."

"I tried to tell you," Barnes said.

There was a whirring sound, and the lights flickered, then came back on. "We have internal power; we're running on our diesels now."

"Why?"

"Look," Ted said, pointing out the porthole.

Outside they saw what looked like a wriggling silver snake. Then Norman realized it was the cable that linked them to the surface, sliding back and forth across the porthole as it coiled in great loops on the bottom.

"They've cut us free!"

"That's right," Barnes said. "They've got full gale-force conditions topside. They can no longer maintain cables for power and communications. They can no longer use the submarines. They've taken all the divers up, but the subs can't come back for us. At least not for a few days, until the seas calm down."

"Then we're stuck down here?"

"That's correct."

"For how long?"

"Several days," Barnes said.

"For how long?"

"Maybe as long as a week."

"Jesus Christ," Beth said.

Ted tossed his bag onto the couch. "What a fantastic piece of luck," he said.

Beth spun. "Are you out of your mind?"

"Let's all stay calm," Barnes said. "Everything's under control. This is just a temporary delay. There's no reason to get upset."

But Norman didn't feel upset. He felt suddenly exhausted. Beth was sulking, angry, feeling deceived; Ted was excited, already planning another excursion to the spacecraft, arranging equipment with Edmunds.

But Norman felt only tired. His eyes were heavy; he thought he might go to sleep standing there in front of the monitors. He excused himself hurriedly, went back to his bunk, lay down. He didn't care that the sheets were clammy; he didn't care that the pillow was cold; he didn't care that diesels were droning and vibrating in the next cylinder. He thought: This is a very strong avoidance reaction. And then he was asleep.

BEYOND PLUTO

Norman rolled out of bed and looked for his watch, but he'd gotten into the habit of not wearing one down here. He had no idea what time it was, how long he had been asleep. He looked out the porthole, saw nothing but black water. The grid lights were still off. He lay back in his bunk and looked at the gray pipes directly over his head; they seemed closer than before, as if they had moved toward him while he slept. Everything seemed cramped, tighter, more claustrophobic.

Several more days of this, he thought. God.

He hoped the Navy would think to notify his family. After so many days, Ellen would start to worry. He imagined her first calling the FAA, then calling the Navy, trying to find out what had happened. Of course, no one would know anything, because the project was classified; Ellen would be frantic.

Then he stopped thinking about Ellen. It was easier, he thought, to worry about your loved ones than to worry about yourself. But there wasn't any point. Ellen would be okay. And so would he. It was just a matter of waiting. Staying calm, and waiting out the storm.

He got into the shower, wondering if they'd still have hot water while the habitat was on emergency power. They did, and he felt less stiff after his shower. It was odd, he thought, to be a thousand feet underwater and to relish the soothing effects of a hot shower.

He dressed and headed for the C Cylinder. He heard Tina's voice say, " - think they'll ever get the sphere open?"

Beth: "Maybe. I don't know."

"It scares me."

"I don't think there's a reason to be scared."

"It's the unknown," Tina said.

When Norman came in, he found Beth running the videotape, looking at herself and Tina. "Sure," Beth said on the videotape, "but an unknown thing is not likely to be dangerous or frightening. It's most likely to be just inexplicable."

Tina said, "I don't know how you can say that."

"You afraid of snakes?" Beth said, onscreen.

Beth snapped off the videotape. "Just trying to see if I could figure out why it opened," she said.

"Any luck?" Norman said.

"Not so far." On the adjacent monitor, they could see the sphere itself. The sphere was closed.

"Harry still in there?" Norman said.

"Yes," Beth said.

"How long has it been now?"

She looked up at the consoles. "A little more than an hour."

"I only slept an hour?"

"Yeah."

"I'm starving," Norman said, and he went down to the galley to eat. All the coconut cake was gone. He was looking for something else to eat when Beth showed up.

"I don't know what to do, Norman," she said, frowning.

"About what?"

"They're lying to us," she said.

"Who is?"

"Barnes. The Navy. Everybody. This is all a setup, Norman."

"Come on, Beth. No conspiracies, now. We have enough to worry about without - "

" - Just look at this," she said. She led him back upstairs, flicked on a console, pressed buttons.

"I started putting it together when Barnes was on the phone," she said. "Barnes was talking to somebody right up to the moment when the cable started to coil down. Except that cable is a thousand feet long, Norman. They would have broken communications several minutes before unhooking the cable itself."

"Probably, yes ..."

"So who was Barnes talking to at the last minute? Nobody."

"Beth ..."

"Look," she said, pointing to the screen.

COM SUMMARY DH-SURCOM/l

0910 BARNES TO SURCOM/1:

CIVILIAN AND USN PERSONNEL POLLED. ALTHOUGH ADVISED OF RISKS, ALL PERSONNEL ELECT TO REMAIN DOWN FOR DURATION OF STORM TO CONTINUE INVESTIGATION OF ALIEN SPHERE AND ASSOCIATED SPACECRAFT.

BARNES, USN.

"You're kidding," Norman said. "I thought Barnes wanted to leave."

"He did, but he changed his mind when he saw that last room, and he didn't bother to tell us. I'd like to kill the bastard," Beth said. "You know what this is about, Norman, don't you?"

Norman nodded. "He hopes to find a new weapon."

"Right. Barnes is a Pentagon-acquisition man, and he wants to find a new weapon."

"But the sphere is unlikely - "

"It's not the sphere," Beth said. "Barnes doesn't really care about the sphere. He cares about the 'associated spacecraft.' Because, according to congruity theory, it's the spacecraft that is likely to pay off. Not the sphere."

Congruity theory was a troublesome matter for the people who thought about extraterrestrial life. In a simple way, the astronomers and physicists who considered the possibility of contact with extraterrestrial life imagined wonderful benefits to mankind from such a contact. But other thinkers, philosophers and historians, did not foresee any benefits to contact at all.

For example, astronomers believed that if we made contact with extraterrestrials, mankind would be so shocked that wars on Earth would cease, and a new era of peaceful cooperation between nations would begin.

But historians thought that was nonsense. They pointed out that when Europeans discovered the New World - a similarly world-shattering discovery - the Europeans did not stop their incessant fighting. On the contrary: they fought even harder. Europeans simply made the New World an extension of pre-existing animosities. It became another place to fight, and to fight over.

Similarly, astronomers imagined that when mankind met extraterrestrials, there would be an exchange of information and technology, giving mankind a wonderful advancement.

Historians of science thought that was nonsense, too. They pointed out that what we called "science" actually consisted of a rather arbitrary conception of the universe, not likely to be shared by other creatures. Our ideas of science were the ideas of visually oriented, monkey-like creatures who enjoyed changing their physical environment. If the aliens were blind and communicated by odors, they might have evolved a very different science, which described a very different universe. And they might have made very different choices about the directions their science would explore. For example, they might ignore the physical world entirely, and instead develop a highly sophisticated science of mind - in other words, the exact opposite of what Earth science had done. The alien technology might be purely mental, with no visible hardware at all.

This issue was at the heart of congruity theory, which said that unless the aliens were remarkably similar to us, no exchange of information was likely. Barnes of course knew that theory, so he knew he wasn't likely to derive any useful technology from the alien sphere. But he was very likely to get useful technology from the spaceship itself, since the spaceship had been made by men, and congruity was high.

And he had lied to keep them down. To keep the search going.

"What should we do with the bastard?" Beth said. "Nothing, for the moment," Norman said.

"You don't want to confront him? Jesus, I do."

"It won't serve any purpose," Norman said. "Ted won't care, and the Navy people are all following orders. And anyway, even if it had been arranged for us to depart as planned, would you have gone, leaving Harry behind in the sphere?"

"No," Beth admitted.

"Well, then. It's all academic."

"Jesus, Norman ..."

"I know. But we're here now. And for the next couple of days, there's not a damn thing we can do about it. Let's deal with that reality as best we can, and point the finger later."

"You bet I'm going to point the finger!"

"That's fine. But not now, Beth."

"Okay," she sighed. "Not now."

She went back upstairs.

Alone, Norman stared at the console. He had his work cut out for him, keeping everybody calm for the next few days. He hadn't looked into the computer system before; he started pressing buttons. Pretty soon he found a file marked ULF CONTACT TEAM BIOG. He opened it up.

Civilian Team Members

1. Theodore Fielding, astrophysicist/planetary geologist

2. Elizabeth Halpern, zoologist/biochemist

3. Harold J. Adams, mathematician/logician

4. Arthur Levine, marine biologist/biochemist

5. John F. Thompson, psychologist

Choose one:

Norman stared in disbelief at the list.

He knew Jack Thompson, an energetic young psychologist from Yale. Thompson was world-renowned for his studies of the psychology of primitive peoples, and in fact for the past year had been somewhere in New Guinea, studying native tribes.

Norman pressed more buttons.

ULF TEAM PSYCHOLOGIST: CHOICES BY RANK

1. John F. Thompson, Yale - approved

2. William L. Hartz, UCB - approved

3. Jeremy White, UT - approved (pending clearance)

4. Norman Johnson, SDU - rejected (age)

He knew them all. Bill Hartz at Berkeley was seriously ill with cancer. Jeremy White had gone to Hanoi during the Vietnam War, and would never get clearance.

That left Norman.

He understood now why he had been the last to be called in. He understood now about the special tests. He felt a burst of intense anger at Barnes, at the whole system which had brought him down here, despite his age, with no concern for his safety. At fifty-three, Norman Johnson had no business being a thousand feet underwater in a pressurized exotic gas environment - and the Navy knew it.

It was an outrage, he thought. He wanted to go upstairs and give Barnes hell in no uncertain terms. That lying son of a bitch

He gripped the arms of his chair and reminded himself of what he had told Beth. Whatever had happened up to this point, there was nothing any of them could do about it now. He would indeed give Barnes hell - he promised himself he would - but only when they got back to the surface. Until then, it was no use making trouble.

He shook his head and swore.

Then he turned the console off.

The hours crept by. Harry was still in the sphere. Tina ran her image intensification of the videotape that showed the sphere open, trying to see interior detail. "Unfortunately, we have only limited computing power in the habitat," she said. "If I could hard-link to the surface I could really do a job, but as it is ..." She shrugged.

She showed them a series of enlarged freeze-frames from the open sphere. The images clicked through at one-second intervals. The quality was poor, with jagged, intermittent static.

"The only internal structures we can see in the blackness," Tina said, pointing to the opening, "are these multiple pointsources of light. The lights appear to move from frame to frame."

"It's as if the sphere is filled with fireflies," Beth said. "Except these lights are much dimmer than fireflies, and they don't blink. They are very numerous. And they give the impression of moving together, in surging patterns ..."

"A flock of fireflies?"

"Something like that." The tape ran out. The screen went dark.

Ted said, "That's it?"

"I'm afraid so, Dr. Fielding."

"Poor Harry," Ted said mournfully.

Of all the group, Ted was the most visibly upset about Harry. He kept staring at the closed sphere on the monitor, saying, "How did he do that?" Then he would add, "I hope he's all right."

He repeated it so often that finally Beth said, "I think we know your feelings, Ted."

"I'm seriously concerned about him."

"I am, too. We all are."

"You think I'm jealous, Beth? Is that what you're saying?"

"Why would anyone think that, Ted?"

Norman changed the subject. It was crucial to avoid confrontations among group members. He asked Ted about his analysis of the flight data aboard the spaceship.

"It's very interesting," Ted said, warming to his subject. "My detailed examination of the earliest flight-data images," he said, "convinced me that they show three planets - Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto - and the sun, very small in the background. Therefore, the pictures are taken from some point beyond the orbit of Pluto. This suggests that the black hole is not far beyond our own solar system."

"Is that possible?" Norman said.

"Oh sure. In fact, for the last ten years some astrophysicists have suspected that there's a black hole - not a large one, but a black hole just outside our solar system."

"I hadn't heard that."

"Oh yes. In fact, some of us have argued that, if it was small enough, in a few years we could go out and capture the black hole, bring it back, park it in Earth orbit, and use the energy it generates to power the entire planet."

Barnes smiled. "Black-hole cowboys?"

"In theory, there's no reason it couldn't be done. Then just think: the entire planet would be free of its dependency on fossil fuels. ... The whole history of mankind would be changed."

Barnes said, "Probably make a hell of a weapon, too."

"Even a very tiny black hole would be a little too powerful to use as a weapon."

"So you think this ship went out to capture a black hole?"

"I doubt it," Ted said. "The ship is so strongly made, so shielded against radiation, that I suspect it was intended to go through a black hole. And it did."

"And that's why the ship went back in time?" Norman said.

"I'm not sure," Ted said. "You see, a black hole really is the edge of the universe. What happens there isn't clear to anybody now alive. But what some people think is that you don't go through the hole, you sort of skip into it, like a pebble skipping over water, and you get bounced into a different time or space or universe."

"So the ship got bounced?"

"Yes. Possibly more than once. And when it bounced back here, it undershot and arrived a few hundred years before it left."

"And on one of its bounces, it picked up that?" Beth said, pointing to the monitor.

They looked. The sphere was still closed. But lying next to it, sprawled on the deck in an awkward pose, was Harry Adams.

For a moment they thought he was dead. Then Harry lifted his head and moaned.

THE SUBJECT

Norman wrote in his notebook: Subject is a thirty-year-old black mathematician who has spent three hours inside a sphere of unknown origin. On recovery from the sphere was stuporous and unresponsive; he did not know his name, where he was, or what year it was. Brought back to habitat; slept for one half-hour then awoke abruptly complaining of headache.

"Oh God."

Harry was sitting in his bunk, holding his head in his hands, groaning.

"Hurt?" Norman asked.

"Brutal. Pounding."

"Anything else?"

"Thirsty. God." He licked his lips. "Really thirsty."

Extreme thirst, Norman wrote.

Rose Levy, the cook, showed up with a glass of lemonade. Norman handed the glass to Harry, who drank it in a single gulp, passed it back.

"More."

"Better bring a pitcher," Norman said. Levy went off. Norman turned to Harry, still holding his head, still groaning, and said, "I have a question for you."

"What?"

"What's your name?"

"Norman, I don't need to be psychoanalyzed right now."

"Just tell me your name."

"Harry Adams, for Christ's sake. What's the matter with you? Oh, my head."

"You didn't remember before," Norman said. "When we found you."

"When you found me?" he asked. He seemed confused again.

Norman nodded. "Do you remember when we found you?"

"It must have been ... outside."

"Outside?"

Harry looked up, suddenly furious, eyes glowing with rage. "Outside the sphere, you goddamn idiot! What do you think I'm talking about?"

"Take it easy, Harry."