Sphere (Page 19)

"Then we have no marine biologist?"

"We’ll manage without him."

"I hate this damn jumpsuit," Ted said. "I really hate it."

"Beth looks good in hers."

"Yes, Beth works out."

"And it’s damp in here, too," Ted said. "Is it always so damp?"

Norman had noticed that humidity was a problem; everything they touched felt slightly wet and clammy and cold. Barnes warned them of the danger of infections and minor colds, and handed out bottles of skin lotion and ear drops.

"I thought you said the technology was all worked out," Harry said.

"It is," Barnes said. "Believe me, this is plush compared to the habitats ten years ago."

"Ten years ago," Harry said, "they stopped making habitats because people kept dying in them."

Barnes frowned. "There was one accident."

"There were two accidents," Harry said. "A total of four people."

"Special circumstances," Barnes said. "Not involving Navy technology or personnel."

"Great," Harry said. "How long did you say we going to be down here?"

"Maximum, seventy-two hours," Barnes said.

"You sure about that?"

"It’s Navy regs," Barnes said.

"Why?" Norman asked, puzzled.

Barnes shook his head. "Never," he said, "never ask a reason for Navy regulations."

The intercom clicked, and Tina Chan said, "Captain Barnes, we have a signal from the divers. They are mounting the airlock now. Another few minutes to open."

The feeling in the room changed immediately; the excitement was palpable. Ted rubbed his hands together. "You realize, of course, that even without opening that spacecraft, we have already made a major discovery of profound importance."

"What’s that?" Norman said.

"We’ve shot the unique event hypothesis to hell," Ted said, glancing at Beth.

"The unique event hypothesis?" Barnes said.

"He’s referring," Beth said, "to the fact that physicists and chemists tend to believe in intelligent extraterrestrial life, while biologists tend not to. Many biologists feel the development of intelligent life on Earth required so many peculiar steps that it represents a unique event in the universe, that may never have occurred elsewhere."

"Wouldn’t intelligence arise again and again?" Barnes said.

"Well, it barely arose on the Earth," Beth said. "The Earth is 4.5 billion years old, and single-celled life appeared 3.9 billion years ago – almost immediately, geologically speaking. But life remained single-celled for the next three billion years. Then in the Cambrian period, around six hundred million years ago, there was an explosion of sophisticated life forms. Within a hundred million years, the ocean was full of fish. Then the land became populated: Then the air. But nobody knows why the explosion occurred in the first place. And since it didn’t occur for three billion years, there’s the possibility that on some other planet, it might never occur at all.

"And even after the Cambrian, the chain of events leading to man appears to be so special, so chancy, that biologists worry it might never have happened. Just consider the fact that if the dinosaurs hadn’t been wiped out sixty-five million years ago – by a comet or whatever – then reptiles might still be the dominant form on Earth, and mammals would never have had a chance to take over. No mammals, no primates. No primates, no apes. No apes, no man … There are a lot of random factors in evolution, a lot of luck. That’s why biologists think intelligent life might be a unique event in the universe, only occurring here."

"Except now," Ted said, "we know it’s not a unique event. Because there is a damn big spacecraft out there."

"Personally," Beth said, "I couldn’t be more pleased." She bit her lip.

"You don’t look pleased," Norman said.

"I’ll tell you," Beth said. "I can’t help being nervous. Ten years ago, Bill Jackson at Stanford ran a series of weekend seminars on extraterrestrial life. This was right after he won the Nobel prize in chemistry. He split us into two groups. One group designed the alien life form, and worked it all out scientifically. The other group tried to figure out the life form, and communicate with it. Jackson presided over the whole thing as a hard scientist, not letting anybody get carried away. One time we brought in a sketch of a proposed creature and he said, very tough, ‘Okay, where’s the anus?’ That was his criticism. But many animals on Earth have no anus. There are all kinds of excretory mechanisms that don’t require a special orifice. Jackson assumed an anus was necessary, but it isn’t. And now …" She shrugged. "Who knows what we’ll find?"

"We’ll know, soon enough," Ted said.

The intercom clicked. "Captain Barnes, the divers have the airlock mounted in place. The robot is now ready to enter the spacecraft."

Ted said, "What robot?"

THE DOOR

"I don’t think it’s appropriate at all," Ted said angrily. "We came down here to make a manned entry into this alien spacecraft. I think we should do what we came here to do – make a manned entry."

"Absolutely not," Barnes said. "We can’t risk it."

"You must think of this," Ted said, "as an archaeological site. Greater than Chichen Itzá, greater than Troy, greater than Tutankhamen’s tomb. Unquestionably the most important archaeological site in the history of mankind. Do you really intend to have a damned robot open that site? Where’s your sense of human destiny?"