Sphere (Page 48)

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"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.

"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."

"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.