Michael Crichton - Sphere

“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.”

“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.

“Harry,” Norman said, “what’s going on?”

“Damned if I know.”

“I’m just wondering why we should suddenly be finding life down here-the squid, the shrimps-when before there was nothing. Ever.”

“Oh, that. I think that’s pretty clear.”

“Yes?”

“Sure. What’s different between then and now?”

“You’ve been inside the sphere.”

“No, no. I mean, what’s different in the outside environment?”

Norman frowned. He didn’t grasp what Harry was driving at.

“Well, just look outside,” Harry said. “What could you see before that you can’t see now?”

“The grid?”

“Uh-huh. The grid and the divers. Lot of activity-and a lot of electricity. I think it scared off the normal fauna of the area. This is the South Pacific, you know; it ought to be teeming with life.”

“And now that the divers are gone, the animals are back?”

“That’s my guess.”

“That’s all there is to it?” Norman said, frowning.

“Why are you asking me?” Harry said. “Ask Beth; she’ll give you a definitive answer. But I know animals are sensitive to all kinds of stimuli we don’t notice. You can’t run God knows how many million volts through underwater cables, to light a half-mile grid in an environment that has never seen light before, and not expect to have an effect.”

Something about this argument tickled the back of Norman’s mind. He knew something, something pertinent. But he couldn’t get it.

“Harry.”

“Yes, Norman. You look a little worried. You know, this substitution code is really a bitch. I’ll tell you the truth, I’m not sure I’ll be able to crack it. You see, the problem is, if it is a letter substitution, you will need two digits to describe a single letter, because there are twenty-six letters in the alphabet, assuming no punctuation-which may or may not be included here as well. So when I see a two next to a three, I don’t know if it is letter two followed by letter three, or just letter twenty-three. It’s taking a long time to work through the permutations. You see what I mean?”

“Harry.”

“Yes, Norman.”

“What happened inside the sphere?”

“Is that what you’re worried about?” Harry asked.

“What makes you think I’m worried about anything?” Norman asked.

“Your face,” Harry said. “That’s what makes me think you’re worried.”

“Maybe I am,” Norman said. “But about this sphere…”

“You know, I’ve been thinking a lot about that sphere.”

“And?”

“It’s quite amazing. I really don’t remember what happened.”

“Harry.”

“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?”

“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.”

“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.”