Michael Crichton - Sphere

“Yes,” Norman said, smiling. “I am.”

“How’re we doing?” Ted said.

“I would say it is highly significant that a group of scientists can’t remember who played the scientist in a movie they all loved.”

“Well, Kirk Douglas was the hero, that’s why. The scientist wasn’t the hero.”

“Franchot Tone?” Barnes said. “Claude Rains?”

“No, I don’t think so. Fritz somebody?”

“Fritz Weaver?”

They heard a crackle and hiss, and then the sounds of an organ playing the Toccata and Fugue in D minor.

“Great,” Ted said. “I didn’t know we had music down here.”

Edmunds returned to the table. “There’s a tape library, Ted.”

“I don’t know if this is right for dinner,” Barnes said.

“I like it,” Ted said. “Now, if we only had seaweed salad. Isn’t that what Captain Nemo served?”

“Maybe something lighter?” Barnes said.

“Lighter than seaweed?”

“Lighter than Bach.”

“What was the submarine called?” Ted said.

“The Nautilus ,” Edmunds said.

“Oh, right. Nautilus .”

“It was the name of the first atomic submarine, too, launched in 1954,” she said. And she gave Ted a bright smile.

“True,” Ted said. “True.”

Norman thought, He’s met his match in irrelevant trivia. Edmunds went to the porthole and said, “Oh, more visitors.”

“What now?” Harry said, looking up quickly.

Frightened? Norman thought. No, just quick, manic. Interested.

“They’re beautiful ,” Edmunds was saying. “Some kind of little jellyfish. All around the habitat. We should really film them. What do you think, Dr. Fielding? Should we go film them?”

“I think I’ll just eat now, Jane,” Ted said, a bit severely. Edmunds looked stricken, rejected. Norman thought, I’ll have to watch that. She turned to leave. The others glanced toward the porthole, but nobody left the table.

“Have you ever eaten jellyfish?” Ted said. “I hear they’re a delicacy.”

“Some of them are poisonous,” Beth said. “Toxins in the tentacles.”

“Don’t the Chinese eat jellyfish?” Harry said.

“Yes,” Tina said. “They make a soup, too. My grandmother used to make it in Honolulu.”

“You’re from Honolulu?”

“Mozart would be better for dining,” Barnes said. “Or Beethoven. Something with strings. This organ music is gloomy.”

“Dramatic,” Ted said, playing imaginary keys in the air, in time to the music. Swaying his body like James Mason.

“Gloomy,” Barnes said.

The intercom crackled. “Oh, you should see this,” Edmunds said, over the intercom. “It’s beautiful .”

“Where is she?”

“She must be outside,” Barnes said. He went to the porthole.

“It’s like pink snow,” Edmunds said. They all got up and went to the portholes.

Edmunds was outside with the video camera. They could hardly see her through the dense clouds of jellyfish. The jellyfish were small, the size of a thimble, and a delicate, glowing pink. It was indeed like a snowfall. Some of the jellyfish came quite close to the porthole; they could see them well.

“They have no tentacles,” Harry said. “They’re just little pulsating sacs.”

“That’s how they move,” Beth said. “Muscular contractions expel the water.”

“Like squid,” Ted said.

“Not as developed, but the general idea.”

“They’re sticky,” Edmunds said, over the intercom. “They’re sticking to my suit.”

“That pink color is fantastic,” Ted said. “Like snow in a sunset.”

“Very poetic.”

“I thought so.”

“You would.”

“They’re sticking to my faceplate, too,” Edmunds said. “I have to pull them off. They leave a smeary streak-”

She broke off abruptly, but they could still hear her breathing.

“Can you see her?” Ted said.

“Not very well. She’s there, to the left.”

Over the intercom, Edmunds said, “They seem to be warm. I feel heat on my arms and legs.”

“That’s not right,” Barnes said. He turned to Tina. “Tell her to get out of there.”

Tina ran from the cylinder, toward the communications console.

Norman could hardly see Edmunds any more. He was vaguely aware of a dark shape, moving arms, agitated…

Over the intercom, she said, “The smear on the faceplate-it won’t go away-they seem to be eroding the plastic-and my arms-the fabric is-”

Tina’s voice said, “Jane. Jane, get out of there.”

“On the double,” Barnes shouted. “Tell her on the double!”

Edmunds’s breathing was coming in ragged gasps. “The smears-can’t see very well-I feel-hurts-my arms burning-hurts-they’re eating through-”

“Jane. Come back. Jane. Are you reading? Jane.”

“She’s fallen down,” Harry said. “Look, you can see her lying-”

“-We have to save her,” Ted said, jumping to his feet.

“ Nobody move , “ Barnes said.

“But she’s-”

“-Nobody else is going out there, mister.”

Edmunds’s breathing was rapid. She coughed, gasped. “I can’t-I can’t-oh God-”

Edmunds began to scream.

The scream was high-pitched and continuous except for ragged gasps for breath. They could no longer see her through the swarms of jellyfish. They looked at each other, at Barnes. Barnes’s face was rigidly set, his jaw tight, listening to the screams.

And then, abruptly, there was silence.

An hour later, the jellyfish disappeared as mysteriously as they had come. They could see Edmunds’s body outside the habitat, lying on the bottom, rocking back and forth gently in the current. There were small ragged holes in the fabric of the suit.

They watched through the portholes as Barnes and the chief petty officer, Teeny Fletcher, crossed the bottom into the harsh floodlights, carrying extra air tanks. They lifted Edmunds’s body; the helmeted head flopped loosely back, revealing the scarred plastic faceplate, dull in the light.

Nobody spoke. Norman noticed that even Harry had dropped his manic effect; he sat unmoving, staring out the window.

Outside, Barnes and Fletcher still held the body. There was a great burst of silvery bubbles, which rose swiftly to the surface.

“What’re they doing?”

“Inflating her suit.”

“Why? Aren’t they bringing her back?” Ted said.

“They can’t,” Tina said. “There’s nowhere to put her here. The decomposition by-products would ruin our air.”

“But there must be some kind of a sealed container-”

“-There isn’t,” Tina said. “There’s no provision for keeping organic remains in the habitat.”

“You mean they didn’t plan on anyone dying.”

“That’s right. They didn’t.”

Now there were many thin streams of bubbles rising from the holes in the suit, toward the surface. Edmunds’s suit was puffed, bloated. Barnes released it, and it floated slowly away, as if pulled upward by the streaming silver bubbles.

“It’ll go to the surface?”

“Yes. The gas expands continuously as outside pressure diminishes.”

“And what then?”

“Sharks,” Beth said. “Probably.”

In a few moments the body disappeared into blackness, beyond the reach of the lights. Barnes and Fletcher still watched the body, helmets tilted up toward the surface. Fletcher made the sign of the cross. Then they trudged back toward the habitat.

A bell rang from somewhere inside. Tina went into D Cyl. Moments later she shouted, “Dr. Adams! More numbers!”

Harry got up and went into the next cylinder. The others trailed after him. Nobody wanted to look out the porthole any longer.