Michael Crichton - Sphere

THANK YOU. I AM EXCITED ALSO.

“Jerry, we find you a fascinating and wonderful entity.”

Barnes was rolling his eyes, shaking his head.

THANK YOU, NORMAN.

“And we wish to talk to you for many, many hours, Jerry.”

GOOD.

“We admire your gifts and talents.”

THANK YOU.

“And we know that you have great power and understanding of all things.”

THIS IS SO, NORMAN. YES.

“Jerry, in your great understanding, you certainly know that we are entities who must have conversations among ourselves, without your listening to us. The experience of meeting you is very challenging to us, and we have much to talk about among ourselves.”

Barnes was shaking his head.

I HAVE MUCH TO TALK ABOUT ALSO. I ENJOY MUCH TO TALK WITH YOUR ENTITIES NORMAN.

“Yes, I know, Jerry. But you also know in your wisdom that we need to talk alone.”

DO NOT BE AFRAID.

“We’re not afraid, Jerry. We are uncomfortable.”

DO NOT BE UN COMFORTABLE.

“We can’t help it, Jerry… It is the way we are.”

I ENJOY MUCH TO TALK WITH YOUR ENTITIES NORMAN. I AM HAPPY. ARE YOU HAPPY ALSO?

“Yes, very happy, Jerry. But, you see, we need-”

GOOD. I AM GLAD.

“-we need to talk alone. Please do not listen for a while.”

AM I OFFENDED YOU?

“No, you are very friendly and charming. But we need to talk alone, without your listening, for a while.”

I UNDERSTAND YOU NEED THIS. I WISH YOU TO HAVE COMFORT WITH ME, NORMAN. I SHALL GRANT WHAT YOU DESIRE.

“Thank you, Jerry.”

“Sure,” Barnes said. “You think he’ll really do it?”

WE’LL BE RIGHT BACK AFTER A SHORT BREAK FOR THESE MESSAGES FROM OUR SPONSOR.

And the screen went blank.

Despite himself, Norman laughed.

“Fascinating,” Ted said. “Apparently he’s been picking up television signals.”

“Can’t do that from underwater.”

“We can’t, but it looks like he can.”

Barnes said, “I know he’s still listening. I know he is. Jerry, are you there?”

The screen was blank.

“Jerry?”

Nothing happened. The screen remained blank.

“He’s gone.”

“Well,” Norman said. “you’ve just seen the power of psychology in action.” He couldn’t help saying it. He was still annoyed with Ted.

“I’m sorry,” Ted began.

“That’s all right.”

“But I just don’t think that for a higher intellect, emotions are really significant.”

“Let’s not go into this again,” Beth said.

“The real point,” Norman said, “is that emotions and intellect are entirely unrelated. They’re like separate compartments of the brain, or even separate brains, and they don’t communicate with each other. That’s why intellectual understanding is so useless.”

Ted said, “Intellectual understanding is useless ?” He sounded horrified.

“In many cases, yes,” Norman said. “If you read a book on how to ride a bike, do you know how to ride a bike? No, you don’t. You can read all you want, but you still have to go out and learn to ride. The part of your brain that learns to ride is different from the part of your brain that reads about it.”

“What does this have to do with Jerry?” Barnes said. “We know,” Norman said, “that a smart person is just as likely to blunder emotionally as anyone else. If Jerry is really an emotional creature-and not just pretending to be one-then we need to deal with his emotional side as well as his intellectual side.”

“Very convenient for you,” Ted said.

“Not really,” Norman said. “Frankly, I’d be much happier if Jerry were just cold, emotionless intellect.”

“Why?”

“Because,” Norman said, “if Jerry is powerful and also emotional, it raises a question. What happens if Jerry gets mad?”

The group broke up. Harry, exhausted by the sustained effort of decoding, immediately went off to sleep. Ted went to C Cyl to tape his personal observations on Jerry for the book he was planning to write. Barnes and Fletcher went to E Cyl to plan battle strategy, in case the alien decided to attack them.

Tina stayed for a moment, adjusting the monitors in her precise, methodical way. Norman and Beth watched her work. She spent a lot of time with a deck of controls Norman had never noticed before. There was a series of gas-plasma readout screens, glowing bright red.

“What’s all that?” Beth said.

“EPSA. The External Perimeter Sensor Array. We have active and passive sensors for all modalities-thermal, aural, pressure-wave-ranged in concentric circles around the habitat. Captain Barnes wants them all reset and activated.”

“Why is that?” Norman said.

“I don’t know, sir. His orders.”

The intercom crackled. Barnes said: “Seaman Chan to E Cylinder on the double. And shut down the com line in here. I don’t want that Jerry listening to these plans.”

“Yes, sir.”

Beth said, “Paranoid ass.”

Tina collected her papers and hurried off.

Norman sat with Beth in silence for a moment. They heard the rhythmic thumping, from somewhere in the habitat. Then another silence; then they heard the thumping again.

“What is that?” Beth said. “It sounds like it’s somewhere inside the habitat.” She went to the porthole, looked out, flicked on the exterior floods. “Uh-oh,” Beth said. Norman looked.

Stretching across the ocean floor was an elongated shadow which moved back and forth with each thumping impact. The shadow was so distorted it took him a moment to realize what he was seeing. It was the shadow of a human arm, and a human hand.

“Captain Barnes. Are you there?”

There was no reply. Norman snapped the intercom switch again.

“Captain Barnes, are you reading?”

Still no reply.

“He’s shut off the com line,” Beth said. “He can’t hear you.”

“Do you think the person’s still alive out there?” Norman said.

“I don’t know. They might be.”

“Let’s get going,” Norman said.

He tasted the dry metallic compressed air inside his helmet and felt the numbing cold of the water as he slid through the floor hatch and fell in darkness to the soft muddy bottom. Moments later, Beth landed just behind him.

“Okay?” she said.

“Fine.”

“I don’t see any jellyfish,” she said.

“No. Neither do I.”

They moved out from beneath the habitat, turned, and looked back. The habitat lights shone harshly into their eyes, obscuring the outlines of the cylinders rising above. They could clearly hear the rhythmic thumping, but they still could not locate the source of the sound. They walked beneath the stanchions to the far side of the habitat, squinting into the lights.

“There,” Beth said.

Ten feet above them, a blue-suited figure was wedged in a light stand bracket. The body moved loosely in the current, the bright-yellow helmet banging intermittently against the wall of the habitat.

“Can you see who it is?” Beth said.

“No.” The lights were shining directly in his face. Norman climbed up one of the heavy supporting stanchions that anchored the habitat to the bottom. The metal surface was covered with a slippery brown algae. His boots kept sliding off the pipes until finally he saw that there were built-in indented footholds. Then he climbed easily.

Now the feet of the body were swinging just above his head. Norman climbed another step, and one of the boots caught in the loop of the air hose that ran from his tank pack to his helmet. He reached behind his helmet, trying to free himself from the body. The body shivered, and for an awful moment he thought it was still alive. Then the boot came free in his hand, and a naked foot-gray flesh, purple toenails-kicked his faceplate. A moment of nausea quickly passed: Norman had seen too many airplane crashes to be bothered by this. He dropped the boot, watched it drift down to Beth. He tugged on the leg of the corpse. He felt a mushy softness to the leg, and the body came free; it gently drifted down. He grabbed the shoulder, again feeling softness. He turned the body so he could see the face.