Michael Crichton - Sphere

“One of the species of giant squid.”

“That’s what attacked us?”

“I think so, yes.”

She explained that little was known about the giant squid, because the only specimens studied were dead animals that washed ashore, generally in a state of advanced decay, and reeking of ammonia. For most of human history, the giant squid was considered a mythical sea monster, like the kraken. But in 1861 the first reliable scientific reports appeared, after a French warship managed to haul in fragments of one dead animal. And many killed whales which showed scars from giant suckers, testimony of undersea battles. Whales were the only known predator of the giant squid-the only animals large enough to be predators.

“By now,” Beth said, “giant squid have been observed in every major ocean of the world. There are at least three distinct species. The animals grow very large and can weigh a thousand pounds or more. The head is about twenty feet long, with a crown of eight arms. Each arm is about ten feet long, with long rows of suckers. In the center of the crown is a mouth with a sharp beak, like a parrot’s beak, except the jaws are seven inches long.”

“Levy’s torn suit?”

“Yes.” She nodded. “The beak is mounted in a ring of muscle so it can twist in circles as it bites. And the radula-the tongue of the squid-has a raspy, file-like surface.”

“Tina mentioned something about a leaf, a brown leaf.” “The giant squid has two tentacles that extend out much further than the arms, as long as forty feet. Each tentacle ends in a flattened ‘manus’ or ‘palm,’ which looks very much like a big leaf. The manus is what the squid really uses to catch prey. The suckers on the manus are surrounded by a little hard ring of chitin, which is why you see the circular toothmarks around the injury.”

Norman said, “How would you fight one?”

“Well,” Beth said, “in theory, although giant squid are very large, they are not particularly strong.”

“So much for theory,” Norman said.

She nodded. “Of course, nobody knows how strong they are, since a living specimen has never been encountered. We have the dubious distinction of being first.”

“But it can be killed?”

“I would think rather easily. The squid’s brain is located behind the eye, which is about fifteen inches across, the size of a big dinner plate. If you directed an explosive charge into the animal anywhere in that area, you would almost certainly disrupt the nervous system and it would die.”

“Do you think Barnes killed the squid?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“Is there more than one in an area?”

“I don’t know.”

“Will we see one again?”

“I don’t know.”

Norman went downstairs to the communications center to see if he could talk to Jerry, but Jerry was not responding. Norman must have dozed off in the console chair, because he looked up abruptly, startled to see a trim black seaman in uniform standing just behind him, looking over his shoulder at the screens.

“How’s it going, sir?” the seaman asked. He was very calm. His uniform was crisply pressed.

Norman felt a burst of tremendous elation. This man’s arrival at the habitat could mean only one thing-the surface ships must be back! The ships had returned, and the subs had been sent down to retrieve them! They were all going to be saved!

“Sailor,” Norman said, pumping his hand, “I’m very damn glad to see you.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“When did you get here?” Norman asked.

“Just now, Sir.”

“Do the others know yet?”

“The others, sir?”

“Yes. There’s, uh, there’s six of us left. Have they been told you’re here?”

“I don’t know the answer to that, sir.”

There was a flatness to this man that Norman found odd. The sailor was looking around the habitat, and for a moment Norman saw the environment through his eyes-the damp interior, the wrecked consoles, the foam-spattered walls. It looked like they had fought a war in here.

“We’ve had a rough time,” Norman said.

“I can see that, sir.”

“Three of us have died.”

“I’m sorry to hear that, sir.”

That flatness again. Neutrality. Was he being proper? Was he worried about a pending court-martial? Was it something else entirely?

“Where have you come from?” Norman said.

“Come from, sir?”

“What ship.”

“Oh. The Sea Hornet , sir.”

“It’s topside now?”

“Yes, sir, it is.”

“Well, let’s get moving,” Norman said. “Tell the others you’re here.”

“Yes, sir.”

The seaman went away. Norman stood and shouted, “Yahoo! We’re saved!”

“At least he wasn’t an illusion,” Norman said, staring at the screen. “There he is, big as life, on the monitor.”

“Yes. There he is. But where’d he go?” Beth said. For the last hour, they had searched the habitat thoroughly. There was no sign of the black crewman. There was no sign of a submarine outside. There was no evidence of surface ships. The balloon they had sent up registered eighty-knot winds and thirty-foot waves before the wire snapped.

So where had he come from? And where had he gone? Fletcher was working the consoles. A screen of data came up. “How about this? Log of ships in active service shows no vessel currently designated Sea Hornet .”

Norman said, “What the hell is going on here?”

“Maybe he was an illusion,” Ted said.

“Illusions don’t register on videotape,” Harry said. “Besides, I saw him, too.”

“You did?” Norman said.

“Yeah. I had just woken up, and I had had this dream about being rescued, and I was lying in bed when I heard footsteps and he walked into the room.”

“Did you talk to him?”

“Yes. But he was funny. He was dull. Kind of boring.”

Norman nodded. “You could tell something wasn’t right about him.”

“Yes, you could.”

“But where did he come from?” Beth said.

“I can think of only one possibility,” Ted said. “He came from the sphere. Or at least, he was made by the sphere. By Jerry.”

“Why would Jerry do that? To spy on us?”

Ted shook his head. “I’ve been thinking about this,” he said. “It seems to me that Jerry has the ability to create things. Animals. I don’t think that Jerry is a giant squid, but Jerry created the giant squid that attacked us. I don’t think Jerry wants to attack us, but, from what Beth was telling us, once he made the squid, then the squid might attack the habitat, thinking the cylinders were its mortal enemy, the whale. So the attack happened as a kind of accident of creation.”

They frowned, listening. To Norman, the explanation was entirely too convenient. “I think there is another possibility. That Jerry is hostile.”

“I don’t believe that,” Ted said. “I don’t believe Jerry is hostile.”

“He certainly acts hostile, Ted.”

“But I don’t think he intends to be hostile.”

“Whatever he intends,” Fletcher said, “we better not go through another attack. Because the structure can’t take it. And neither can the support systems.

“After the first attack, I had to increase positive pressure,” Fletcher said, “in order to fix the leaks. To keep water from coming in, I had to increase the pressure of the air inside the habitat to make it greater than the pressure of the water outside. That stopped the leaks, but it meant that air bubbled out through all the cracks. And one hour of repair work consumed nearly sixteen hours of our reserve air. I’ve been worried we’ll run out of air.”

There was a pause. They all considered the implications of that.