Michael Crichton - Sphere

But I think that’s clear, Norman thought. Jerry doesn’t care if he kills us. He just wants to play, and he doesn’t know his own strength.

Yet there was something else. He scanned the sheets of printout, feeling instinctively some underlying organization to everything. Something he wasn’t getting, some connection he wasn’t making.

As he thought about it, he kept coming back to one question: Why a squid? Why a squid?

Of course, he thought. They had been talking about a squid, during the conversation at dinner. Jerry must have overheard that. He must have decided that a squid would be a provocative item to manifest. And he was certainly right about that.

Norman shifted the papers, and came upon the very first message that Harry had decoded.

HELLO. HOW ARE YOU? I AM FINE. WHAT IS YOUR NAME? MY NAME IS JERRY.

That was as good a place to begin as any. It had been quite a feat for Harry to decode it, Norman thought. If Harry hadn’t succeeded with that, they would never have ever started talking to Jerry at all.

Norman sat at the console, stared at the keyboard. What had Harry said? The keyboard was a spiral: the letter G was one, and B was two, and so on. Very clever to figure it out. Norman would never have figured that out in a million years. He started trying to find the letters in the first sequence.

00032125252632 032629 301321 04261037 18 3016 06180

82132 29033005 1822 04261013 0830162137 1604 083016

21 1822 033013130432

Let’s see… 00 marked the beginning of the message, Harry had said. And 03, that was H. And then 21, that was E, then 25 was L, and 25 was another L, and just above it, 26, was 0…

HELLO.

Yes, it all fitted. He continued translating. 032629 was HOW…

HOW ARE YOU?

So far, so good. Norman experienced a certain pleasure, almost as if he were decoding it himself for the first time. Now, 18. That was I…

I AM FINE.

He moved more quickly, writing down the letters.

WHAT IS YOUR NAME?

Now, 1604 was MY… MY NAME IS… But then he found a mistake in one letter. Was that possible? Norman kept going, found a second mistake, then wrote out the message, and stared at it in growing shock.

MY NAME IS HARRY.

“Jesus Christ,” he said.

He went over it again, but there was no mistake. Not by him. The message was perfectly clear.

HELLO. HOW ARE YOU? I AM FINE. WHAT IS YOUR NAME? MY NAME IS HARRY.

Beth sat up in her bed in the laboratory and stared at the message Norman had given her. “Oh my God,” she said. She pushed her thick dark hair away from her face. “How can it be?” she said.

“It all goes together,” Norman said. “Just think. When did the messages start? After Harry came out of the sphere. When did the squid and the other animals first appear? After Harry came out of the sphere.”

“Yes, but-”

“-At first there were little squid, but then, when we were going to eat them, suddenly there were shrimps, too. Just in time for dinner. Why? Because Harry doesn’t like to eat squid.”

Beth said nothing; she just listened.

“And who, as a child, was terrified by the giant squid in Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea?”

“Harry was,” she said. “I remember he said that.” Norman went on in a rush. “And when does Jerry appear on the screen? When Harry is present. Not at other times. And when does Jerry answer us as we talk? When Harry is in the room to hear what we’re saying. And why can’t Jerry read our minds? Because Harry can’t read our minds. And remember how Barnes kept asking for the name, and Harry wouldn’t ask for the name? Why? Because he was afraid the screen would say ‘Harry,’ not ‘Jerry.’ ”

“And the crewman…”

“Right. The black crewman. Who shows up just as Harry is having a dream of being rescued? A black crewman shows up to rescue us.”

Beth was frowning, thinking. “What about the giant squid?”

“Well, in the middle of its attack, Harry hit his head and was knocked unconscious. Immediately the squid disappeared. It didn’t come back again until Harry woke up from his nap, and told you he’d take over.”

“My God,” Beth said.

“Yes,” Norman said. “It explains a lot.”

She was silent for a while, staring at the message. “But how is he doing it?”

“I doubt if he is. At least, not consciously.” Norman had been thinking about this. “Let’s assume,” he said, “that something happened to Harry when he went inside the sphere-he acquired some kind of power while in the sphere.”

“Like what?”

“The power to make things happen just by thinking of them. The power to make his thoughts real.”

Beth frowned. “Make his thoughts real…”

“It’s not so strange,” he said. “Just think: if you were a sculptor, first you would get an idea, and then you would carve it in stone or wood, to make it real. The idea comes first, then the execution follows, with some added effort to create a reality that reflects your prior thoughts. That’s the way the world works for us. We imagine something, and then we try to make it happen. Sometimes the way we make it happen is unconscious-like the guy who just happens to go home unexpectedly at lunchtime and catches his wife in bed with another man. He doesn’t consciously plan it. It just sort of happens by itself.”

“Or the wife who catches the husband in bed with another woman,” Beth said.

“Yes, of course. The point is, we manage to make things happen all the time without thinking about them too much. I don’t think of every word when I talk to you. I just intend to say something and it comes out okay.”

“Yes…”

“So we can make complicated creations like sentences without effort. But we can’t make other complicated creations like sculptures without effort. We believe we have to do something besides simply have an idea.”

“And we do,” Beth said.

“Well, Harry doesn’t. Harry’s gone one step further. He doesn’t have to carve the statue any more. He just gets the idea, and things happen by themselves. He manifests things.”

“Harry imagines a frightening squid, and suddenly we have a frightening squid outside our window?”

“Exactly. And when he loses consciousness, the squid disappears.”

“And he got this power from the sphere?”

“Yes.”

Beth frowned. “Why is he doing this? Is he trying to kill us?”

Norman shook his head. “No. I think he’s in over his head.”

“How do you mean?”

“Well,” Norman said, “we’ve considered lots of ideas of what the sphere from another civilization might be. Ted thought it was a trophy or a message-he saw it as a present. Harry thought it had something inside-he saw it as a container. But I wonder if it might be a mine.”

“You mean, an explosive?”

“Not exactly-but a defense, or a test. An alien civilization could strew these things around the galaxy, and any intelligence that picks them up would get to experience the power of the sphere. Which is that whatever you think comes true. If you think positive thoughts, you get delicious shrimp for dinner. If you think negative thoughts, you get monsters trying to kill you. Same process, just a matter of content.”

“So, the same way a land mine blows up if you step on it, this sphere destroys people if they have negative thoughts?”

“Or,” he said, “if they simply aren’t in control of their consciousness. Because, if you’re in control of your consciousness, the sphere would have no particular effect. If you’re not in control, it gets rid of you.”