Orb

by Gary Tarulli

  “Shit.”

  “Yeah, shit,” Diana echoed.

  “Why was this kept from me?”

  “Hard to tell. One possibility is that Thompson didn’t want you, or any crew member, to consider themself privileged, to set themself above anyone else. Hell, I only found out by accident. A snippet of conversation overheard in a hallway.”

  “I bet.”

  “OK, maybe I lingered a little longer than necessary. But what I heard, I kept to myself.

  “And I shall do the same.”

  I looked at Kelly who had finished treating my scrapes. “Looks like I have some wounds to mend.”

  She nodded agreement.

  Thompson would have been disappointed if I made my apology too sappy. No sense lying to him either. “I respect what you did,” I said. “In the future I’ll show you even more respect if both of us are confronted with a similar situation and you try again to stop me.”

  “You’re a hard man to pin down,” he answered, pleased; but as we took seats at the table, I noticed for the first time that he was slightly favoring his right shoulder, in all likelihood having wrenched it tackling me and trying to keep me down. Kelly took note, too; we exchanged glances, but respected his decision to remain silent. She’d insist he take treatment after the meeting.

  “If you hadn’t been so upset, Paul said to me, “you could have passed off what happened with Angie as your brilliant idea to open communication with the Orb.”

  Thompson jumped on the remark. “Is that your take on what transpired?” he asked.

  “Yes,” Paul answered quickly.

  “Why?”

  “Thirty minutes ago a defensible argument could have been made that Orb movements are unmotivated. No longer. The idea is untenable. There is virtual certainty the entity wanted to make contact with Angie. During the contact something indefinable passed between them. I’m unable to say more.”

  “Diana?” Thompson said, asking for her opinion. She, too, answered with conviction.

  “On two occasions we’ve watched the Orb dress themselves in colors that I can only personally describe as some of the most strikingly beautiful I have ever seen. It’s loosely analogous to the way an octopus can show emotion by switching on and off chromatophore cells. More than ever I believe the entity can experience something akin to excitement. I am less certain to what degree Angie experienced similar sensations. She definitely was happy and excited afterward, but then again, she usually is.”

  “Anybody disagree?” Thompson asked.

  There were no takers, but by no means did any of us presume that meant Doctor Melhaus agreed.

  “Let’s get into particulars then,” Thompson said. “Paul, did the cameras capture any of what happened?”

  “Unfortunately, no. The activity was just outside their fields of view.”

  “Larry, inevitably I lay one of the more difficult questions at your doorstep. You’ve anticipated it, I presume?”

  “Of course. Suffice it to say that under induced circumstances matter can pass through matter at the subatomic level. If you mean to ask me by what mechanism the Orb facilitated this remarkable phenomenon, add it to the growing list of unresolved questions. Questions concerning their perfect spheroid shape, their motion, their magnetic fields. Posed to me while simultaneously disallowing me the means for devising answers.”

  “Let’s not go there again,” Thompson cautioned.

  “Has it not dawned on any of you,” Melhaus uttered, his face flushing red, a throbbing temple vein betraying his repressed anger, “that I am striving to connect all these seemingly unrelated phenomena together into one construct, and the construct may promote physics fifty years?!”

  “Doctor Melhaus,” Thompson responded, “it is true we may have ill-appreciated the magnitude of the problems you were working on. How could we since you are describing it to us for the first time and we, in kind, are preoccupied with groundbreaking research in our respective fields? I ask you, do you have something definitive to propose?”

  Melhaus had his response already scripted. “Attach a minicam and microsensors to the dog.”

  “You mean to use Angie as bait?” I said, caught unaware by the suggestion. I girded myself for yet another conversation doomed to have an unhappy conclusion.

  “It wouldn’t be the first time an animal was put to good use for the advancement of science.”

  “Larry, didn’t I overhear you say to Bruce—what was it exactly?—something to the effect that the Orb may take more threatening action?”

  “All the more reason to acquire additional information concerning them. Conversely, if I am incorrect, there is little danger in what I propose.”

  “Correct or not, what if the Orb feel threatened by the instrumentation?” I had in mind something similar to Melhaus’s version of Ixodes’ demise. To keep the peace, I chose not state this idea more plainly.

  “And so you refuse?”

  “I didn’t say either way. I want to give the idea some consideration.” I glanced at my crewmates. They remained noncommittal, in effect leaving the decision, rightfully so, up to me. I had only Thompson’s opinion to worry about. Melhaus, increasingly exasperated, turned to him.

  “I’m requesting that you order Mr. Lorenzo to comply.”

  “I shall not do so,” Thompson said flatly.

  “Your justification?”

  “Angie is not property, and we should not be guilty of treating her as such. The emotional bond between her, Kyle, and others in the crew has grown strong for a reason. The world I want to live in requires respecting this. In fact, I suggest we all pause a moment before what is important races us by.”

  Thompson never stood up in the middle of a crew meeting, but he did so now, taking a couple of steps away from the table and searching out to sea with a hard, steady gaze. Out there in the serenity were the Orb, gracefully hovering, as if they, too, were waiting for what Thompson had to say. Beyond them, countless more. Far beyond them, the massive blue sun diffusing last light into the planet’s atmosphere. Further on, nearly impossible to conceptualize, billions of galaxies spinning through the infinity of space.

  “Life drawn to life,” Thompson said, his back to us, his voice so low I thought he momentarily forgot we were present. I had the feeling the short distance from us gave him a perspective he seemed, for the moment, to require.

  A few long seconds later he returned. “We’ve been ignoring one fundamental question: Why did the Orb single out Angie? Why not one of us? The opportunity was there. Every time we were in the water.”

  I immediately jumped on the thought. “I have one explanation. Angie acknowledged the Orb presence before we did. A related reason: The Orb don’t need to wade through as many layers of bullshit to get through to her; she’s better adjusted than we are.” The larger meaning, the monumental affront many would take from my next remark, overwhelmed and amused me. “Man, don’t you see at least a little bit of irony, of cosmic humor, if the Orb considered Angie the preeminent life-form?”

  “More Kylesqian logic,” Melhaus said, somehow without raising his voice.

  “Was that your idea of a backdoor compliment or a front-door insult?” I shot back, then, attempting a more conciliatory tone: “Granted, I’m not predisposed to your idea, but I haven’t made up my mind. Can’t you accept that for now?”

  “Four days,” Melhaus said, referencing the time remaining on the planet. “Take your time.”

  “Time is one thing that has never been on our side,” Thompson responded. “This morning I put undue pressure on you to develop a plan to communicate with the entity. No longer. Consider the request retracted. Continue to collect your data, record your observations. Come to me with ideas if you have any. If you have none, fine. I can ask no more, no less.”

  “May I inquire,” Kelly said, taken aback, “why the sudden change of heart?”

  “Yeah,” I echoed, “What gives? You’re acting out of character. As a writer, I have a right to know
why.”

  “You’d rather life imitates art?” Thompson said. For the first time this day he appeared to be genuinely relaxed.

  “You could do worse,” I responded.

  “Let’s just say I’m beginning to see what happened to Angie as a game changer. The Orb were telling us something. Our erratic behavior told me the rest. The stress of trying to find the solution to so many riddles in so short a time has become counterproductive. Individually and collectively we should take a deep breath, step back, and relax. If that’s within you to do. Make it your individual choice.”

  A few minutes later Thompson concluded the meeting, heading off with Kelly to have his shoulder treated.

  Paul and Diana continued their research.

  Before Melhaus and I went our separate ways he stated the following, for my ears only: “And you still maintain you’re not opposed to science.”

  A retort, even if shouted, would not have been heard. Instead, I went about my chores.

  As one star sets, one million rise; the evening otherwise passed uneventfully into night.

  OceanOrb

  DAY SIX.

  Angie has shown no signs of being worse off from her contact with the entity. Quite the contrary, with her moist nose constantly sniffing at the water’s edge and her puffy tail vibrating expectantly, she actually seemed to be looking forward to a repeat encounter.

  With even less evidence, we assumed the same to be true for the Orb.

  But exactly what took place inside the entity was open to conjecture. Since neither party was talking, at least not in any way we could comprehend, almost any suggestion became fair game for discussion. The most sensible explanation of what transpired was that Angie merely became excited from being subjected to vibrations, a torrent of colors, and other physical stimulations. Of course that utterly failed to explain the other half of what happened: What prompted the encounter and what caused the Orb to respond to Angie in the manner in which it did? I wasn’t alone, but I was the most vocal in insisting that there was something shared, some form of communication involved. Using that word got me into a bit of trouble.

  Although I had, by osmosis, acquired more generalized scientific knowledge during the last several months than most people do in a lifetime, I didn’t have anywhere near enough to support any of my recent, shall we say unconventional, contentions. I wasn’t really expected to. But I had studied communications and on more than one occasion had been observed flapping my jaws on the subject. OK, OK, I told my crewmates, I didn’t have a clue what information was passed between Angie and the Orb. Nor did I have a clue what medium was used to pass the information. I didn’t even have a clue who was sending and who was receiving. In regard to what went on inside the Orb, I tried pointing out, this put me on even footing with everyone else: Totally clueless.

  Whatever the nature of the encounter, and as non-threatening as it seemed to Angie, I nevertheless decided against encouraging an encore performance, at least not until I had a better understanding of the entity. My misgivings, in part, stemmed from being wary of the monitoring conditions Melhaus had proposed. Once again, I didn’t consider it wise to resurrect the demise of Ixodes; instead, I voiced (and it was the truth) uneasiness about human technology interfacing with the Orb. Thompson did not take issue with my decision, except to suggest that it was prompted by a misplaced feeling of jealousy—Angie having found a new best friend in the Orb. When I responded by telling him the name “Orb” was actually inspired by his bald head, he congratulated me on establishing proof of concept for highly intelligent life existing on the planet.

  After a mid-afternoon downpour, the sun emerged from behind a retreating layer of fast moving, low-hanging clouds and the ambient temperature rose to a sultry thirty-two degrees. The crew had worked several hours straight without taking more than a five-minute lunch break, so when Thompson recommended we visit the cove, emphasizing that the interlude would clear our minds, he received no argument. When, using his same reasoning, we tried to coax him into coming with us he demurred, promising to break up his work regimen with several short, cooling plunges in the waters lapping onto Red Square. Except for sporadic short excursion to his spires, he preferred to keep in sight of the Orb, Desio and, most important, Melhaus.

  As for the sullen scientist (my covert name for Melhaus; I wanted to keep the word ‘mad’ in reserve), he maintained his adamant refusal to dip even a proverbial toe in the refreshing waters of the planet. Attempting civility, we each took a stab at convincing him to join us. Paul received the politest response: “I have no time to waste.”

  And so the five of us, Angie included, sprinted to the cove and dove in. After a few sun-drenched minutes splashing about in the ocean, Diana, looking for further amusement, challenged me to a swimming race.

  “It’s a contest you want?” I responded. “That’s a very bad idea on your part since we’re all painfully aware just how much you don’t like to lose.”

  “That’s why I never do,” she responded, then, alluding to our “survival of the fittest” banter from the other day. “Besides, you’re already in mortal fear that I can run faster than you.”

  “Aren’t you forgetting one thing? I’m at home in the water.”

  “You’re about to be evicted.”

  “Talk’s cheap. Name your distance.”

  “One hundred meters. Is that too long? Will you be too exhausted to even finish?”

  “The only thing exhausted will be my patience. Waiting for you at the finish line.”

  “Now you’re the one with the wet dream. And just for your edification, the winner gets bragging rights for an entire planet.”

  I put up a brave front. Although the various water activities I enjoyed made me an excellent swimmer, a handicapper setting race odds would not have made me the favorite. Not if they were acquainted with Diana.

  We instructed Paul and Kelly to stand five meters apart in chest-deep water to indicate a finish line and to decide between them who crossed it first.

  “You say when,” Diana said, giving me a deliberately malicious grin. “I’m going to kick your—”

  “When.” I said the word so quickly it allowed me to jump out to a half-body length lead.

  I had another slight advantage. Swimming to the left of Diana meant that when I turned my head out of the water to breathe I was able to catch a glimpse of her position relative to mine. She, on the other hand, had a panoramic view of the far horizon. I hadn’t been clever enough to plan it that way—maybe I’d feel guilty if I had. Then again, maybe not. I’m not fond of losing either. Halfway to Paul and Kelly I was holding onto a pretty good lead, but Diana was fast closing the gap.

  That’s when the finish line became more fluid than the water we swam in. That’s when Kelly deliberately moved two strides forward to prevent me from being overtaken and Paul simultaneously stepped two strides backward to give Diana a few extra meters to catch me.

  As a result, the outcome of the race was thrown in doubt.

  In trying to explain this sad state of affairs, both Paul and Kelly emphatically swore they never moved. Then they took turns swearing the other had moved first. A friendly dispute ensued among the four of us. Naturally, Diana and I each claimed victory. When that debate predictably went unresolved, she and I proceeded to take turns criticizing Paul and Kelly for having moved. Even that squabble was a charade: After all, we had to appreciate our partners’ displays of devotion.

  When the laughter and ensuing splash fight ended, Kelly came up behind me and draped her arms around my neck and clasped her legs around my waist. Clinging to my back, her sun-hot skin pressed tightly to mine, I carried her through the water onto shore, where I gently laid her down; and I drank in the sight of her—of her, of the sparkling water, of the sun and sky, until I felt a rush, a feeling of euphoria, pass clean through me. As I leaned over her, she stared up at me and said, “These are moments that stay with you a lifetime.”

  “I could stay with you a lifetime.”
The words, without my thinking, had come pouring out of me.

  “Are you worried you said more than intended?” Kelly responded. She put a finger to my lips. “No, don’t answer … but don’t be.”

  Paul and Diana joined us and, together with Angie, we lay side by side on a blanket-covered rock, basking in the blue-tinged light of the sun. We had precious little time before heading back.

  “There is something intrusive about the summer sun,” I said. “The intense brightness seeps deep into you, then draws you out into the world.”

  “The ever-contemplative Kyle,” Diana observed.

  “A clumsy way to start a conversation,” I said, somewhat apologetically.

  “No, I like it,” Diana remarked. “Appreciably, we are drawn out. Being sixty percent water, a part of each of us is evaporating up into the sky.”

  I reclined and let Kelly lean back into my chest and the crook of my arm.

  “Sixty percent?” I inquired. “That helps explain why I’ve always had an affinity for the water.”

  “What about the other forty percent?” Paul said distractedly. He was lying on his stomach at the edge of the slab, one arm lazily moving back and forth in the water. He appeared fascinated by the subtle colors that occasionally appeared in the swirls he produced.

  “The other forty percent,” I said, “is along for the ride.”

  “Tell me, Paul,” Kelly said, wiping away the beads of sweat on her upper lip, “does the temperature get much hotter?” When Paul failed to respond, the question was repeated. When he still didn’t respond, Kelly simply said, “Paul?”

  “His mind went elsewhere,” Diana noted. But curious as to why, she sat up to study him. Under the weight of our stares, he finally responded to Kelly’s inquiry.