by Gary Tarulli
“Sorry. I’m listening. More than you know, I am listening. For some reason the conversation reminded me of one Kyle and I had. In any event, a day like today is about as hot as it gets. The ocean moderates the temperature nicely.”
“And yet, fifteen months from now there’s several meters of ice,” Diana said, still watching Paul. “I wonder where the Orb go during the winter?”
“A warmer planet?” I said, receiving a good-natured elbowing from Kelly.
“No, really,” Diana persisted. “There are millions of them. Perhaps they stay submerged, keeping far below the ice. Another indication of how intimate their connection to the ocean must be…”
Diana was interrupted by the sudden motion of Paul standing upright, his eyes wide in astonishment, fixated on the ocean. Startled, expecting to see advancing Orbs, we followed his gaze outward.
What we saw, and for the last time, was only ocean.
“Can it be?” Paul whispered, nearly speechless, repeatedly shaking his head side to side to mean no, but really meaning yes. But yes to what?
“Paul, what is it?!” Diana entreated, attempting to coax him out of his reverie. He had her full attention. Paul wasn’t prone to false alarms. He had all our attention.
“The ocean…” he stammered out, “…the ocean is the Orb!”
The three of us exchanged confused glances. Diana came to understand first, her eyes widening, her jaw dropping open. Temporarily at a loss for words she, too, began to shake her head.
“You understand?” Paul asked her.
“Yes,” she managed to reply, standing to look out over the water.
“Kyle,” Paul said, giddy with exhilaration, striving to make me comprehend, “try to phrase it correctly … the Ocean is the Orb, the Ocean are the Orb, the Orb is an Ocean…”
And the wave of comprehension that smacked into Paul, then Diana, washed over me. I grasped what Paul had accomplished. The complex made simple. Elegant and beautiful. But was it true? I looked to Kelly. Her eyes had welled with unrepressed emotion. As she blinked, one drop of water fell onto the softness of her cheek to tell me she, too, believed, saying to me in a gasp: “Kyle … your name for the planet …it’s almost as if you suspected all along.”
I could not claim this was so. No, this was Paul’s giant leap in reasoning, his vision, and we were enthralled by it, the three of us standing beside him, perched at the end of the slab, regarding the ocean as if for the very first time.
Ocean? How crudely expressed, for this vast body was no more defined as water than you and I. No, an entity, a life-form, a collective organism were all more apt descriptions, even as I sought in vain for a better one, for a word yet to be devised.
And as I searched for mere words, the scientist in Diana excitedly sought proof, haphazardly retracing the steps Paul had most likely taken to arrive at his brilliant conclusion.
“So much seems to fit together … makes perfect sense … some type of intimate relationship where the individual Orbs—they’re not exactly individual, are they?—are bound to the main body, the ocean … I must somehow desist from calling them … it … an ocean. The intimacy of Orb-water contact we’ve never seen broken … the nearly identical chemical composition between the two … the confusing magnetic readings … and the colors, yes, the colors, swirls and ripples—you were fascinated with them, weren’t you my love?—the excitement Angie apparently felt after contact, and, lesser, the way we feel in the water. Water? Damn, I did it again—can we say the OceanOrb?—let’s, that’s good … for now. But how is the perfect roundness explained? And where does the phytoplankton fit in? Are we assuming too much? There remain loose ends…”
We let Diana’s stream of consciousness wander an irregular course to the sea, where it slowed enough for her to say, “We must immediately inform Thompson. And Larry! He couldn’t make the connection. I can’t wait to see his face, Paul, to see the reaction to your doing what he couldn’t! Kelly, he’ll surely have a stroke.”
“The credit—and it remains to be proved any is due—is by no means mine alone,” Paul said, gently admonishing her. “Consciously or not, you are all partly responsible; you prompted me to this conclusion.”
I wasn’t sure what he meant, but he was sincere. Almost anyone else I’d have accused of false modesty.
“The implications inherent in your insight,” Diana insisted, “are mind-boggling. Forget I once said tens of millions of years, the Orb and OceanOrb may be hundreds of millions of years old. Perhaps nearly as old as the planet itself. Try to wrap your mind around that concept.”
“I, for one,” Kelly said, “am still working on the fact that we swam in it! To it, we’re the size of a bacterium. Less; a virus. What does that mean?”
“What does it mean to us?” Diana queried. “Maybe nothing more than a slight feeling of euphoria.”
“And to the OceanOrb?”
“It’s too premature to say. Maybe it’s largely unaware of our presence. Or maybe we inadvertently established a rudimentary form of communication.”
“The Orb was pretty stimulated by contact with Angie,” I reminded.
“True,” Diana said. “Response may be intensified by contact with individual Orbs. Maybe the OceanOrb spins off the individuals for the very reason that they can become semi-autonomous, that they can, being several orders of magnitude less volume than the parent entity, sensate more intensely in that form. I didn’t express that well. Let me try again in reverse: When we are in the ocean, the Orb may experience us in a dilutional way.”
“Do you think all the individuals emerge from the OceanOrb?” Kelly asked.
“That’s one of two possibilities I can imagine,” Paul ventured. “The other is that they are the progeny of larger individual Orbs. We’ve no definitive observations, but if either, or both, is true it helps confirm our impression that there was excitement generated by the emergence of the smaller Orbs.”
“And are the individuals ever reabsorbed?”
“Also remains to be observed.”
“How do individuals die?” Kelly asked.
“Do they die? Diana ventured. “If the individuals are reabsorbed, then death, at least as we define it, seems uncertain.”
“Incredible,” Kelly responded.
“Yeah.”
“We’ve repeatedly observed them banding together,” I commented, formulating an idea.
“Yes, there’s that,” Diana added. “And they appear to congregate in groups of twelve, and please don’t ask me why.”
“They are, in some capacity, behaving as a society?”
“In my estimation, yes,” Diana responded.
“Analogous,” I continued, “to humans procreating, establishing family and social groups?”
“The comparison is a bit of a stretch,” Diana responded. “But if you want to make one, Orb society is, like Thompson suggested, far more homogeneous than any human society.
“Homogeneous enough,” I proposed, “that the Orb, untold millions of them, can conceivably communicate instantaneously among themselves.”
“Logic would dictate so,” Diana agreed. “And I think I see the deeper meaning underlying your statement. The individual Orbs may, if they choose to, respond to us instantly and in unison. We should consider the likelihood, given their amazing interconnectivity, that individual Orbs have a heightened degree of intimacy, a type of shared understanding that we could only dream of.”
“Therefore we should exercise prudence in our dealing with them.”
“I agree,” Paul said. “This may provide our first hint into their mindset, one that we might somehow need to cultivate, even attempt to emulate, in any effort to get through to them … or it.”
“I have to ask,” Kelly began, “does any of this increase the chance Ixodes was destroyed by, or should I say within, the Orb?”
“Do you mean to suggest that Larry could have been right?” Diana asked, holding back her annoyance.
“No. Yes. Certainly a
greater chance of that,” Kelly responded. “I’m not going to be his defender, but maybe, just maybe, the sub was considered a viral threat.”
“There’s something to that,” Paul said. “Before the arrival of humans, the Orb may have never come into contact with technology. It may be more alien to them than we are. On the other hand, given their perfect shape, metalloid composition, and the inexplicable aspect of their movement, I could just as easily surmise that the Orb have already incorporated a technology far superior to ours unto themselves. After all, they only had a few hundred million years to do so.”
“The holy grail of technology,” I said. “Another assumption we humans like to cultivate: That higher life forms unavoidably develop technology. Not necessarily so if, as seems to be the case here, there is no compelling reason to.”
“Or maybe they can’t,” Diana said, holding up one hand and flexing her fingers. “No opposable thumbs.”
“You keep a straight face,” I said, smiling. “Haven’t decided if you’re joking?”
“No.”
“Without technology, they forgo exploration of other worlds?” Kelly remarked.
“I guess so,” I replied, “but it is far easier, like we have, to let everybody come to you.”
“And we can be perceived either as visitors or as intruders,” Paul said. “Other than the mystery of what happened to Ixodes, we seem to have been well tolerated. The fact is, by carrying out Thompson’s idea, we were allowed contact, briefly, with two individual Orbs. And all of us—except Melhaus, that is—have physically entered the OceanOrb, apparently with no ill effects. Quite the contrary, in fact. Pretty considerate of them, no?”
“And, still,” Diana said, “Angie appears to have had the most significant contact of all. Why? Why? Why?”
“For every scientific discovery, one question resolved, two more—”
Interrupting Paul were three piercing notes from his communicator. The tonal pattern signaled high priority.
“Put me on speaker,” we heard Thompson say with uncharacteristic urgency.
“You are,” Paul responded.
“Return immediately. If for any reason I don’t meet you at the edge of Red Square, don’t approach any closer than one hundred meters of Desio.”
“What gives?” Paul asked with heightened concern.
“Melhaus has commandeered the ship.”
Thompson let the ramifications of his message sink in. Diana reacted first.
“What in hell does he possibly hope to accomplish?!” she shouted. “Has he gone completely insane?!”
“What he has done is reconfigured the turret laser and threaten to burn a hole clear through anyone approaching.” Then, almost as an afterthought, Thompson said, “Kyle, you have to appreciate his flair for the dramatic.”
“Can he do what he says?” I asked.
“The laser would be quite lethal. Better keep Angie on a short leash when you approach.”
“We’re on our way,” Paul said.
We dressed quickly, collecting the few items we had while exchanging concerned glances, hoping to find assurance in each other, wondering what was ahead of us, fearful that our lives were in the hands of a person we thought we had come to know, but in many ways was a complete stranger.
During the trip back, I internalized feelings that ran the gamut from self-recrimination (could I have done more to prevent Melhaus’s breakdown?), to fear (examining the tenuous nature of our lives on this isolated planet), to outrage (how dare one ego hold us hostage). I returned to the familiar place where I typically sought refuge: The lonely inner sanctum where my justifications for avoiding people resided.
Only I found I couldn’t reside there long, for I discovered one subtle and contradictory thought unexpectedly intruding. I had not shared with Kelly my idea for communicating with the Orb. To tell her that she, and she alone, unencumbered by words, was best suited to give voice to the rarified heights humanity can aspire to—the unambiguous harmonic vibrations, the evocative chords of pure emotion—quite simply through the music of her violin.
A part of me said the idea was without merit, was misleading, when, drowning out all we can accomplish individually and collectively as a species, we were now forced to listen to the strident sound of one of our own, at his worst moment, bringing to fore our worst moments.
And then I realized how almost all of us live most of our lives between these extremes.
As we hurried back, I privately told Kelly this, all of it, for I was learning to place my trust in her; and she implored me to share my idea with Paul and Diana; and I did so, ignoring misgivings about the timing, for Kelly convinced me there may be no better.
And the idea was well received, if for no other reason as a brief welcome distraction, and possibly more, as Diana proclaimed that Kelly would soon play on a high promontory.
High enough for, quite literally, a whole world to hear … or feel.
Larry Melhaus
I GATHERED ANGIE up in my arms as I approached the edge of Red Square. Up ahead was Thompson, waiting for us, as promised.
“What the hell,” Paul said, addressing the mission leader.
“Yeah, what the bloody hell,” Thompson acknowledged.
“I’m going to punch that son-of-a bitch’s lights out,” Diana declared, balling her hand into a fist, then waiting to be chastised. Thompson did just the opposite.
“Diana, when the opportunity presents, I’m going to let you.”
That remark, together with Thompson’s assured manner, helped to break the palpable tension—tension made worse by our lack of information.
There was something else Thompson did, despite all his concerns, that I was particularly appreciative of and that deserves mentioning. He had found the time to purloin a cord from the tenting covering his geology equipment and used it to devise a serviceable leash and slip collar.
“Something for Angie,” he said, handing it to me, “to keep her out of trouble.”
Placing one looped end onto Angie’s neck and securing the leash around my wrist was all I needed to do. Thanking him, I paraphrased his words from a week ago.
“As you’ve said, nothing gets by you.”
“Not exactly prescient,” he replied, regarding Desio in the distance. “Something apparently did.”
That statement, more of a challenge to himself, was just like Thompson. He was shouldering the blame for this mess, just as he would view the problem as an affront to his leadership and face it head on. And he had his work cut out, being two pawns down to someone the world had designated a genius. But Thompson was not the type to be overawed by Melhaus’s intellect. Nor anyone else’s for that matter. Brilliant in his own right, he had the attributes of the rare good leader, including quiet self-assurance. In large measure his confidence was infectious. We followed him to a cluster of rocks where we could sit down and safely discuss the worrisome development.
“Melhaus used the opportunity of my absence to his best advantage,” Thompson began. “I was collecting a core sample among the spires—gone ten minutes, tops—when I heard the echoes of an unmistakable sound. Returning quickly, my fears were confirmed. He was at the ready, standing in front of Desio with some type of controller in hand, loudly shouting that if I approached much closer it would be at my own peril. Half-seriously, I yelled back “just how close is that Doctor Melhaus?” He responded by redirecting my attention to your lab station Diana, which you necessarily had set up nearer to the ocean and the ship.”
Even at our present distance, about two hundred meters, the damage to what had been her science equipment was visible: Metal, glass, and plastics fused into tortured, twisted, and blackened shapes. I watched Diana’s eyes harden, her body stiffen. She said absolutely nothing, which was far more disconcerting than if she vocalized her anger. Paul, who was sitting beside her, placed one hand over hers.
“I’m sorry, Diana,” said Thompson, realizing any words, even those of comfort, entailed a degree of risk. “
I trust a good deal of your research has already been stored?”
“And where is it stored?” she said bitterly. The answer, of course, was Desio, where Doctor Melhaus held sway over the invaluable data from lab tests, experiments, and samples that had been meticulously archived for future study.
“At this point,” Thompson responded, “let’s not presume he’ll go into the AI system files and start selectively deleting. There isn’t reason.”
“Reason? Reason?!” Diana sniggered, refusing to accept any association between the word and Melhaus’s actions.
“Despite his deranged state of mind, he is planning well ahead. Judge for yourself.” Thompson reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out a device the size of a pack of cards, only half as thin. “Kyle’s not the only one that carries a voice recorder. Returning from the spires, I recalled that I had in my possession the one I routinely use for making field observations. Shortly after I reached Red Square I activated it without Larry noticing. Here’s our exchange, brief as it is, commencing immediately after I visually assessed the damage done to the biology station.”
Thompson studied our reactions as the recorded encounter with Melhaus played out:
“I’m a bit surprised, Larry, that you of all people would show so little respect for another scientist’s research.”
“I have paid the same respect as was shown to me and mine.”
“And if I choose to ignore your advice and decide to approach?”
“If you feel so inclined. I doubt, however, you’re able to deflect three point two megawatts of laser.”
“Larry, we both know the laser wasn’t designed to…”
“Haven’t I made it obvious? Adjusting the laser to auto-activate on human heat and motion signature was child’s play. The manual override is in my hand. I accomplished this literally right under Kyle’s nose, only he was too stupid to realize.”
“When did you attempt this?”
“Attempt?! Underestimating me still, I see. Three days ago. When I modified the spectroscopy equipment. When it became clear that all my recommendations were going to be ignored. After I saw you and the others were determined to blame what happened to Ixodes on me.”