by Gary Tarulli
“Hard to say. I guess I needed a reminder.”
“Of?”
“Of something in this universe that’s undeniably good. Of how you feel. How you taste. How much I need you. I’m being selfish.”
“Silly man. Don’t you understand by now that I can be selfish, too?”
She was about to kiss me when there was a gentle tug of the leash.
“Our little ambassador to the Orb,” Kelly said.
We crouched down to put Angie between us.
“An unmistakably silver lining on today’s black cloud,” I said. “No longer is there a chance Angie will be at the mercy of Doctor Melhaus.”
“Listening to Thompson,” Kelly said, “I doubt there ever was.”
The Unthinkable
“I WANTED TO spare him. I wanted to give him, to give us, every possible chance.” So said Thompson, his back against one of the large stones ringing the enclave, contemplating and flexing the fingers of his weathered hands.
If there was, in Thompson’s declaration, a deeper meaning beneath the obvious need to save the lives of those in his charge it was that the taking of a life meant shouldering a burden that would haunt us for a lifetime. That he would bear much of this burden, but not all, for there was no denying we were acting as a group.
And so, at his instruction, we once again agonized over every conceivable alternative scenario only to return to the place we started: That to avoid acting predicated on the mistaken belief Melhaus would somehow choose to relent increased the risk he would preempt us, placing us in even greater peril. In the end, when Thompson concluded we could no longer wait, he did so with great reluctance; and when we collectively agreed, although doing so from a place of desperation and innocence, we discovered an unexpected feeling of complicity.
Only after hearing what Thompson said next did we understand why.
“It would be wrong to shield from you something weighing heavily on my mind,” he said. “Although I am accomplished with the bow, the shot will be extremely difficult, a fifty-fifty proposition at best. But there is something that troubles me nearly as much as the consequences of failing. Succeeding. The taking of a life made even more grievous in that it represents the first taken beyond the bounds of Earth. A symbolic confirmation of our violent nature for the entire world to see. An extension of ourselves into the universe that disturbs us from the tenuous dream that we could somehow start anew, that we conceivably could do better elsewhere. Inevitable, you may say, this failure of ours, and you would be right, for the only way to prove you wrong is for each person to renounce violence.”
“Larry has not,” Diana said, “so how can we?”
“Larry? Larry?!” Thompson declared in despair. “Recall the physics. Are we not the observer affecting the observed?” Standing, fixing his eyes on empty space, he withdrew from us. Diana approached. When she gently reached out and touched his hand, he came back. Seeing her, seeing our concerned stares, he said, “Not to worry … I am fully awake.” And with that, he went off to retrieve the bow from the place it was hidden.
Paul’s gaze followed Thompson until he disappeared among the blocks. “Do we need any better proof of why he is our leader?”
“None,” I said. “I’d go so far as to call him my superior.”
“To his face?” Diana asked.
“Don’t push it.”
“You understand him better than any of us,” Kelly said. “Do you think he’s wavering?”
“Not a chance in hell,” I responded.
A few days ago I had learned the hard way to pay closer attention to Angie’s body language. Watching her now, I noticed a change in her posture: Her body upright and tense; her ears perked and twitching; her tail was erect and vibrating; her facial expression and head movement indicating confusion. Conflicting signals. She was trying to decide whether to be alert or excited. When Thompson returned, I mentioned this. In response, he asked us to leave the seclusion of the enclave and look out toward the horizon.
Compared to only an hour ago, there were twice as many Orb groups visible. One group had drifted significantly closer to shore, about two hundred meters out. Angie pointed her snout in the air and started emitting a low whine.
“What do you think is going on?” I asked. “Trouble?”
“Not sure,” Thompson remarked, squatting down to pet Angie. “Neither is Angie apparently.”
“I don’t like this,” Paul said.
“Neither do I,” Thompson said, his face having turned grave upon discovering that he and Paul were in agreement.
“You both believe Larry is up to something?” Kelly asked. When neither answered immediately she turned to Thompson. “C’mon, if that’s so, what?”
“He’s devised a way, maybe ultrasound, to lure the Orb closer.”
“To do…?”
“The unthinkable.”
“What?” Kelly asked. “Wait. You don’t think he’d use the laser on the Orb?!”
The distraught faces of Thompson and Paul stared back at her.
“Are you kidding me?!” Diana screamed. “What does he hope to … no, don’t tell me. He wants to measure an Orb’s reaction.”
Still no confirmation from either Thompson or Paul.
Diana’s eyes widened in disbelief. She took a step toward Desio. “It’s worse than that, isn’t it? Isn’t it?! He wants to split one open like it’s an egg. Like it’s, it’s some kind of giant fucking piñata!”
The perverse humor of her own remark startled her, and she began laughing, but the laughter was born out of frustration, of rage made impotent, which, for Diana, could only end in an expression of sorrow. “All the Orb are doing is floating out there peacefully,” she said, “while we act like idiots and scar its planet.”
Thompson became all business now.
“I will need to establish a position just out of the established laser range, but as close to the ship as possible without being observed. Do you see that boulder over there?” Thompson pointed out a rectangular block wide enough, no more, to shield two people in a crouching position.
“Appears we can make it partway there following that crevice,” I said, pointing.
Thompson gave me a hard stare. “We?” he responded. “Not happening.”
“I told you. You wouldn’t be alone.”
“And how, exactly, do you hope to assist me?”
Except for the part about exactly, I had a ready reply. “Thompson’s Law of Unintended Consequences. Can you predict how events will unfold?”
“Lame.”
“Yeah.”
“That cinches it then,” he said, examining his bow and then deliberately catching me off guard. “You’re coming with me. If the situation arises, there may be one small task you can do.”
The process of stringing a bow requires substantial upper-body strength; Thompson had plenty. He took one tip of the bow, that with the bow string already secured, and wedged it between the ground and his instep. His left hand, holding the loose end of the string, was placed a third of the way down from the bow’s other tip. His right hand firmly gripped the center, or handle, of the bow. In one fluid motion his right hand drew the handle in toward his body while his left hand forcefully pushed outward. The process concaved the bow into a “U” shape, allowing the loose end of the string to be tautly fastened. Thompson made it look easy. Kelly caught him flinching.
“Shoulder bothering you?” she asked.
“Shouldn’t matter.”
Like hell, I thought. I knew a little bit more about the bow than my crewmates, this from research I did after Thompson told me his story. Drawing the bow string back, and then holding the tension rock-steady while simultaneously aiming an arrow is extremely difficult. If Thompson’s shoulder was aching….
Kelly, too, appeared skeptical. “A couple more treatments, you would have been healed.” She gestured toward Desio. “You know where they are, right?”
“Let me guess.”
“You’ll get th
em for me, won’t you?” There was an affective duality to her voice, at the same time cajoling and encouraging.
“Only a fool would refuse you, Kelly,” Thompson replied. Then, as he moved to grab his quiver: “Right, Kyle?”
We hurried to leave. There was far less risk of being spotted before reaching the cover of the boulder if Melhaus stayed inside Desio. The logical question, and Diana asked it, was what to do if the bastard (her word) decided to come out. Were there any circumstances where she, Paul, or Kelly, or all three, should create a diversion, drawing attention to them—and away from Thompson and me?
“Normally that would be a good idea,” Thompson replied, “but Melhaus is clever enough to suspect the underlying motivation.”
“Well then, better get your asses in gear,” Diana said, trying to cut the tension.
“And try to keep them out of trouble,” Paul added.
Kelly was quiet. She had picked up Angie. There was a striking commonality in their expressions. “You both look worried,” I said. Then, with the slightest of grins, I said the opposite of what most people would say: “Is it any wonder?”
Kelly touched my cheek. “Be safe, my lover,” she said, and Thompson pulled me away.
Thompson and I sprinted across a flat expanse between our present position and the start of the narrow, shallow crevice that would take us most of the way to the boulder that was to be our final destination. With him taking the lead, and both of us crouching, we followed the crevice’s meandering course to its terminus—approximately one hundred meters short of our goal. The last leg of the journey to the boulder, wide-open terrain, would leave us completely exposed. We were preparing to sprint the intervening distance when Melhaus emerged from the ship.
“Bloody bad timing,” Thompson whispered to me.
Peering over the edge of the crevice, we had an unhindered view of Melhaus, Desio, and the worktable adjacent thereto. Not far beyond—the Orb. One group was very close to shore. Melhaus’s contemplative posture, one hand cupping his chin, the other under his elbow, together with the shoreward direction he was facing, clearly indicted the close-in group was the primary focus of attention. He placed his AID on the table, but kept the laser controller tightly in hand. In the distance, somewhere behind me, I heard Angie barking what sounded like a warning.
“What’s he up to?” I whispered.
“Can’t be good,” Thompson answered.
Melhaus made entries on the controller. A low hum emanated from inside Desio. The dorsal-mounted laser turret began slowly rotating, the rotation orienting the laser’s nozzle in firing line with the closest Orb. I noted something else: The holocam was pointing in approximately the same orientation as the turret. There was little doubt that Melhaus wanted a visual record of what he was about to do, and what he was about to do was fire at the Orb. Our inability to prevent this outrage was infuriating. I did not have to imagine how Diana felt. Looking back, in the direction of the enclave, I could see Paul and Kelly physically restraining her.
“Melhaus is not sufficiently occupied,” said Thompson, weighing the possibilities. “If we move, he’ll observe our movement in his peripheral vision.”
“If he does see us, we might be able to elude the laser by retreating back into the crevice.” I hung this idea out there with less than full confidence, even though I realized Thompson was looking to me for a more workable second option.
“True enough, but he’ll figure out where we were heading. He won’t know exactly why—that is if I manage to keep the bow hidden behind me—but we’ll certainly lose the advantage of the boulder for a try at him. There is no alternate place to reach him. Not within bowshot.”
“A bad chance is better than none at all,” I said. “We can’t let him fire at the Orb.”
“If we move now and we’re seen, all is lost and Melhaus gets to run amok for a year. No, we wait.”
“You’re right, of course.”
“Playing devil’s advocate?”
“Don’t believe in the devil.”
“Don’t need to,” Thompson said, drawing my attention to the bow. “He believes in us.”
Having no choice, we waited. The air hung down on us still and warm. Angie stopped barking. In the lacerating silence pointless observations commanded my attention: A tiny gouge in the bow, the common shape of a rock, a drop of perspiration falling onto my knee. Then Thompson and I exchanged a rounded eye look of recognition. The look displayed when two people, with absolute certainty, realize something calamitous is about to happen.
Melhaus fired his laser.
A perfectly straight line of light intersected the closest Orb. For the duration of firing, an estimated two seconds, a widening circle of purple, identical to that of the laser’s tracer beam, appeared, then faded, on the Orb’s surface. Two consequences immediately followed: The Orb, which was serenely floating within a defined area, abruptly halted all movement; Melhaus, who had been calm, grew visibly agitated.
And began talking to himself.
Thompson and I were close enough to discern some of the words and numbers the physicist strung together, offered to no one’s benefit save his own: “Totally unanticipated. Time. One point seven four seconds. Megawatts. Point six eight three. Joules. One point one eight eight four two. Remarkable. Need to double. Yes, at least double…”
While Melhaus continued to rant, I whispered to Thompson, “You get any of that?”
“Much of it, yes,” he said, giving me a sideways glance. “He was performing calculations in his head. He unleashed more than a million joules of energy in the area the size of … what, an orange? … onto the surface of the Orb.”
“Translation?”
“The bastard expected to burn a hole in the Orb. Instead, the Orb barely noticed.”
“Damn. What’s the laser’s limitation?”
“Much more than anything we’ve witnessed. I remember him saying something about the output being boosted. Let’s assume to six megawatts. He can double the beam duration. I estimate he can generate twenty mega joules. By controlling the beam aperture he can … wait … he’s firing again!”
A louder hum came from Desio quickly followed by a line of bright purple light impinging the Orb, persisting for a noticeably longer duration, and at significantly greater power.
Melhaus wanted a pronounced reaction and he got it. Twelve-fold.
The area targeted instantly mirrored the color of the beam, a purple smudge that began spreading, deepening in hue, until one-third of the surface of the Orb was affected. Then, possibly to avoid the intense heat generated by the relentless beam, the Orb went skimming at high velocity across the OceanOrb, colliding like a struck billiard ball with a like-sized member of its group, transferring part of its momentum to this second Orb, whereby it continued on, collided with yet another Orb, and so on and so forth, until all twelve members of the group had been similarly impacted. Immediately after this bizarre activity, and as if to demonstrate a form of unity, the motion of all twelve Orbs promptly and totally came to a halt.
Any person of right mind would have been sobered by what we just saw: An enigmatic yet assuredly sentient entity’s incredible resistance to the energy of a laser followed by some form of collective reaction. Thompson’s judgment of the situation seemed right: “It’s as if the Orbs, never having sensed hostility, are contemplating how to reply.”
“And with further provocation, will that reply have an end?” I said.
But the docile Orbs, neither advancing nor retreating, still presented an easy target for Melhaus’s laser. I found myself wishing they’d initiate a more aggressive response. I said as much to Thompson.
“Understandable,” he commented.
“I’m amazed you didn’t say that I’m acting human.”
“I was being charitable.”
The attack on the Orb, which angered and saddened Thompson and me, baffled and frustrated Melhaus. Thwarted in his efforts to open a portal into the entity, he resumed talking t
o himself or, more accurately, to the Orb (which had reverted to it’s original uniform coloration), addressing it as if some form of adversary.
“Three million joules. You remain unaffected. Shall I try six? No answer? Six, then. Six, six, six. Six it shall be.”
A tell-tale hum came from Desio. “The damn fool! He fires!” I shouted to Thompson, cringing because I had raised my voice over the noise.
Visible on the surface of the Orb, in an area radiating outward from the laser’s impingement, a smooth, shimmering, man-hole sized indentation appeared, the sight prompting a mad cackle from Melhaus and an almost childish, “Round?! You’re not perfectly round now, are you?!” The high-pitched laugh, the incongruous petulance of the remark, sent a shiver up my spine, just as the Orb began quivering, vibrating, and—at last—moving. Good, I thought, protect yourself, distance yourself from the bastard. That would make sense, that would conform to my expectations. Nearby, a second and third Orb began to move.
Then the entire group of twelve was in motion, but not dispersing; rather, they were drawing closer together, tighter and tighter until, like giant beads of mercury, they began to merge, one absorbing into another, all absorbing into one. Amassing, inevitably, into a dynamic and perfectly round entity dwarfing all we had seen before!
Melhaus was momentarily stunned. I surmised why: He was confronting and confounded by his obsession, his Moby Dick.
“Get ready to react,” I heard a tense Thompson say. He was right next to me but sounded far away. I felt a push and an urgent, “Follow me. Low. Keep low.”
I found myself running. It seemed a very long sprint to the protection of the boulder. Once there, backs against stone, we collapsed, our hearts pounding in our ears, afraid to move for fear we had been detected.
Abruptly, the voice of Doctor Melhaus: “So you think you can defy me?”
I presented Thompson with a look of panic—contagious, to a point—and a muscle in his jaw tightened and a light in his eyes flickered; but he relaxed, grimaced, and said, “We’re safe, he’s talking to his Orb.”
“Shit,” I said, forcing a smile.