Jupiter's Reef (40 page)

Mary stood up and took a few steps toward the window. What was raging inside Alex gnawed at her too, if only because she wanted to help Alex deal with this surreal turn of events. She tried to conjure some explanation for Alex’s dreamed premonition of the white ones.

Johnny walked to the window. No one spoke, and Alex’s statement hung in the air like a stench.

Tony, too, left his seat and joined Johnny and Mary at the window.

“Maybe Alex is right,” he said, breaking the silence. “Maybe it’s time to go.”

They all turned to see Alex’s reaction. They looked almost comical, and Alex couldn’t help smiling.

“You look like I’m a bomb ready to go off,” he said. “If you’re wondering, I’m still sane. At least I think I am.”

Johnny laughed and looked back at the white clicker men.

“My curiosity is raging, Alex. I wonder about your dream and I don’t want to see any of us harmed or driven insane. But I can’t ignore our situation.” Johnny looked at Alex. “This opportunity,” he added.

Outside, the white ones hovered as if they were waiting for something to happen. The sound of the reef was dominated by their soft clicks, which were lower in pitch and had a greater duration than those of the black ones.

“Listen to those guys,” said the Professor, glancing up at the ceiling speakers. “They’re clucking at us. It seems to me that they’re saying something.”

“Clucking,” said Tony. “That’s it.”

“I don’t speak ‘cluck’,” said Alex. “Do you?”

Mary giggled.

“I’m the only one who can hear them, Johnny,” she offered. “If they’re talking to anyone, it’s me.”

“They’re pretty familiar with us by now. Been watching us for a while,” said Johnny. “You met them on your first visit to the reef.”

“Just the black ones,” corrected Alex.

“Yes,” said Johnny. “But that’s not my point. You met with creatures who appear to be the main intelligent ones occupying the reef. They communicate via radio. So do humans. Our global communications are now almost completely reliant on radio. Here in the darkness under the clouds, perhaps it is the rule here; the only reliable vehicle for communications.”

“Perhaps,” said Alex. “So what?”

“Come again?” said Johnny.

“What are you getting at?”

“I’m not getting at anything. Just relating some observations. But I hope it will help stimulate some discussion relating to what we do next.”

“We have our samples,” said Alex coldly.

“So you want to leave.”

Alex didn’t reply. Behind his three friends, he could see the clicker men just hanging there, waiting. Their clucks sounded so conversational he wondered if it was an attempt to communicate with himself or Mary.

“Based on our history, they should be more interested in Mary,” he said to Johnny. “Last time they seemed to be talking directly to her, like they knew she could hear them.”

“I felt tormented by them,” said Mary. “I couldn’t shut out their sound. But now, thanks to Johnny, I have tabs. I can turn them off.”

“You don’t think they’re trying to talk to you?” asked Tony. “I thought you did.”

“I don’t feel as strongly that it’s a likelihood,” said Mary. “I think maybe they’re just talking to the ship.”

“Because the ship has been broadcasting,” asserted Tony.

“Yes,” said Mary.

“You haven’t been sending messages, have you?” asked the Professor

“It’s hard to separate my internal mechanism when I hear and send. But no, I haven’t been broadcasting intentionally. Except once to
Cornwall
. The radio static here is so intense I just link to the ship. It’s easier.”

“Not even to the clicker men?” said Tony.

“Especially not to them. Besides, what would I say?” Mary gazed at the white clicker men. “I doubt I could even if I wanted to.”

“I’d like you to try,” said Johnny. “As an experiment.”

“And say what?” asked Alex, stiffening in his seat. “If you want to experiment, you can do it yourself with the ship’s radio.”

“Mary’s voice might be familiar to them,” said Johnny, ignoring the anger in Alex’s voice. “Actually, I recorded clicker men speech and played it back to them.”

“You did? When did you do that?” Alex sounded upset.

“After the avalanche. When the flock flew by,” said Johnny “I was waiting to see them before I tried it. I wanted to see their reaction.”

“Did you get any reaction?” asked Mary.

“None that I could see.”

“What’s the reason for secrecy?” Mary sounded like she was controlling her temper.

“You, my dear,” said the Professor. “If you knew it might compromise the experiment?”

“How?”

“That’s just it. I don’t know. It didn’t have to do with you personally, I hope you realize. I was just ruling out any possible intervention or assistance.”

Alex looked at Mary. “Okay, I see his point,” he said. “I wouldn’t take offense ...”

“I’m not! What makes you think I’d take offense?” boomed Mary.

Alex shrugged. He wasn’t sure if Mary was angry or not. Perhaps she was faking her ire to cover the fact that she knew about the experiment. To know would be the same as admitting she’d read his mind.

Alex nodded. “After the avalanche, as I remember, when the whole flock flew by us, one clicker man hung behind the rest and looked us over. I didn’t think much of it ... I mean, there was all this stuff flying around, in fact I was surprised that more of them didn’t stop.”

Johnny nodded. “I expected more of them to stop, too. But I think they all had a job to do. They were in a hurry.”

“What did you record and playback to them?” asked Tony.

“They were making loud noise after the avalanche. I recorded some of it, then played it back. It wasn’t a long transmission. A few seconds or so.”

“Why don’t you try it now,” asked Tony, looking out the window. “Record those white ones. See what they do.”

“I wouldn’t want to intimidate them right now,” said Johnny.

Alex nodded again. “I agree with the Professor, Tony,” he said. “Now isn’t the time to start messing with the clicker men. I think we’ve hassled them enough.”

Johnny looked at the clicker men. “The question is, though, Alex; what do we do?”

“They are clearly waiting for something to happen,” said Mary. “Just look at them.”

Alex finally got out of his seat and joined the rest of the group at the window. “Mary is right,” he said. “They are waiting for something.”

The four of them stood side-by-side at the cabin window gazing at the three huge clicker men. The activity they originally observed in the mammoth cavern had quieted considerably. Only a few black clicker men could be seen patrolling the spaces between the spherical objects.

“It looks like the whole place is on hold,” said Tony. “Where did all the clicker men go?”

“I saw a lot of them go into the tunnels,” said Johnny. “Maybe those spheres are homes. Maybe they’ve all gone inside.”

“How anthropomorphic,” said Tony. “Nothing here is like life as we know it. To say those spheres are homes is like calling the clicker men birds.”

“We saw where they live,” said Alex. “You saw the data from our trip. When we got trapped in a small cavern there were pockets in the walls full of clicker men.”

“When was that?” asked Tony.

“On our first dive,” said Mary. “We entered a cavern to find a place to rest the ship so Alex could get some sleep. We inflated the balloons and rested the ship at the top of a big circular cavern... much smaller than this one. We found it empty but the place filled with clicker men and they circled below us.”

“Yes,” said Tony. “I remember that now. They were in little caves in the walls of the cavern.”

“It wasn’t like this place, though,” said Alex. “It was dark except for the usual blue glowing things.”

“And there weren’t any spheres,” added Mary.

“But there were homes,” observed Johnny. “Call that anthropomorphic if you want to.”

Tony still had his binoculars hanging from his neck. He lifted them and examined the distant cavern wall. “There are no pockets in these walls except for the lights.” he said. “If anything lives here it would have to be in the spheres.”

“This may be a storage area,” said the Professor. “But, as Tony so accurately pointed out, that’s just a human observation. The only way to find out is to go poking around the cavern. Maybe bust open a sphere and peek inside.”

A wave of anger swept through Alex. “I hope you’re kidding,” he said.

“Not kidding,” said Johnny. “But I’m not planning it either. I would love to go barging around in this place but ...”

“You don’t want to ruin it for future missions,” said Mary.

“Exactly,” said the Professor.

The discussion continued for several more minutes without any decision on what their course of action should be. And all the while the white clicker men floated as though they, too, were waiting for that decision.

The lull in the action gave everyone time to examine the white ones in great detail. Aside for their size, the white clicker men were similar to the black ones. But their large flowing wings and slim pin shaped bodies were translucent. Through their thin white skin bluish internal organs could be seen. But what Alex found compelling was their yellowish heads, covered with small glistening golden knobs.

It bothered him that the things had no apparent eyes. Rather than appearing to look at nothing, Alex felt they were staring straight at him, and no matter how hard he tried he couldn’t shake that impression.

“Does any one else here feel like they’re watching us?” he asked cautiously.

“Of course,” said Mary. “I do.”

“Not in the least,” said Johnny. “I feel they’re watching the ship.”

Tony took a deep breath. “After that one looked me over I don’t know what to think.”

Alex didn’t feel the least bit better, and the clicker men’s implacable disposition disturbed him even more.

He thought back to the first mission into the reef, remembering how defensive he felt, on Mary’s behalf, when the incessant chatter of the clicker men nearly cost her sanity. Now, he felt like the target, and it was all tied to his dream.

8
Alex went to his seat and strapped in. “Enough of this crap,” he said in disgust. Then he took the drive stick in his hand. “Where to, Johnny?”

Johnny, Mary, and Tony, still standing at the window, almost fell down when the ship’s computer, sensing Alex’s hand on the stick, relinquished control to him. Outside, the white clicker men moved back a few meters when the ship moved.

Alex was able to maintain the ship’s position but not without a bit of wobbling on
Diver
’s part. The white ones kept moving a bit farther into the cavern.

Mary and the two men at the window regained their footing but stayed, watching the clicker men. “Whooaaa, Alex,” shouted Johnny. “You’re upsetting the neighbors. Wait. They’re retreating,” he added. “Follow them into the cavern. Why not?”

Without hesitation Alex eased the stick forward and
Diver
inched farther into the cavern. Alex guessed that the pocket in the reef was at least two kilometers across. He reckoned that the nearest of the gold tethers that held the thousands of spheres in place was still about ten meters away. There was room along the edge of the cavern for
Diver
and its large balloon package to navigate. Alex pulled the stick a bit to the left and the ship turned to parallel the slick white wall of the cavern.

As they passed one of the “light bulb ledges”, as Mary called them, Alex kept his eye on the white clicker men. He expected them to be upset but they seemed, rather, to take the moving ship in stride, moving in slow pulsing strokes of their large wings at moderate speed, to a position directly in front of the ship.

“This is great,” said Johnny. “They seem to be leading us.”

Mary went to the back of the cabin and picked up her cat, then she returned to her seat and buckled herself into it. Tony and Johnny had taken Mary’s cue and gone back to their seats as well. Suddenly everything had changed. The stalemate was broken and they appeared to be making progress.

Alex followed the clicker men with a sweaty hand gripping the stick more tightly than ever. He managed to negotiate a space with relative ease where a sphere came very close to the wall so he managed to relax a bit.

Mary, sensing Alex’s relief, looked at him and smiled.

“That was slick,” she said.

“I do like to pilot this ship,” he replied.

“I got a look into one of the spheres,” said Tony. “Right forward camera caught a window, a hole in that one we passed.”

Tony pressed a button next to his chair and an image came on a screen near the ceiling above the front console.. The ball was dark inside, lit only by the glow from outside, but it was clearly half full of lumps about the size of watermelons. “Food?” said Johnny.

“Building supplies? Air fresheners?” said Tony. “Fire fighting equipment?” He looked at Johnny and laughed.

But the Professor didn’t seem amused. “I get your point, Tony.”

The clicker men continued to lead
Diver
along the perimeter of the great cavern.

“I think it’s safe to say that those are, or appear to be storage tanks,” said Johnny, sounding somewhat defensive. “Anyway, we should all be excited. But I wonder if any of you know why?”

“We’re cooperating with the clicker men,” said Mary.

Johnny’s jaw dropped open. “My oath,” he said. “You’re either bright as hell, or you’re reading my mind.”

“Maybe you’re broadcasting to me,” said Mary with a laugh.

Tony grinned at Mary. His eyes lingered on her perfect smile.

“I think Mary’s brighter than all of us put together,” said Tony.

“Don’t be stupid,” said Mary.

Alex ignored the banter and kept watching the clicker men. His hand gently followed their movements as they cruised slowly forward. Finally the clicker men turned to the right as they passed two large pink spheres. When Alex caught sight of the spot where they vanished he could see that there was a long alley way – a channel of a sort – that ran a kilometer or so toward the center of the cavern. He made the turn easily and caught sight of the clicker men again, hovering near a glowing orb. They appeared to be waiting for the ship.