Orb (16 page)

“I … I don’t know. Do we always understand the depth and breadth of our own emotions, let alone guessing those of a completely different form of life? Birds see more colors. Angie hears sounds we do not. Similarly, another life-form, if we shall be so favored to interact with one, may exhibit emotions with greater or lesser intensity than we humans; or different emotions entirely—a realm completely beyond our capacity to fathom.”

The twisted little smile on Kelly’s face, the one I hated to see, the one I’ve placed there before, expressed the inadequacy of my words. Paul also grasped my failure to personalize my response.

“You may be justified,” he said, looking at me steadily, “in feeling existential loneliness more intensely than others; just as you have a right to continue searching for—and I believe you are driven to—a more fulfilling answer to Kelly’s question. And I’ll add this: You should not be surprised, as often happens in science, that the attempt to find an answer to one question facilitates the answer to another.”

“I’m sorry,” Diana broke in, “but shouldn’t we be heading back?”

We had failed to notice the time slip away. One by one, the highest tips of the spires, shining like beacons in the fast fading remnants of sunlight, were being extinguished by the setting of the sun.

“Am I correct in assuming,” Kelly confirmed with each of us, “none of us had the presence of mind to bring a flashlight?”

“Afraid so,” I said. “And, therefore, we must be prepared to meet one of two dire fates. The lesser, to be eternally lost in the dreaded darkness of the spire maze; the greater, to be ridiculed by Thompson for losing our way.”

“I must say, Kyle,” Diana commented, quickly gathering up scattered articles of clothing and eating utensils. “You’re an amusing member of our fold.”

“Not the black sheep of an errant flock?” I said.

We found it necessary to make our way back slowly, intent on not losing our way in the enveloping darkness. The dusky quality of waning light; the spires’ imposing and twisting shapes rising up on all sides to wall us in; the muffled sound of our soles carefully seeking a path on the unforgiving stones—all these, as if portents, exhorted us to lower our voices to a reverent whisper. I deliberately hung back from the group until I found myself totally isolated in the quietude of a cavernous and deserted gothic cathedral. Looking up, I stared at the first pinpoints of stars. Cold, impassive company they were, randomly blinking a meaningless message to no one.

A faint plea came to me out of the darkness: Kelly, saving me from myself.

“Kyle? Where are you?”

“Just here,” I called to her.

“Again.”

“I’ll come to you.”

In the gloom I made out the reflective orange of Angie’s eyes. I followed the glow to Kelly.

“We want you with us,” she said, clutching my hand.

“I want you.”

Cupping my hand, I caressed Kelly’s face in the darkness, feeling a wetness there. With one finger, I wiped the wetness away, then kissed her cheek, tasting the slight saltiness. Searchingly, I moved each kiss closer to her waiting mouth, supple and soft, waiting to be discovered. Not long ago, I thought, near this same spot, I had been a greater fool.

She pushed away. “Come to me later?”

There was no need to ask.

Rejoining Paul and Diana, it occurred to me (and it should have sooner) to let Angie lead the way. We were closing in on Red Square when Paul’s communicator chimed: Thompson.

“Are you close? There’s something here for you to see.”

“Ten minutes away,” said Paul. “Maybe more; we have no lights.”

“Figures. I’ll set a lantern for you at the edge of the spires so Diana doesn’t go head first into a ravine.

A second before Diana could grab the communicator from Paul, Thompson deliberately broke the connection.

Leaving a light out for us had been a wise move on Thompson’s part: Despite the crevices veining its surface, Diana went bolting across Red Square, forcing us to keep pace.

“Tell me everything,” she demanded of Thompson.

“Just after dark they appeared,” Thompson offered. “Other than what you’re seeing, there’s not much else to tell.”

We were perched on a huge stone block. Above us, a silver speckled sky. In front of us, an endless expanse of dark ocean. Dancing on that ocean, twelve mysterious colored lights.

“Tell me,” Diana challenged, “these aren’t the same objects we observed earlier today.”

There was commonality in the two sightings: In number, in approximate distance from shore, in Angie’s reaction. Only this time she was vocalizing with a few abbreviated barks. A signal of recognition, no more.

The objects were emitting a pleasant soft glow, with shades of blue similar to those of the planet’s setting sun predominating. Twelve in number, they appeared to be randomly and abruptly altering their speed and bearing. All but two presented themselves as full spheres. With the aid of binoculars (cleverly enhanced by Doctor Melhaus) we were able to determine that most had lifted what appeared to be their entire mass out of the water!

None of the comparisons made between the objects observed at night and those observed during the day helped in forming an opinion (or should I say consensus, for we all had opinions) that went to the heart of defining their very nature.

“Think of it this way,” said Thompson, primarily for Diana’s benefit. “Starting with what Kyle saw, the visitations are becoming more regular, closer, and of longer duration.”

“There is,” Diana said, “something encouraging to be said for that.”

“Maybe they’re trying to get accustomed to us,” Kelly said. “Imagine how unusual we must appear.”

“That would be especially true for Kyle,” Thompson remarked.

“Larry, I assume you weren’t able…” Paul’s voice trailed off. He reflected, then began again more carefully: “The modified spectroscopy array has yet to obtain a reading on the objects?”

“No.”

Melhaus, normally taciturn, had grown even more uncommunicative; engaging in only the most cursory conversation and rendering an opinion only when queried.

“Explain yourself,” Thompson insisted.

“The objects’ present size and distance hampers focusing. You people have to realize I can’t work miracles.”

“Can we be of any assistance with targeting the array?” asked Paul.

“Absolutely not.” Melhaus responded. “I’d advise no meddling with the system.” Then, almost as a painful afterthought, “Thanks.”

The rest of the evening I hurried through my usual chores while the scientists, with one eye always toward the ocean, collected and evaluated information obtained from the various experiments they had under way.

Melhaus consumed a few hours developing an idea put forth by Thompson: He patched together a light and various spare electronic components to construct a device that flashed sequentially timed pulses in the vicinity of the objects. They remained oblivious to the effort.

Sometime late in the evening, as the rest of us were preparing to call it a day, Thompson exited
Desio
with a large bundle: His bedroll and some miscellaneous possessions.

“Hope you have the weather right
this
evening,” I heard him say to Paul.

Thompson then told us, that with the weather being so pleasant, he preferred sleeping under the stars. Moreover, he’d be the first to let us know if the objects did anything noteworthy. Or sought out Diana by name.

I WAS STANDING on an island of ice in the middle of a boundless ocean. In the absence of a setting sun, darkness had replaced light. Raising my head, expecting to see stars, I was confounded by utter blackness. Staring outward to where the horizon had been, I found only a dark and formless void. Looking down to where my feet should be, I made a frightening discovery: My vision could not penetrate the darkness! With no point of reference,
was
I looking down? Were my feet, devoid of sensation from numbing ice, actually there? A surge of panic swept over me as I contemplated my dreadful situation. In a last act born from that panic I began frantically waving my formless hands in front of my face and an inescapable truth was revealed: All my senses had abandoned me! Nothing existed but eternal darkness! Oblivion! I started to scream.

An endless, soundless,
confirmatory
scream.

Darkness became daylight. I was no longer alone. Beside me was the tangible presence of something or someone I desired to see and to touch, but was prevented from doing so.

What?

I felt a push and I heard a voice.

“The objects, they’ve moved closer! Kyle, wake up, Thompson is yelling for us.”

I understood now. The objects. I was sleeping, or attempting to, in Kelly’s cabin. She was nudging me.

“Morning … but get up!” In her excitement she forgot she was still prodding me. I began to hear Thompson’s voice in the distance, calling to us from somewhere outside.

“Can’t be dreaming,” I said, still groggy. “I won’t allow Thompson to enter my dreams.”

“Who’s Munch?”

“What? Why…?”

“Don’t remember? I woke you from a bad dream. Before you drifted back to sleep you mumbled something about a munch?”

I hurriedly explained as we dressed. As we were about to exit
Desio
via the narrow portal, Diana appeared from nowhere. Issuing a quick, “brains
and
beauty first,” she pushed me aside and scampered through.

“My guess is you no longer want to relocate to another island to conduct research,” I heard Thompson say to her as we joined him at the shoreline.

The reason behind Thompson’s early-morning wake-up call was readily apparent: The twelve distant objects, likely the same ones sighted the prior evening, had moved to within one hundred meters of shore. In doing so, they proved to be larger than previously surmised (unless they grew overnight) with the largest being an impressive three meters in diameter—nearly three times the size of the smallest. I use the term diameter most specifically here, for all were floating, or more accurately hovering, with just one tiny section of their spherical mass contacting the undisturbed ocean surface.

They also were no longer glowing, having resumed their blue-gray color from the day before. Their polished surface had a lustrous, nearly opaque quality, like that of a cultured pearl, but with slightly greater translucence, a milky opalescence which had us wondering if we could look beyond into the object’s very center. All remained nearly motionless, almost as if they were studying us as much as we were them. Motionless, that is, until Angie barked out a brief greeting and, coincidence or not, several shifted closer toward shore. In what manner this was accomplished was impossible to determine, for nothing was emitted, nor did they rotate, spin, or extend an appendage of any kind to facilitate propulsion.

We passed several seconds in silence, as if anything we did or said would result in the objects making a hasty retreat. At the periphery of our group I noticed Melhaus, appearing agitated, pointing, adjusting, and repointing a hand-held laser micrometer at the spheres. What I could recall of the device was that it was extremely efficient at measuring an object’s exact size and shape.

“Incomprehensible,” he said, talking more to himself than to us. “The internal test verifies the instrument is functioning properly.”

“What’s the problem?” Diana asked, shaken from her silence. “Something about the instrument or the spheres?”

“Spheres…” Melhaus responded, mumbling to himself, refusing to look up from the measuring device he squeezed tightly in his trembling hand.

“Larry…” Diana began again, her patience wearing thin.

Thompson gently put his hand over the body of the instrument the physicist was pointing, forcing him to look up and take notice of us for the first time.

“Oh. Yes,” Melhaus said. “Spheres.”

Somewhere in his own little world, Melhaus believed he had provided an answer.

“Explain yourself,” Thompson said. “You can spare us the part about a sphere being round.”

“You don’t comprehend,” Melhaus responded, looking at and through us, irritated that we didn’t understand. “That is the crux of the matter. We have in front of us objects so perfectly round they exceed the capabilities of this instrument to measure. Orders of magnitude rounder than anything found in nature. Surpassing laboratory-engineered spheres of monoisotopic silicon crystal. Shall I put it in perspective? If any of those objects somehow expanded to the size of the planet we’re standing on, all of its diameter measurements would correspond to within one meter and its greatly increased surface area would remain as smooth as polished glass.”

A long, low whistle of appreciation came from Paul.

“Tell me, how’s that possible?” asked Kelly. “They’re living organisms. Aren’t they?”

“If they are, and
I
for one still believe they are,” Diana asserted, “we may have to come up with a different definition of living.”

I flashed back to a recent description of the planet’s shape.

“Larry, didn’t you say P5 was extraordinarily round?”

“Are you trying to make a connection?” he challenged.

“Is there one?”

“No.”

“Kyle’s floating trial balloons,” Thompson stated, “and I’m glad he’s doing so. The worst possible mistake we could make would be to assume a square peg won’t fit in a round hole.”

I glanced at Thompson. He shrugged. “Thought you’d appreciate that.” Then, in the same breath, “Larry, the minute you obtain results from the spectroscopy array, let me know. I’ll hold off till then.”

“What are you planning?” Diana asked. “Just in case I have to be somewhere else.”

“How would you and Kyle like to go for a swim?”

Two hours elapsed before Melhaus came back with his initial findings.

“What do you have for us?” Thompson asked.

“I can’t wait to hear,” added Diana. “Eternity really flew by.”

We had gathered at the outside table. Melhaus, as always, was sitting at the far end, studying chemical compounds on his AID. Scrutinizing his emotionless face, I had no idea what to expect.