Orb (34 page)

The salient features of the front were becoming clear: A sheer, billowing wall of dark green and black clouds rising angrily from a starting point five hundred meters above the OceanOrb and soaring high into the troposphere. Between the clouds and OceanOrb, sheets of wind-tossed rain could be seen falling in wavy, dark gray bands. The storm’s leading edge, kilometers away, was beginning to obscure the late afternoon sun, and an ominous darkness descended. Behind us, a fierce wind whipped through the spires, producing an eerie, high-pitched howl.

“Won’t be long now!” Thompson said, shouting to be heard. “Another minute and we’re going to be slammed. Be prepared to duck inside!”

“Bruce! How much wind can
Desio
withstand?!” Diana yelled in return.

“With her reduced weight on Orb, I’d start worrying at two hundred kilometers per hour!”

“I’ll start worrying now, if you don’t mind!” Diana responded.

“Velocity is half that!” Paul said, glancing at his anemometer. “But where’s the lightning?!”

“You
want
lightning?!” Kelly asked, hooking her arm in mine. I had grabbed hold of Angie, who had her twitching nose faced into the wind. Remarkably, she appeared totally unafraid. Perhaps she sensed what would happen next.

“Look at that!” Paul cried out. Our attention was drawn to the center of the ominous wall of churning clouds where a V-shaped indentation was rapidly forming, a curiosity at first, but the V cleaved deeper into the front, then widened, until a significant breach was created in the towering column.

“What’s happening?!” Thompson shouted.

“
That’s
happening!” Paul shot back, pointing to a now kilometer-wide rift, obviously frustrated that his command of all things meteorological did not encompass anything remotely resembling the phenomena we were witnessing.

The front was moving fast. Suddenly we found ourselves in the mouth of the V looking at cloud banks dramatically parting to both sides—as if the tiny island we inhabited was somehow capable of splitting a storm in two or some preternatural force, conceding our puny presence, had decided to spare us the worst of the tempest.

As the storm passed to our sides, the wind slackened, changing to fluctuating gusts. Above us, a blue-gray sky remained partially visible through wavy curtains of wind-driven rain, the rain sailing into the divide we occupied and drenching us to the bone. Stubbornly, we refused to move. The sight—we were in a magnificent canyon of black clouds—was too awe-inspiring to miss; the rain—intermittent bands of large, warm drops—was too refreshing to seek cover.

We played. Kelly squeezed a stream of water from a handful of her shiny black hair. Diana tilted her head up, letting the rain fall freely on her face, catching drops with her tongue. I put Angie down and she shook her coat, whipping spray outward. It occurred to Paul that he needed to release the tethered weather balloon, which, buffeted by gusts of wind, floated high into the air and disappeared. Thompson looked at his wet crew, shook his head, and laughed.

The rain stopped. The passing storm front was now completely cleaved in two, all the way to the far horizon where the giant blue sun poked out, scattering bright beams of light into the mist-filled air. Rising into the saturated atmosphere, an overarching rainbow appeared.

“It seems we’re the subject of some attention,” Thompson said.

“Do you think?” Diana said.

“Paul?” Thompson said, looking to the meteorologist for an explanation.

“Trillions of liters of OceanOrb evaporate into the atmosphere each day. Perhaps I should have surmised that the entity has influence over localized weather, possibly the climate of the entire planet.” Paul paused, appeared troubled. “Or, is my thinking too constrained? As the Orb is the Ocean, the same may be true for the atmosphere, for the two are intrinsically linked. I come to this problem humbly admitting I don’t have the slightest idea how the storm originated or split in half like it was some kind of bifurcating amoeba. No, not a clue. Not yet.”

“Welcome to my world,” Thompson said. He didn’t have to mention the spires by name.

“Did anybody notice how calm the OceanOrb stayed?” Kelly asked.

Our self-conscious expressions confirmed we had failed to make this most basic of observations.

“A gale force wind,” Thompson commented, annoyed with himself. “Of all of us, I should have taken note.”

“Under the circumstances, it’s understandable,” Kelly said. “But I’ll tell you what needs no clarification: We witnessed a demonstration of exactly who is benevolently in charge here.”

“Kelly, you’re right,” Thompson said. “The Orb showed us that we are vulnerable on land, removing any doubt about there being strict physical limitations to its domain.”

With an hour of usable sunlight left in the day, I asked leave of Thompson in order to make an excursion to the cove on the off-chance the Orb might return to the location where I first, albeit unwittingly, spotted them. If the Orb were seeking to avoid contact they would go where we were not, including, at least for the moment, the opposite side of the island. I was relying on human logic and emotion, but those were the imperfect tools I had to work with. Responding to my request, Thompson simply said “why not” and, with everyone else preoccupied, Angie and I set off by ourselves.

Arriving at the cove (and resisting a strong urge to swim) I located the highest accessible vantage point and gazed out into the distance, first with the unaided eye and then with the binoculars Diana thrust upon me as I was leaving Red Square. Not a single Orb was visible. I was surprised how saddened I was by their absence. My obsession with finding Orbs in the distance was nearly the cause of my overlooking an object in close proximity–one that I should have discerned immediately.

Ixodes
.

Or what was left of it, for the visible half of the submersible, that portion tilting above the surface of the OceanOrb, was mangled and indented, inconveniently wedged between two jagged boulders.

Determining how the sub met such a unlikely demise was vital. I considered swimming out to the wreckage to take a closer look, but sunlight was fading fast and my unskilled examination would likely be less useful than Thompson’s more expert evaluation of a series of holo images. Accordingly, I activated the binoculars’ image retention function. Upon my return the images would be made available on the crew’s AIDs, where they could be rotated, amplified, and color-enhanced. Ideas as to what happened would be offered, parsed, and weighed. My opinion, already formulated, would conceivably be mangled worse than the
Ixodes
.

“The hull is rated for one thousand atmospheres.” Thompson speaking, as the crew, minus Melhaus, examined the images. “Some of the damage—see how the tubular manipulator arms are crushed—must have been caused by twice the sub’s working pressure. Ocean depths of twenty thousand meters. No way she could sink to that level and return to the surface under her own power.”

“Orbs, however, can make their exteriors as dense, molecularly, as they want,” Paul said. “They can withstand virtually unlimited pressures. As for the OceanOrb, pressure isn’t even a consideration.”

“So you agree with the premise?”

“Yes. The planet is totally devoid of tides. The recent storm produced no coincidental wave disturbance. Yet these images show
Ixodes
in a partially elevated position, a position attainable only through some outside interference. It’s pretty evident what that outside interference is: An individual Orb or the entirety of the OceanOrb.”

“In effect, this proves Melhaus right,” Diana said, scowling. “Good thing you dismantled the laser. I’d be tempted to use it on myself rather than see his reaction to this piece of news.”

“Want another kick in the pants, Diana?” Kelly said. “Try this on: A motivating factor in Larry’s behavior subsequent to
Ixodes
’ destruction was our insistence that he alone was responsible. And that he was going to be held accountable.”

“Maybe he wasn’t correct,” I said, disturbing the lull produced by Kelly’s sobering remark. “Perhaps the Orb resurrected
Ixodes
from the depths
after
it malfunctioned and went to the bottom.”

“Why?” Kelly asked.

“We can’t prove exactly when she was deposited on those rocks, but what if, as appears likely, it was
after
we discarded the laser at the shoreline?”

“You mean the probe was brought to the cove as a simpatico statement, of sorts?”

“Maybe,” I said, replying to Kelly, but staring at Diana. “Or not.
Ixodes
was indiscriminately collecting phytoplankton.”

“That again?” Diana said, smirking at me. Nevertheless she was pleased that my first suggestion supplied a plausible alternative to Melhaus being vindicated, as well as a glimmer of hope that the Orb would return.

After listening to a few more minutes of banter, Thompson distilled the conversation to its essence.

“Possibility one:
Ixodes
was destroyed, and then subsequently marooned, by the Orb. Possibility two:
Ixodes
malfunctioned, and was subsequently marooned, by the Orb. Tell me, what is possibility number three?”

There were no takers. “Well?” Thompson persisted. “Is there a possibility that does
not
involve the Orb?”

Still no takers. Well, almost.

“The King of the Fairies?” I said.

Dusk. After dinner, Kelly, Angie, and I sat side-by-side on our favorite boulder. As the last light retreated and the first stars revealed themselves we gave thought to our lives back on Earth—lives that would intertwine in ways yet to be discovered, drawing us closer together while widening our circle of family, friends, and associates.

There was, I felt, a constricting aspect to this socialization, an implied expectation (though never by Kelly) for me to “fit in.” To be assimilated. To become one more cog in that giant living machine that has run amok on the planet for six thousand years, destroying nature, ravaging resources.

If you will, call this feeling a phobia.

I own it.

Want to tell me that I’m fooling myself, that if you’re a citizen of planet Earth, like it or not, you’re a cog in the machine?

See you when I get back.

I sought help with these feelings. Kelly volunteered her best palliative advice. “At first,” she said, “take your medicine in small doses.”

“Like my signing on to this expedition?”

“Do you see any signs of a cure?”

“Four out of five, one especially, will be friends for life.”

But as I fought against the idea of inclusion, a pang of loneliness washed over me. I expressed this to Kelly the best way I knew how. “My father repeatedly said to believe in nothing, and no one, other than yourself. I’ve lived most of my life that way.”

“Bringing you to this point. Bringing you to me.” Kelly pointed. “You see those paired stars over there, the red and the blue? They
appear
close together, but in all likelihood they are hundreds of light years apart. That will never be us.”

I took her hand in mine and began to tell her something she already knew. “There is something I need to do. If the Orb return, I want to reiterate my proposition to Thompson and the others. With help from our little ambassador, I want to attempt contact.”

“Can I tell you I’m afraid?” Kelly said. “Afraid of losing you. We have no idea what could happen. What if you’re changed in some way?”

“Perhaps I already am—thanks to you, and the others. Even, strangely enough, Melhaus. I must do this. For many reasons. How often does a person get to perform a selfish act that is selfless at the same time?”

Late that evening, a thousand colored lights reappeared to regale us from a distance.

THE MASSIVE BLUE sun once more appeared on the eastern horizon but our attention was focused on the Orb flotilla that entertained us with their resplendent colors the previous night. In the brightness of day, they had reverted to muted tones of pearlescent gray and were gracefully tracing meandering paths among themselves.

“Do you think they’ll come any closer?” Diana repeated for the third time, speaking to no one in particular. The last twenty minutes her face had been buried behind a pair of binoculars.

“If wishing could make it so, yes,” Thompson replied. “But even if an Orb sits in your lap, what then?”

“Hey, at least it would be a sign that they’ve forgiven us for being total jerks.”

On that, we all agreed. Five of us anyway, squinting in the early morning sunlight, standing right beside Diana. The sixth human crewmember was inside
Desio
, convalescing.

“I couldn’t sleep much,” Paul said. “No solution presented itself and we are running out of time.”

“A cynic would say the impression we’re leaving is the correct one,” Thompson replied. “So why try to change it.”

Kelly and I exchanged glances. She gave me a nervous smile, then turned to Thompson and said:

“Bruce, with your permission, I’d like to use the bow.”

“On Melhaus?” Thompson replied, believing he was being toyed with. “As ship’s physician, I’d expect you to find a subtler way to dispatch him. In any event, both arrows were broken.”

There were good reasons that I would be the first, and Thompson the last, to understand Kelly’s words the way she really intended them. They were selfless words.

And, as she had often done for me, I wanted to give her a way out.

“Kelly, no, I can’t…” I began, but found my protestation prevented by a fierce look of determination that flashed in her eyes.

Diana, hearing the bow mentioned, relaxed her death grip on the binoculars and joined Paul in staring at Kelly, then at me. They had caught on almost immediately, that she was proposing to play the violin in an attempt to attract the Orb. What they could not comprehend was why I would make any effort to stop her. Then, too, they knew something was amiss because there was Kelly’s expression, her masking, crooked little smile that told them so.

In these crosscurrents Thompson processed how we were acting and reacting and arrived at the conclusion that four of his crew knew something he didn’t.