Submerged (25 page)

Janet jumped from the stairs, and Carl took
several quick steps back.

“Okay, okay,” Janet shouted. “This place is
freaking me out. Seriously freaking me out.” She began to pace.
Carl came down the stairs and took her in his arms. Perry saw her
shudder. He waited for the tears. None came.

Zeisler shook his head and walked up the
stairs. “Kids. They never listen.”

“You going to be okay?” Perry asked
Janet.

“I’m fine. Just a little on edge.” She pulled
away from Carl. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry, lady,” Jack said. “My heart
is still doing backflips.”

Zeisler reappeared. “You coming, or do you
need an invitation?” He smiled. “Don’t forget to wipe your feet.”
He laughed and disappeared into the house.

“After what he said happened when your father
brought in a handful of dirt,” Gleason said, “I think I’ll wipe my
feet.”

Inside, Perry saw an empty spherical space. A
round, four-foot-high wall sat in the middle of the room. He
thought of his father standing in this place three decades ago.

“At least nothing has changed inside here.
Nothing I can see anyway.” Zeisler stepped to the ring. “But the
color of the sand looks different from what I remember. It looks
lighter.”

“Will someone explain to me what just
happened on the porch?” Carl demanded. “ ’Cuz I’m not gonna be
able to think about much else until I get some answers.”

“There are no answers, Deputy,” Zeisler said.
“At least not solid answers. Thirty years ago we came up with some
ideas—ideas I’ve been considering ever since.”

“What was that out there?” Carl pressed. “Why
did it appear like Barrett? Why did it ask for help? Why did it
disappear? How did it know your name?”

Zeisler raised a hand. “I can deal with only
one question at a time, Deputy. Take a breath.” He rubbed his
temples. “I was telling you about what happened thirty years ago. I
told you about the self-assembling creature, right?”

“That’s right,” Perry said. “You were about
to tell us what happened when you jumped into the ring.” Perry
heard a sound to his right. He turned to see Jack slipping the pack
from his back. It was a good idea. Perry and Gleason did the
same.

“Henry and Nash had gone looking for
McDermott . . .”

1974

Zeisler had placed his hands on the ring and
jumped inside. The moment Zeisler’s feet hit the pale sand inside
the ring, a rushing sound filled the room. Light from the upward
curved ceiling poured down. The light was not instantaneous but
trickled down, forming a cylinder of illumination. Things, brightly
colored flakes, floated in the beam like confetti.

“Get out of there, Zeisler!” Cynthia
cried.

“No, I’m fine. Just wait.”

“You could get killed,” Grant said.

“Just wait.”

“Sanders, tell him to get out of there,”
Cynthia pleaded.

Zeisler didn’t bother with Sanders. He heard
no command, and it wouldn’t matter if he had. He wasn’t leaving.
There was too much to see. “I feel a slight tingling, like the air
is filled with static electricity. No pain, just a vague tingling.”
He reached out a hand, extending his index finger, and tried to
touch the column of light. A hollow space formed around his finger.
Zeisler removed his hand and tried again. Once again, the light
moved away.

Something moved beneath him. “The sand is
shifting. It’s moving out from beneath my feet.” Zeisler studied
the floor. “All the sand is moving. It’s being drawn into the
light.” He looked at the others. “This is fascinating. I can’t
touch the light column. It moves away from me, but it is sucking up
the sand. Do you know what that means?”

“It means that you’ve lost your reason if you
stay in there,” Grant said.

“What it means, Monte, is that this force,
whatever it is, can make a distinction between me and the
sand.”

“That would require a sensor system of some
kind,” Sanders said.

“Intelligent
sensors,” Zeisler said. “And the power. Think of the electrical
energy necessary to do this, to hold this whole place together.” He
fixed his eyes on the column of light that now held every grain of
sand suspended along its floor-to-ceiling length. “If only I had a
way to interface with it.”

The column flattened and widened.

“It looks like a television screen,” Grant
said.

“Except it’s flat,” Cynthia said. “No
cathode-ray tube.”

“Did that come to be because you asked for an
interface?” Sanders inquired.

“I don’t know. That’s an interesting idea.
Let me try something . . . Outside,” Zeisler said to the black
panel.

“Oot-sadde.” The voice wasn’t loud, but it
filled the room.

“Could anyone tell where that came from?”
Zeisler asked.

“It sounded like it came from everywhere,”
Cynthia said.

“Interesting,” Zeisler commented, his gaze
still fixed on the screen. “It sounded male.”

“Figures,” Cynthia quipped.

Zeisler decided to try again. “Outside.”

“Oot-sadde.”

“I don’t think it understands,” Sanders said.
“Try a different word.”

Cynthia held out her hand. “No.
Think
a different word.”

“How about both?” Zeisler took a breath, as
if thinking was going to wind him, and then said, “Exterior.”

The walls disappeared, and Zeisler could see
the grounds surrounding the house. All that remained was the
floor.

“Um, okay, that was unexpected,” Grant
said.

“The walls are gone.” Cynthia backed away
from the ring. “And the outside is back to being a desert.”

“Not gone,” Grant said. “I can see the
juncture where the curved walls meet the floor.”

Sanders stepped to the closest wall and
touched it. “It’s still here, but it’s as clear as glass. It’s like
being on the inside of a snow globe.”

“Remarkable,” Zeisler said. “I can’t begin to
imagine how all this works. This is beyond anything I’ve ever seen.
For that matter, it’s beyond anything I’ve ever imagined.”

“Oh, no,” Cynthia said. “Look. It’s Henry and
Nash. Something’s wrong.”

Zeisler looked and saw Henry leading Nash
toward the house. Nash was carrying something. It took a second,
but then he realized that the “thing” was McDermott. Sanders raced
from the room.

“We should help,” Cynthia said.

Zeisler stared again at the empty panel and
then back out through the clear wall. He stepped away from the
light and swung his legs over the ring. Immediately the panel
returned to the shape of the column. The light died, and the
suspended particles of sand fell into the ring.

Henry had offered to carry McDermott’s body
part of the way. Nash refused. He was sweating, and his breathing
was labored, but he managed to keep his feet moving.

“Did you see that?” Nash asked between gulps
of air.

“Yeah, I saw it. It looked like the house
disappeared, then it came back.”

“I’ll bet you five bucks Zeisler is somehow
responsible.”

“No bet,” Henry said. Two steps later, he
said, “They’ve seen us.” Henry watched Sanders running toward them.
Following behind in a fast walk were Grant and Cynthia. Zeisler
appeared, then jogged until he caught up with the other two
engineers.

“What happened?” Sanders demanded. “How hurt
is he?”

“He’s dead.” Nash kept walking.

“Dead? How?”

Henry explained as they continued their march
along the last few yards. He also explained his theory about the
real cause of McDermott’s death.

“You can’t know that for certain,” Sanders
said.

“I stopped knowing things for certain the
moment I stepped into this place,” Henry said. “I have yet to see
anything that makes sense.”

Zeisler smiled. “Wait until you get a load of
what we discovered. It’s going to blow your mind.”

They closed the distance to the house. Henry
and Sanders helped lower the corpse from Nash’s shoulders. They lay
McDermott on the sand next to the porch stairs. The team stood in
silence around the lifeless form.

“I’m going to need help moving his body
topside,” Nash said. To Henry he added, “You were right. I never
would have made it back by myself.”

Henry gave him a pat on the shoulder. “You
need to rest. Then we can think of some way to carry him out.”

“That’s not going to be easy,” Zeisler said.
“We didn’t come here with tools and materials.”

“We can tear off a section of porch railing
and make a litter out of that.”

“No good,” Zeisler said.

“I’ve had just about all of you I can stand,”
Nash said.

“What? I’m just telling you the truth. You
can’t make anything out of something that isn’t there.”

“What’s he talking about, Sachs?” Nash
asked.

“Remember, when we arrived, the house looked
like it does now, but when we left to search for McDermott—”

“It looked like a large tent.”

“And before that, you and Sanders said it
appeared as a barn and a farmhouse,” Zeisler added.

Nash rubbed his eyes. “I’m . . . I’m not
thinking clearly. So what do we do?”

“We go back and get help,” Sanders said.
“Sanchez and Buckley will still be at their posts. We’ll go
topside, make what we need, and come back for McDermott.”

“What do you mean, ‘we’?” Zeisler said. “I’m
not going anywhere. I need to learn more about this place. Henry,
wait until you see what I’ve . . . what
we’ve
discovered.”

“We’re sticking together,” Sanders insisted.
“I’ve already lost one man, and I don’t even know why. I’m not
leaving anyone behind.”

“That’s stupid,” Zeisler complained. “How
many people does it take to make a stretcher? Take the others if
you must, but leave me. I’ll . . . I’ll stay with the body. Someone
needs to do that. I volunteer.”

Sanders frowned, and Henry could tell he
wasn’t buying it. “That’s very magnanimous of you, Dr. Zeisler, but
you’re going with us.”

“It makes sense, Victor,” Cynthia said.

“No, it doesn’t. It’s a stupid idea born in a
shallow mind.” Zeisler reined in his tongue. “I’m sorry. Really,
I’m sorry. It’s just that we’ve had a breakthrough, and I’m
starting to get a few ideas.”

“It will be here tomorrow, Zeisler,” Sanders
said.

Henry noticed the formality normal to Sanders
was gone.

“Okay, okay, you’re right. Absolutely right.
I’m letting my excitement run away with me. Just let me . . . Just
let me show Henry what we’ve learned. He needs to see it. He’s part
of the team. He has a right to see it. You, too, Nash.”

Sanders didn’t reply.

Zeisler pushed the issue. “It will give us
more to talk about, more to analyze. When we come back, we’ll know
better what we’re dealing with. Perhaps we can construct a few
experiments. Five minutes. That’s all I ask. Just five stinking
minutes.”

“Five minutes, Dr. Zeisler. That’s all.”

“Great. Thank you.” Zeisler bounded up the
steps.

“I’ll take that now,” Nash said to Henry. He
reached for the M16. Henry was glad to be rid of it.

Zeisler reappeared. “Come on, guys. You’re
eating up my five minutes.”

Henry climbed the stairs. He passed through
the door in time to see Zeisler stepping into the ring. A second
later, there was light and noise and the sound of Zeisler laughing.
Henry stepped closer. A column of light ran from the floor up
through the “stem” of the inverted wineglass ceiling. Something
filled the light column. Sand? Flickering lights appeared inside
the channel.

“It was faster this time, Henry. Much faster.
Watch.” Zeisler turned to the illuminated pillar and said,
“Interface.” The column widened into a flat wall.

“Pretty impressive, isn’t it,” Grant said.
“Scared the life out of me when I first saw it.”

Henry understood. His heart was tripping in
double time. “What is it?”

“We don’t know yet, but it seems to respond
to voice command, maybe even thought command.”

“Have you tried it?” Henry asked Grant.

“Just Zeisler. He just got it going a few
moments before we saw you.”

Henry thought about the house’s disappearance
and reappearance. He mentioned it to Grant.

“Hey, Victor,” Grant called out. “Do the wall
thing.”

“Good idea,” Zeisler said. “Exterior.”

The walls disappeared, and Henry jumped.
“They’re gone.”

“It just looks that way,” Grant said. “The
walls have be-come transparent.”

Henry stepped to the edge of the ring. “No
wonder you don’t want to leave.” A thought occurred to him. “When
McDermott was shot—or thought he was shot—the terrain changed from
jungle back to desert. Do you think you can change it now?”

“I don’t know. Let me think of a place.”
Zeisler closed his eyes. The desert dissolved, and a spray of sand
flew skyward. A moment later, giant redwoods appeared. Zeisler
laughed again. “I spent my vacation in the High Sierras. Let me try
another.”

Again the terrain dissolved. It began to rain
sand, but seconds later it stopped, leaving behind a vast field of
corn plants. Then came a beach, then flat Texas-like plains, then
green hills that made Henry think of Ireland.

“You’re making me dizzy,” Henry said. “Slow
down.”

Zeisler raised a hand to his head. “I’m
trying. I’m not making it change. My head is killing me.”

Outside the green hills became an underwater
tableau as if the whole house had been sunk beneath the waves.

“Victor?” Henry said.

“My head. My head,” Zeisler moaned.

Desert. Mountains. Rivers. Oceans. Snow.
Rain. They cycled by faster and faster until Henry could no longer
determine what he was seeing.

“Stop it, Victor,” Cynthia said. “Make him
stop it.”

“My head.” Zeisler groaned.

Henry reached over the wall and seized
Zeisler by the shirt, then pulled hard, yanking him over the ring
and onto the floor. The column of light disappeared, and sand
dropped to the floor inside the ring. The transparent walls became
opaque again.