At first Carol hurried toward the window. When she was about halfway there and even with the doors, she stopped a few seconds and took a few photographs of the rather bland room. Curiously, the small carpet was not where she remembered it. It had somehow been moved while she was walking. She approached the carpet very slowly. Her weird experiences since she and Troy had been sucked out of the ocean had made Carol understandably wary. As she drew closer, she saw that the flat object lying on the floor was definite]y not a carpet. From above she could see an intricate internal design, like a complex network of sophisticated electronic chips. There were strange whorls and geometric patterns on its surface; they had no specific meaning to Carol but they reminded her of the fractal designs Dr. Dale had shown her one night in his apartment. The symmetries of the object were readily apparent. In fact, each of the four quadrants of the carpet was identical.
It was about six feet long, three feet wide, and two inches thick. The dominant color was slate gray, although there were some significant color variations. Some of the larger individual components must have been color-coded according to some master plan. Carol could identify groupings of similar elements in red, yellow, blue, and white within the design. The overall harmony of the colors was striking, suggesting that some effort had been made by the designers to include aesthetic considerations.
Carol bent down on her knees beside the carpet and studied it more intently. Its surface was densely packed. The closer she looked, the more detail she found. Extraordinary, she thought. But what in the world is it? And how did it move? Or could I possibly have imagined it? She put her hand on the exposed top surface. She felt a soft tingle, like a gentle electric shock. She slid one hand under the edge and lifted slightly. It was heavy. She removed her hand.
Her desire to escape from this strange world now overruled her curiosity. Carol took a photograph of the carpet from the top and started walking away in the direction of the window. After several strides, she turned quickly to her left to look at the carpet one more time. It had moved again and was still even with her in the room. Carol continued walking toward the window, now watching the carpet out of the corner of her eye. When she had walked another ten feet, her peripheral vision saw it arch up quickly along a line through its center, pulling the rear of its body in a forward direction. Half a second later the front end of the carpet scooted forward and the center fell flat against the floor again. This maneuver was repeated six or eight times in rapid succession as the carpet zipped up to a position even with Carol in the room.
Despite her situation, Carol laughed. She was still full of adrenaline and uptight, but there was definitely something humorous about a multicolored carpet that could crawl like an inchworm. “Ha,” Carol said out loud, “I caught you. Now you owe me an explanation.”
Carol certainly did not expect a reply to her comment. Nevertheless, after just a short delay, the behavior of the carpet was altered. First it began to generate small wave pulses along its surface, with four or five crests from front to back. After smartly reversing the direction of motion of the waves several times, the carpet’s next trick was to keep its front end fixed on the floor, as if there were suction cups holding it down, and raise its back side entirely off the floor. In that mode it was about six feet tall. It seemed to be looking at Carol.
She was flabbergasted. “Well, I asked for it,” she said out loud, still amused by the antics of the carpet. Now it seemed to be motioning for her to go toward the window. I have lost my mind, she thought to herself. Completely. Troy was right. Maybe we’re dead. The carpet arched over on the floor and began to scamper toward the window, tumbling in somersaults like a slinky toy. Carol followed. This is nuts, she thought as she watched the carpet move somehow through the window and into the ocean. And Alice thought she was in Wonderland.
The carpet was playing in the water, dodging fish as they swam by in schools and teasing a sea urchin stuck fast against the reef. At length it came back into the room and stood upright. A little water dripped on the floor when the carpet set in motion a series of fast simultaneous waves, both latitudinal and longitudinal, that effectively shook the residual liquid from its surface. It then faced Carol and clearly beckoned for her to go through the window into the ocean.
“Look here, flat guy,” she said, chuckling to herself as she tried to figure out what to say. Now I know I’m insane, she thought in a flash. I’m standing here talking to a carpet. Next thing I know it will talk back. “Now I’m not stupid,” she continued. “I recognize that you’re trying to get me to go into the ocean. But there are a few things that you don’t—”
The carpet interrupted the conversation by going quickly through the window into the ocean again. It performed a couple of flips and came back into the room with Carol. Once more it shook itself and then stood rigidly, upright as before as if to say, “See, it’s easy.”
“As I was saying,” Carol began again, “I have perhaps gone crazy, but I’m willing to trust that I can indeed go through that window in some magical way. My problem is that these is water out there. I can’t breathe in water. Without my diving gear, which I left somewhere in this labyrinth, I will die”
The carpet didn’t move. Carol repeated her statement, using elaborate hand gestures to make her key points. Then she fell silent. After a short wait the carpet began to move about actively. It then approached her carefully and amazingly stretched itself out in all directions so that it was almost double its original size. Carol wasn’t significantly fazed. At this point she was almost incapable of being astonished again. Even by an elastic carpet that pulled its two top sides together, over her head, to form a cone.
Carol backed away a couple of steps from the now giant carpet. “Oh ho,” she said, “I think I understand. You are going to form an air pocket for me so that I can breathe.” She stood still for a moment, thinking and shaking her head. “Why not,” she said at last, “it’s no weirder than anything else that’s happened.”
With the carpet hovering over and around her head, Carol closed her eyes and walked directly toward the window. She took a deep breath when she felt a soft plastic touch on different parts of her body. Suddenly the water was all around her except for the small air pocket from the neck up. It was hard for Carol to keep her diving discipline, but she managed to equalize the pressure every six to eight feet during her ascent. She took one final breath and zoomed up to the surface. The carpet peeled off in the last foot before she broke water.
The Florida Queen was about fifty yards away. “Nick,” she shouted with all her might, “Nick, over here.” She swam furiously toward the boat. A wave broke over her head. The boat was again visible, she could see a figure in profile. He was looking over the side of the boat. “Nick,” Carol cried again when she had gathered her strength. This time he heard her and turned around. She waved her arms.
5
NICK had followed Carol and Troy on the monitor right after their initial descent, when they were still directly under the boat searching for the fissure. But he had quickly tired of watching them swim around in circles and had returned to his deck chair to read his novel. Afterward he had walked over to the screen several more times to look for them and had seen nothing; Carol and Troy had already left to investigate the area under the overhang.