You just had to wait it out.
Harry finished the lemonade, handed the glass back.
“More?” Levy asked.
“No, that’s good. Headache’s better.”
Perhaps it was dehydration after all, Norman thought. But why would Harry be dehydrated after three hours in the sphere?
“Harry…?”
“Tell me something. Do I look different, Norman?”
“No.”
“I look the same to you?”
“Yes. I’d say so.”
“Are you sure?” Harry said. He jumped up, went to a mirror mounted on the wall. He peered at his face.
“How do you think you look?” Norman said.
“I don’t know. Different.”
“Different how?”
“I don’t know!” … He pounded the padded wall next to the mirror. The mirror image vibrated. He turned away, sat down on the bunk again. He sighed. “Just different.”
“Harry…”
“What?”
“Do you remember what happened?”
“Of course.”
“What happened?”
“I went inside.”
He waited, but Harry said nothing further. He just stared at the carpeted floor.
“Do you remember opening the door?” Harry said nothing.
“How did you open the door, Harry?”
Harry looked up at Norman. “You were all supposed to leave. To go back to the surface. You weren’t supposed to stay.
“How did you open the door, Harry?”
There was a long silence. “I opened it.” He sat up straight, his hands at his sides. He seemed to be remembering, reliving it.
“And then?”
“I went inside.”
“And what happened inside?”
“It was beautiful…”
“What was beautiful?”
“The foam,” Harry said. And then he fell silent again, staring vacantly into space.
“The foam?” Norman prompted.
“The sea. The foam. Beautiful…”
Was he talking about the lights? Norman wondered. The swirling pattern of lights?
“What was beautiful, Harry?”
“Now, don’t kid me,” Harry said. “Promise you won’t kid me.”
“I won’t kid you.”
“You think I look the same?”
“Yes, I do.”
“You don’t think I’ve changed at all?”
“No. Not that I can see. Do you think you’ve changed?”
“I don’t know. Maybe. I-maybe.”
“Did something happen in the sphere to change you?”
“You don’t understand about the sphere.”
“Then explain it to me,” Norman said.
“Nothing happened in the sphere.”
“You were in the sphere for three hours…”
‘Nothing happened. Nothing ever happens inside the sphere. It’s always the same, inside the sphere.”
“What’s always the same? The foam?”
“The foam is always different. The sphere is always the same.”
“I don’t understand,” Norman said.
“I know you don’t,” Harry said. He shook his head. “What can I do?”
“Tell me some more.”
“There isn’t any more.”
“Then tell me again.”
“It won’t help,” Harry said. “Do you think you’ll be leaving soon?”
“Barnes says not for several days.”
“I think you should leave soon. Talk to the others. Convince them. Make them leave.”
“Why, Harry?”
“I can’t be-I don’t know.”
Harry rubbed his eyes and lay back on the bed. “You’ll have to excuse me,” he said, “but I’m very tired. Maybe we can continue this some other time. Talk to the others, Norman. Get them to leave. It’s… dangerous to stay here.” And he lay down in the bunk and closed his eyes.
CHANGES
“He’s sleeping,” Norman told them. “He’s in shock. He’s confused. But he seems basically intact.”
“What did he tell you,” Ted said, “about what happened in there?”
“He’s quite confused,” Norman said, “but he’s recovering. When we first found him, he didn’t even remember his name. Now he does. He remembers my name, he remembers where he is. He remembers he went into the sphere. I think he remembers what happened inside the sphere, too. He just isn’t telling.”
“Great,” Ted said.
“He mentioned the sea, and the foam. But I wasn’t clear what he meant by that.”
“Look outside,” Tina said, pointing to the portholes. Norman had an immediate impression of lights-thousands of lights filling the blackness of the ocean-and his first response was unreasoning terror: the lights in the sphere were coming out to get them. But then he saw each of the lights had a shape, and were moving, wriggling.
They pressed their faces to the portholes, looked. “Squid,” Beth said finally. “Bioluminescent squid.”
“Thousands of them.”
“More,” she said. “I’d guess at least half a million, all around the habitat.”
“Beautiful.”
“The size of the school is amazing,” Ted said. “Impressive, but not really unusual,” Beth said. “The fecundity of the sea is very great compared with the land. The sea is where life began, and where intense competition among animals first appeared. One response to competition is to produce enormous numbers of offspring. Many sea animals do that. In fact, we tend to think that animals came out onto the land as a positive step forward in the evolution of life. But the truth is, the first creatures were really driven out of the ocean. They were just trying to get away from the competition. And you can imagine when the first fish-amphibians climbed up the beach and poked their heads up to look out at the land, and saw this vast dry-land environment without any competition at all. It must have looked like the promised-”
Beth broke off, turned to Barnes. “Quick: where do you keep specimen nets?”
“I don’t want you going out there.”
“I have to,” Beth said. “Those squid have six tentacles.”
“So?”
“There’s no known species of six-tentacled squid. This is an undescribed species. I must collect samples.”
Barnes told her where the equipment locker was, and she went off. Norman looked at the school of squid with renewed interest.
The animals were each about a foot long, and seemed to be transparent. The large eyes of the squid were clearly visible in the bodies, which glowed a pale blue.
In a few minutes Beth appeared outside, standing in the midst of the school, swinging her net, catching specimens. Several squid angrily squirted clouds of ink.
“Cute little things,” Ted said. “You know, the development of squid ink is a very interesting-”
“-What do you say to squid for dinner?” Levy said.
“Hell no,” Barnes said. “If this is an undiscovered species, we’re not going to eat it. The last thing I need is everybody sick from food poisoning.”
“Very sensible,” Ted said. “I never liked squid, anyway. Interesting mechanism of propulsion, but rubbery texture.”
At that moment, there was a buzz as one of the monitors turned itself on. As they watched, the screen rapidly filled with numbers:
0003212525263203262930132104261037183016061
808213229033005182204261013083016213716040
83016211822033013130432000321252526320326
293013210426103718301606180821322903300518
220426101308301623711604083016211822033013
1304320003212525263203262932104261037183016
0618082132290330051822042610130830162137
16040830162118220330131304320003212525263
203262930132104261037183016061808213229033