“Norman.”
“Yes, Beth.” He felt comfortable answering her now. He had his hands on the controls of the submarine, ready to make his ascent. There was nothing she could do to him now. “Norman, you really are a son of a bitch.”
“You tried to kill me, Beth.”
“I didn’t want to kill you. I had no choice, Norman.”
“Yeah, well. Me, too. I have no choice.” As he spoke, he knew he was right. Better for one person to survive. Better than nothing.
“You’re just going to leave us?”
“That’s right, Beth.”
His hand moved to the ascent-rate dial. He set it to 6.6 feet. Ready to ascend.
“You’re just going to run away?” He heard the contempt in her voice.
“That’s right, Beth.”
“You, the one who kept talking about how we had to stay together down here?”
“Sorry, Beth.”
“You must be very afraid, Norman.”
“I’m not afraid at all.” And indeed he felt strong and confident, setting the controls, preparing for his ascent. He felt better than he had felt for days.
“Norman,” she said.
“Please help us. Please.”
Her words struck him at some deep level, arousing feelings of caring, of professional competence, of simple human kindness. For a moment he felt confusion, his strength and conviction weakened. But then he got a grip on himself, and shook his head. The strength flew back into his body.
“Sorry, Beth. It’s too late for that.”
And he pressed the “ASCEND” button, heard the roar as the ballast tanks blew, and Deepstar III swayed. The habitat slipped away below him, and he started toward the surface, a thousand feet above.
Black water, no sense of movement except for the readings on the glowing green instrument panel. He began to review the events in his mind, as if he were already facing a Navy inquiry. Had he done the right thing, leaving the others behind?
Unquestionably, he had. The sphere was an alien object which gave a person the power to manifest his thoughts. Well and good, except that human beings had a split in their brains, a split in their mental processes. It was almost as if men had two brains. The conscious brain could be consciously controlled, and presented no problem. But the unconscious brain, wild and abandoned, was dangerous and destructive when its impulses were manifested.
The trouble with people like Harry and Beth was that they were literally unbalanced. Their conscious brains were overdeveloped, but they had never bothered to explore their unconscious. That was the difference between Norman and them. As a psychologist, Norman had some acquaintance with his unconscious. It held no surprises for him.
That was why Harry and Beth had manifested monsters, but Norman had not. Norman knew his unconscious. No monsters awaited him.
No. Wrong.
He was startled by the suddenness of the thought, the abruptness of it. Was he really wrong? He considered carefully, and decided once again that he was correct after all. Beth and Harry were at risk from the products of their unconscious, but Norman was not. Norman knew himself; the others did not.
“The fears unleashed by contact with a new life form are not understood. The most likely consequence of contact is absolute terror.”
The statements from his own report popped into his head. Why should he think of them now? It had been years since he had written his report.
“Under circumstances of extreme terror, people make decisions poorly.”
Yet Norman wasn’t afraid. Far from it. He was confident and strong. He had a plan, he was carrying it out. Why should he even think of that report? At the time, he’d agonized over it, thinking of each sentence… Why was it coming to mind now? It troubled him.
“Your attention, please. Sixteen minutes and counting.” Norman scanned the gauges before him. He was at nine hundred feet, rising swiftly. There was no turning back now. Why should he even think of turning back?
Why should it enter his mind?
As he rose silently through black water, he increasingly felt a kind of split inside himself, an almost schizophrenic internal division. Something was wrong, he sensed. There was something he hadn’t considered yet.
But what could he have overlooked? Nothing, he decided, because, unlike Beth and Harry, I am fully conscious; I am aware of everything that is happening inside me.
Except Norman didn’t really believe that. Complete awareness might be a philosophical goal, but it was not really attainable. Consciousness was like a pebble that rippled the surface of the unconscious. As consciousness widened, there was still more unconsciousness beyond. There was always more, just beyond reach. Even for a humanistic psychologist.
Stein, his old professor: “You always have your shadow.”
What was Norman’s shadow side doing now? What was happening in the unconscious, denied parts of his own brain? Nothing. Keep going up.
He shifted uneasily in the pilot’s chair. He wanted to go to the surface so badly, he felt such conviction…
I hate Beth. I hate Harry. I hate worrying about these people, caring for them. I don’t want to care any more. It’s not my responsibility. I want to save myself. I hate them. I hate them.
He was shocked. Shocked by his own thoughts, the vehemence of them.
I must go back, he thought. If I go back I will die.
But some other part of himself was growing stronger with each moment. What Beth had said was true: Norman had been the one who kept saying that they had to stay together, to work together. How could he abandon them now? He couldn’t. It was against everything he believed in, everything that was important and human.
He had to go back.
I am afraid to go back.
At last, he thought. There it is. Fear so strong he had denied its existence, fear that had caused him to rationalize abandoning the others.
He pressed the controls, halting his ascent. As he started back down, he saw that his hands were shaking.
0130 HOURS
The sub came to rest gently on the bottom beside the habitat. Norman stepped into the submarine airlock, flooded the chamber. Moments later, he climbed down the side and walked toward the habitat. The Tevac explosives’ cones with their blinking red lights looked oddly festive.
“Your attention, please. Fourteen minutes and counting.” He estimated the time he would need. One minute to get inside. Five, maybe six minutes to dress Beth and Harry in the suits. Another four minutes to reach the sub and get them aboard. Two or three minutes to make the ascent.
It was going to be close. He moved beneath the big support pylons, under the habitat.
“So you came back, Norman,” Beth said, over the intercom.
“Yes, Beth.”
“Thank God,” she said. She started to cry. He was beneath A Cyl, hearing her sobs over the intercom. He found the hatch cover, spun the wheel to open it. It was locked shut.
“Beth, open the hatch.”
She was crying over the intercom. She didn’t answer him.
“Beth, can you hear me? Open the hatch.”
Crying like a child, sobbing hysterically. “Norman,” she said. “Please help me. Please.”
“I’m trying to help you, Beth. Open the hatch.”
“I can’t.”
“What do you mean, you can’t?”
“It won’t do any good.”
“Beth,” he said. “Come on, now…”
“I can’t do it, Norman.”
“Of course you can. Open the hatch, Beth.”
“You shouldn’t have come back, Norman.”
There was no time for this now. “Beth, pull yourself together. Open the hatch.”
“No, Norman, I can’t.”
And she began crying again.
He tried all the hatches, one after another. B Cyl, locked. C Cyl, locked. D Cyl, locked.
“Your attention, please. Thirteen minutes and counting.” He was standing by E Cyl, which had been flooded in an earlier attack. He saw the gaping, jagged tear in the outer cylinder surface. The hole was large enough for him to climb through, but the edges were sharp, and if he tore his suit…