Morel’s face was flushed and his quiet voice vibrant with an odd excitement. Rob did not move. He knew that it would take very little on his part for the other man to find it “necessary” to employ the instrument that he was carrying.
“I don’t know what all the excitement is about,” he said mildly. “All I was doing was taking a look around your lab, then you came along and locked me in. You’ve been gone for hours. What’s this all about?”
As Rob spoke he stole a quick look at his watch. Morel had indeed been away for almost two hours. Why so long? What had he been doing? Although Rob could practically feel the laser slicing through his flesh and bone, he forced himself to edge a few feet closer to Morel. That produced a warning wave of the laser.
“Keep your distance.” Morel moved away from Rob, closer to the big window. “Don’t come one centimeter closer. I don’t think you should bother with any elaborate invention regarding your presence here.” He smiled, and Rob read the finality of his look. “You were snooping in the lab, and you saw what is in the next room. The reason for your persistent curiosity would be irrelevant, but I must know it for my own peace of mind. Why are you so interested in the experiments here?”
“It’s a long and complicated story.” Rob was staring past Morel, trying to see into the aquasphere. The intense light in the room increased the reflection from the window, but Morel was brightly illuminated.
“You already know about my father,” Rob went on.
“I don’t want a life history.” Morel waved the laser again. “I’m in a hurry. I’m sure you realize that you will not leave this part of Atlantis alive, but you still have options. You can earn a quick and painless death by making your explanation brief and economical. Or you can learn just how effective this instrument can be for extensive surgery. The death of a thousand cuts, as the Chinese so aptly describe it. Go on, and do not tempt me.”
“The death of my father is relevant.” Rob hurried on before Morel could go beyond threat to demonstration. “I’m sure you know that my parents died — were murdered — because they were experimenting with what they called `Goblins.’ “
Morel looked startled. “How could you possibly have learned that? It all happened before you were born.”
“Give me a few moments, and I’ll tell you. I found evidence that the Goblins were tied to you, and to Atlantis. When I came here the second time, I decided that I should try and find out just what the Goblins are, and why they were sufficient reason for someone to commit multiple murder.”
Rob forced himself to keep his eyes fixed on Morel’s face. At the window a thick ropy snake floated lazily by, to be followed a second later by a huge lidless eye, close to the clear plastic. Although it was what he hoped for, Rob shuddered at the sight. Another second, and a vast suckered tentacle waved into view next to the eye.
“I decided that the only place they could be was here, inside this lab.” To Rob’s dismay, the eye and tentacle at the window drifted away out of sight, as though the scene inside were of little interest. Was Morel not sufficiently recognizable from a rear view? Rob tried to hide his own interest in the window. Out of the corner of his eye, he watched as a pair of tentacles slowly floated back into view and were placed with their suckers flat along the surface of the transparent panel.
“And did you find out what it was, that would make someone commit multiple murder?” asked Morel.
The window gave a faint squeaking noise as powerful arms tested its strength.
“Not really,” said Rob. He stopped, unable to find any more words. Surely Morel could hear the sound of the window.
Fortunately it was not necessary for Rob to make further invention. Caliban had decided that the situation with this panel was different. Morel heard the sound behind him, but it was too late. As he turned around the squid seized the window in three more tentacles and ripped it effortlessly from its setting. The heavy plastic sheet swirled away into the aquasphere like a wind-blown leaf. Three long, dark-green arms came groping in through the opening, feeling for Morel. One of them seized him by the leg, another coiled firmly around his thick waist. They began to draw him toward the water.
Morel did not panic. Lifting the laser he used it to sever the two arms that held him, close to the point where they entered the room. Then he stood his ground, flushed with rage and excitement, and glared at the giant figure of Caliban hovering outside the window. The pressure difference between the air and water was very slight, and the surface between them was bulging slowly to a smooth convex meniscus. Rob cowered against the far wall, mesmerized by those tremendous tentacles. Each one was thicker than his waist. The two severed arms, convulsing with muscle spasms, spouted blue-green blood across the floor of the room.
“Get back.” Morel’s voice was triumphant. He trained the laser on Caliban as the squid threshed the water. “Back! To the outer rim — or I’ll burn all your arms off.”
The squid did not retreat. Morel reached into his pocket and pulled out the slim black communicator. He pressed a button on its side. “Get back, I say. Or I’ll give you a real lesson in what pain can be.”
It was not clear to Rob how much Caliban understood of the situation, but at the sight of the communicator the squid withdrew its third questing tentacle into the aquasphere. It was still hovering outside the window when Rob stood up by the wall, reached for the dimmer control, and turned the lights of the room completely off.
There was a moment of total darkness, then a ruby flash and the sputter of melting metal as the surgical laser discharged against the wall close to Rob. He felt droplets of molten aluminum and steel spatter his exposed arms and face. Dropping to the floor, he began to crawl towards the door. Over by the window there was a sudden grunt of pain or shock from Morel and the laser beam spun crazily from floor to ceiling. The heavy cylinder itself crashed into the wall, just a foot above Rob’s head. He felt for it and wedged it under his right arm, at the same time as he reached for the dimmer control by the door.
The lights brightened to show Morel, one tentacle around his neck and another about his hips, being pulled steadily toward the aquasphere. He still held the communicator and was keying in a sequence of command signals. Outside the window, Caliban was shuddering and convulsing, his skin a deep purple-red. But he was still dragging the man towards him. Morel was in the water, closer to the savage black beak.
Rob raised the laser and pointed it at Caliban. Before he could take accurate aim, the squid suddenly discharged its ink-sac. The aquasphere became a swirling sepia maelstrom, dark and impenetrable. Rob heard a bubbling scream. Somewhere within the dark cloud, Joseph Morel and his creation were in final combat.
Rob’s horrified trance was broken by the sight of another long tentacle groping its way out of the blackened water. Dropping the laser he dragged himself through the door, slid the metal barrier into position, and threw all the heavy outside bolts. Only when the last one was in position did he lie down by it, unmoving for several minutes.
When he at last stood up and glanced at his watch, he saw that almost five hours had passed since he set out to explore the secrets of Morel’s laboratory. Regulo would be in his study, waiting for Rob and busy with the final preparations for the mining of Lutetia.
Rob, dizzy with emotion and fatigue, staggered back toward the main living quarters.
CHAPTER 16: “Then I saw that there was a way to Hell, even from the Gates of Heaven”