Regulo slowly nodded. “Aye. Maybe it isn’t. But I was just thinking, the beanstalk is going to need a hard year or more of work from both of us. Lots of time for you away from Earth. That might be a problem if you had a tie to a man or woman back there.”
He was fiddling with the pile of papers in front of him. After a few seconds, he handed them over to Rob. Nothing further was said on the subject, but Rob felt that Regulo’s explanation of his question had been curiously unconvincing. He struggled to get his mind off it and back to work, as they began the detailed second stages of the beanstalk design. But he wished, one more time, that he could read Darius Regulo’s voice and facial expressions.
CHAPTER 8: “To meet with Caliban”
The main dining room of Atlantis was set in the outer part of the metal sphere that formed the heart of the asteroid. It had been designed by Darius Regulo as the show-case of the whole living area, and the facilities were arranged with that in mind. Sliding metal panels lined the outer wall, and behind them, revealed to the guests at the touch of a button set into the long table, were transparent viewing walls looking out onto the water-world beyond. Regulo kept them closed off completely during the whole of the meal, but Rob could not resist staring at them and speculating on the sights they concealed.
The working session with Regulo had gone amazingly fast. The two men seemed to catch at each other’s thoughts as soon as they were conceived, before they were fully spoken. Rob had built up a decent respect for his own abilities over the past few years, but he was not used to finding them matched or bettered in someone else. At the end of the session he could scarcely believe how much ground they had covered, nor the grasp that Regulo now had of all the details of his design work.
That had been on his mind through dinner, detracting from the pleasure of the strange meal. There were just four of them in the big dining room, Rob, Regulo, Corrie and Joseph Morel. As the various courses were served, the others looked at Rob, waiting to see his reaction to each. There was more variation than Rob could believe — especially when he was told that every item came from the sea-farms of Atlantis.
“We have to thank Joseph for that,” Regulo said, watching as Rob bit into a piece of meat, frowned in surprise, then chewed again. “He worked for years to breed a fresh-water fish that would taste like good beef. He’s fooled more than one with it — and you ought to try the cheese that we have coming up later. That’s your masterpiece, right, Joseph?”
Morel nodded without expression. His smooth, ruddy face was impassive, offering no hint at his feelings. Occasionally during the meal, when Rob was looking at Regulo or Corrie, he was aware of a cool, watchful look directed toward him from Morel, sitting to his left. But when he glanced in that direction, the cold gray eyes were always turned down to the table, or fixed on one of the others. Rob made a mental note to add a question to the list that he was preparing for Howard Anson’s Information Service.
“Most of the things you see around here are Joseph’s work,” went on Regulo, as the meal was nearing its conclusion, with fruit that had a taste and texture similar to pineapple. “I did the basic engineering of Atlantis, and decided what the living quarters ought to be like — we made them all from the ore in the middle of the original asteroid, which was an interesting problem in the use of materials. But Joseph did all the rest: the layout of the labs, and the detailed balance of the aquasphere. It’s not a simple ecology out there, far from it. You should take a good look at everything while you’re here.”
Morel remained silent, but there was a pouting of those full red lips that could be interpreted as a look of displeasure.
“I’d certainly like to see more of the aquasphere,” Rob said. “I had a very brief glimpse of it as Corrie and I were coming in along the entry shaft, and it looked fascinating. Could we have the panels open?”
Darius Regulo glanced across at Morel. “He’s been asking me about Caliban, and I gather that Cornelia has been teasing him, too. Are you willing to bring him over?”
“I suppose so.” The tone was grudging, but Morel’s eyes lit with sudden pleasure.
Regulo turned again to Rob. “Caliban is Joseph’s pride and joy. We won’t keep you in suspense any longer. Switch on the outside lights, Corrie, and open the panels.”
It was scarcely necessary to dim the internal lights. Regulo kept them at a level just enough to see each other and the food. As the big panels slid back, Rob found himself looking out onto a dense underwater jungle, lit by the faded, distant glow of sunlight and underwater lamps. Corrie turned a switch and the scene was transformed by powerful searchlights, mounted on the outer wall of the chamber.
The sheath of material behind the sliding panels formed a great transparent wall. Layers of vegetation attached to the supporting grids were clearly visible beyond it. Moving schools of fish drifted through the floating plant life and headed towards them, attracted by the beams of light.
“Where is he, Joseph?” grumbled Regulo. “Bring him on over here and let Merlin take a good look at him. I thought the light would have drawn him this way by now.”
“It depends what he was doing when the beams went on,” said Morel. He reached into the pocket of his shirt and pulled out a small, flat communicator. Staring out into the quiet underwater scene, he pressed two of the keys set into the black surface. After a few more seconds, he pressed a third. “He’s playing hard to get,” he said. “I had to provide a stronger incentive. Watch over to the left now, I think that ought to have been sufficient.”
Rob stole a glance at the other three. Corrie’s face was calm, with a look of quiet interest. Regulo’s expression was impossible to read behind that spoiled mask of flesh, but his eyes were calm and quiet. Only Joseph Morel seemed to feel any strong emotion. He was moistening his full lips, with a look of suppressed gratification on his face as he handled the tiny communicator. He was tense and expectant. Suddenly, he relaxed and leaned back in his seat. Far away, at the edge of the lighted area, something was stirring the fronds of vegetation.
“Here he comes,” murmured Regulo. “Now, Merlin, here’s one of your illusions spoiled. You think I’m in control here, but you’re wrong. Meet Caliban, the real Master of Atlantis. The rest of us are bound into this little region at the center, inside the living quarters. Caliban rules the aquasphere.”
A huge dark shape was slowly approaching, pushing aside the densely layered weeds. It was the same irregular mass that Rob had glimpsed in the distance during their brief pause in the entry shaft of Atlantis. Now, as it came closer, he could begin to estimate its true size. A mass of waving arms surrounded a great central trunk. As the creature came closer Rob tried to count them. He could see at least nine or ten, two much longer than the rest. None was fully extended, but he guessed that the biggest ones would be about thirty meters long, branching away from the cask-like head. The latter was a couple of meters across, with one huge, staring eye set on each side of it, placed so that the animal could never achieve binocular vision. The trunk and longer arms were a deep gray-green in color, merging into the lighter shade of the eight shorter arms.
“Know what you’re seeing?” asked Regulo. “You won’t find many like that back on Earth.”
“It’s some sort of squid,” Rob said. “But I’ve never heard of anything even a tenth of the size. That’s Caliban?”
“It is.” Morel’s voice was quiet and precise. “Not just `some sort of squid,’ if you please. That’s Architeuthis princeps himself, the biggest invertebrate ever. He’s responsible for the old stories of the kraken — and of the sea serpent too, in my opinion.”