Rob examined the broken edge. It would do. It would have to. He patiently repeated the procedure for the middle finger, and then rather more quickly for the other two thinner fingers. When he was done he had four ugly ends of metal, each about a quarter of an inch thick and extending across the end of the palm of his left hand.
He paused for a few seconds. He was perspiring heavily in the close atmosphere, and blood was trickling from a cut in his right elbow where a slip as he was pressing down had brought it into contact with the sharp metal of the brace. He felt exhausted.
Don’t even think about rest.
He hurried back to the window and inserted the crude screwdriver that now formed the end of his left arm into the slit in the head of one of the bolts. He tried to turn it. His lack of weight in the low gravity of the interior of Atlantis made it difficult to get useful leverage, but he found after some experiment that he could wedge his feet firmly against the angle of floor and wall. Gripping his left forearm in his right hand, he turned it with all his strength.
After a minute of desperate effort, the head of the bolt made its first reluctant quarter turn. Rob took a deep breath, rested his forehead against the cool plastic of the window, and closed his eyes for a moment. When he opened them again and peered out into the cool green water of the aquasphere, he fancied that he could see the faint outline of Caliban, lurking within the fronded vegetation. He gritted his teeth and went back to work, wondering if desperation was forcing him to see visions in the waving weeds.
In another three minutes he could remove the first bolt. When he took it out he was relieved to see that no water entered. There must be another layer of adhesive seal on the outside of the window. Bathed in a cold sweat he worked on, bolt after awkward bolt. The work was boring and backbreaking. After the first ten minutes it became automatic, a ritual that robbed him of all sense of the passage of time. His labor began to seem more and more pointless as it grew nearer to its doubtful conclusion.
Where is Morel? How long do I have?
He worked on, blindly persistent.
Lack of sleep took its toll. Rob was semi-conscious and slumped by the wall opposite the big window when the clang of bolts from the heavy door brought him abruptly to attention. He moved across to the light control and turned it from its dimmed setting to maximum illumination. As he did so, the door slid open. Joseph Morel stood in the entrance.
He did not come inside at once. His cold grey eyes scanned the room carefully before he stepped forward. Rob thanked his own thoroughness in replacing the adhesive sealing strip at the edge of the window, and hiding the bolts he had removed in his pockets. It would take a close inspection to discover his work on the window.
Morel was taking no chances. He was carrying a heavy cylinder with a crosswired blue end piece. As he stepped cautiously inside the room he held it pointed straight at Rob’s chest.
“I presume that it is not necessary for me to describe this to you?” Morel’s voice was soft and precise.
Rob nodded. “Surgical laser.”
“Correct. If you have never seen one in operation, let me point out that this is a heavy-duty model and it is now set at maximum intensity. A full pass across your body — which I trust will not be necessary — will take maybe one fiftieth of a second. The result will be a perfect and cauterized separation.”
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.