"No power ..."
"I tried to tell you," Barnes said.
There was a whirring sound, and the lights flickered, then came back on. "We have internal power; we're running on our diesels now."
"Why?"
"Look," Ted said, pointing out the porthole.
Outside they saw what looked like a wriggling silver snake. Then Norman realized it was the cable that linked them to the surface, sliding back and forth across the porthole as it coiled in great loops on the bottom.
"They've cut us free!"
"That's right," Barnes said. "They've got full gale-force conditions topside. They can no longer maintain cables for power and communications. They can no longer use the submarines. They've taken all the divers up, but the subs can't come back for us. At least not for a few days, until the seas calm down."
"Then we're stuck down here?"
"That's correct."
"For how long?"
"Several days," Barnes said.
"For how long?"
"Maybe as long as a week."
"Jesus Christ," Beth said.
Ted tossed his bag onto the couch. "What a fantastic piece of luck," he said.
Beth spun. "Are you out of your mind?"
"Let's all stay calm," Barnes said. "Everything's under control. This is just a temporary delay. There's no reason to get upset."
But Norman didn't feel upset. He felt suddenly exhausted. Beth was sulking, angry, feeling deceived; Ted was excited, already planning another excursion to the spacecraft, arranging equipment with Edmunds.
But Norman felt only tired. His eyes were heavy; he thought he might go to sleep standing there in front of the monitors. He excused himself hurriedly, went back to his bunk, lay down. He didn't care that the sheets were clammy; he didn't care that the pillow was cold; he didn't care that diesels were droning and vibrating in the next cylinder. He thought: This is a very strong avoidance reaction. And then he was asleep.
BEYOND PLUTO
Norman rolled out of bed and looked for his watch, but he'd gotten into the habit of not wearing one down here. He had no idea what time it was, how long he had been asleep. He looked out the porthole, saw nothing but black water. The grid lights were still off. He lay back in his bunk and looked at the gray pipes directly over his head; they seemed closer than before, as if they had moved toward him while he slept. Everything seemed cramped, tighter, more claustrophobic.
Several more days of this, he thought. God.
He hoped the Navy would think to notify his family. After so many days, Ellen would start to worry. He imagined her first calling the FAA, then calling the Navy, trying to find out what had happened. Of course, no one would know anything, because the project was classified; Ellen would be frantic.
Then he stopped thinking about Ellen. It was easier, he thought, to worry about your loved ones than to worry about yourself. But there wasn't any point. Ellen would be okay. And so would he. It was just a matter of waiting. Staying calm, and waiting out the storm.
He got into the shower, wondering if they'd still have hot water while the habitat was on emergency power. They did, and he felt less stiff after his shower. It was odd, he thought, to be a thousand feet underwater and to relish the soothing effects of a hot shower.
He dressed and headed for the C Cylinder. He heard Tina's voice say, " - think they'll ever get the sphere open?"
Beth: "Maybe. I don't know."
"It scares me."
"I don't think there's a reason to be scared."
"It's the unknown," Tina said.
When Norman came in, he found Beth running the videotape, looking at herself and Tina. "Sure," Beth said on the videotape, "but an unknown thing is not likely to be dangerous or frightening. It's most likely to be just inexplicable."
Tina said, "I don't know how you can say that."
"You afraid of snakes?" Beth said, onscreen.
Beth snapped off the videotape. "Just trying to see if I could figure out why it opened," she said.
"Any luck?" Norman said.
"Not so far." On the adjacent monitor, they could see the sphere itself. The sphere was closed.
"Harry still in there?" Norman said.
"Yes," Beth said.
"How long has it been now?"
She looked up at the consoles. "A little more than an hour."
"I only slept an hour?"
"Yeah."
"I'm starving," Norman said, and he went down to the galley to eat. All the coconut cake was gone. He was looking for something else to eat when Beth showed up.
"I don't know what to do, Norman," she said, frowning.
"About what?"
"They're lying to us," she said.
"Who is?"
"Barnes. The Navy. Everybody. This is all a setup, Norman."
"Come on, Beth. No conspiracies, now. We have enough to worry about without - "
" - Just look at this," she said. She led him back upstairs, flicked on a console, pressed buttons.
"I started putting it together when Barnes was on the phone," she said. "Barnes was talking to somebody right up to the moment when the cable started to coil down. Except that cable is a thousand feet long, Norman. They would have broken communications several minutes before unhooking the cable itself."
"Probably, yes ..."
"So who was Barnes talking to at the last minute? Nobody."
"Beth ..."
"Look," she said, pointing to the screen.
COM SUMMARY DH-SURCOM/l
0910 BARNES TO SURCOM/1:
CIVILIAN AND USN PERSONNEL POLLED. ALTHOUGH ADVISED OF RISKS, ALL PERSONNEL ELECT TO REMAIN DOWN FOR DURATION OF STORM TO CONTINUE INVESTIGATION OF ALIEN SPHERE AND ASSOCIATED SPACECRAFT.