Orb (31 page)

“What’s he up to?” I whispered.

“Can’t be good,” Thompson answered.

Melhaus made entries on the controller. A low hum emanated from inside
Desio
. The dorsal-mounted laser turret began slowly rotating, the rotation orienting the laser’s nozzle in firing line with the closest Orb. I noted something else: The holocam was pointing in approximately the same orientation as the turret. There was little doubt that Melhaus wanted a visual record of what he was about to do, and what he was about to do was fire at the Orb. Our inability to prevent this outrage was infuriating. I did not have to imagine how Diana felt. Looking back, in the direction of the enclave, I could see Paul and Kelly physically restraining her.

“Melhaus is not sufficiently occupied,” said Thompson, weighing the possibilities. “If we move, he’ll observe our movement in his peripheral vision.”

“If he does see us, we might be able to elude the laser by retreating back into the crevice.” I hung this idea out there with less than full confidence, even though I realized Thompson was looking to me for a more workable second option.

“True enough, but he’ll figure out where we were heading. He won’t know exactly why—that is if I manage to keep the bow hidden behind me—but we’ll certainly lose the advantage of the boulder for a try at him. There is no alternate place to reach him. Not within bowshot.”

“A bad chance is better than none at all,” I said. “We can’t let him fire at the Orb.”

“If we move now and we’re seen, all is lost
and
Melhaus gets to run amok for a year. No, we wait.”

“You’re right, of course.”

“Playing devil’s advocate?”

“Don’t believe in the devil.”

“Don’t need to,” Thompson said, drawing my attention to the bow. “He believes in us.”

Having no choice, we waited. The air hung down on us still and warm. Angie stopped barking. In the lacerating silence pointless observations commanded my attention: A tiny gouge in the bow, the common shape of a rock, a drop of perspiration falling onto my knee. Then Thompson and I exchanged a rounded eye look of recognition. The look displayed when two people, with absolute certainty, realize something calamitous is about to happen.

Melhaus fired his laser.

A perfectly straight line of light intersected the closest Orb. For the duration of firing, an estimated two seconds, a widening circle of purple, identical to that of the laser’s tracer beam, appeared, then faded, on the Orb’s surface. Two consequences immediately followed: The Orb, which was serenely floating within a defined area, abruptly halted all movement; Melhaus, who had been calm, grew visibly agitated.

And began talking to himself.

Thompson and I were close enough to discern some of the words and numbers the physicist strung together, offered to no one’s benefit save his own: “Totally unanticipated. Time. One point seven four seconds. Megawatts. Point six eight three. Joules. One point one eight eight four two. Remarkable. Need to double. Yes, at least double…”

While Melhaus continued to rant, I whispered to Thompson, “You get any of that?”

“Much of it, yes,” he said, giving me a sideways glance. “He was performing calculations in his head. He unleashed more than a million joules of energy in the area the size of … what, an orange? … onto the surface of the Orb.”

“Translation?”

“The bastard expected to burn a hole in the Orb. Instead, the Orb barely noticed.”

“Damn. What’s the laser’s limitation?”

“Much more than anything we’ve witnessed. I remember him saying something about the output being boosted. Let’s assume to six megawatts. He can double the beam duration. I estimate he can generate twenty mega joules. By controlling the beam aperture he can … wait … he’s firing again!”

A louder hum came from
Desio
quickly followed by a line of bright purple light impinging the Orb, persisting for a noticeably longer duration, and at significantly greater power.

Melhaus wanted a pronounced reaction and he got it. Twelve-fold.

The area targeted instantly mirrored the color of the beam, a purple smudge that began spreading, deepening in hue, until one-third of the surface of the Orb was affected. Then, possibly to avoid the intense heat generated by the relentless beam, the Orb went skimming at high velocity across the OceanOrb, colliding like a struck billiard ball with a like-sized member of its group, transferring part of its momentum to this second Orb, whereby
it
continued on, collided with yet another Orb, and so on and so forth, until all twelve members of the group had been similarly impacted. Immediately after this bizarre activity, and as if to demonstrate a form of unity, the motion of all twelve Orbs promptly and totally came to a halt.

Any person of right mind would have been sobered by what we just saw: An enigmatic yet assuredly sentient entity’s incredible resistance to the energy of a laser followed by some form of collective reaction. Thompson’s judgment of the situation seemed right: “It’s as if the Orbs, never having sensed hostility, are contemplating how to reply.”

“And with further provocation, will that reply have an end?” I said.

But the docile Orbs, neither advancing nor retreating, still presented an easy target for Melhaus’s laser. I found myself wishing they’d initiate a more aggressive response. I said as much to Thompson.

“Understandable,” he commented.

“I’m amazed you didn’t say that I’m acting human.”

“I was being charitable.”

The attack on the Orb, which angered and saddened Thompson and me, baffled and frustrated Melhaus. Thwarted in his efforts to open a portal into the entity, he resumed talking to himself or, more accurately, to the Orb (which had reverted to it’s original uniform coloration), addressing it as if some form of adversary.

“Three million joules. You remain unaffected. Shall I try six? No answer? Six, then. Six, six, six. Six it shall be.”

A tell-tale hum came from
Desio
. “The damn fool! He fires!” I shouted to Thompson, cringing because I had raised my voice over the noise.

Visible on the surface of the Orb, in an area radiating outward from the laser’s impingement, a smooth, shimmering, man-hole sized indentation appeared, the sight prompting a mad cackle from Melhaus and an almost childish, “Round?! You’re not perfectly round
now
, are you?!” The high-pitched laugh, the incongruous petulance of the remark, sent a shiver up my spine, just as the Orb began quivering, vibrating, and—at last—moving. Good, I thought, protect yourself, distance yourself from the bastard. That would make sense, that would conform to my expectations. Nearby, a second and third Orb began to move.

Then the entire group of twelve was in motion, but not dispersing; rather, they were drawing closer together, tighter and tighter until, like giant beads of mercury, they began to merge, one absorbing into another, all absorbing into one. Amassing, inevitably, into a dynamic and perfectly round entity dwarfing all we had seen before!

Melhaus was momentarily stunned. I surmised why: He was confronting and confounded by his obsession, his Moby Dick.

“Get ready to react,” I heard a tense Thompson say. He was right next to me but sounded far away. I felt a push and an urgent, “Follow me. Low. Keep low.”

I found myself running. It seemed a very long sprint to the protection of the boulder. Once there, backs against stone, we collapsed, our hearts pounding in our ears, afraid to move for fear we had been detected.

Abruptly, the voice of Doctor Melhaus: “So you think you can defy me?”

I presented Thompson with a look of panic—contagious, to a point—and a muscle in his jaw tightened and a light in his eyes flickered; but he relaxed, grimaced, and said, “We’re safe, he’s talking to his Orb.”

“Shit,” I said, forcing a smile.

Thompson peered around his side of the boulder, then asked, “You good with determining distances?”

“Yes.”

“How far to Melhaus?”

I took a long look from around my side of the boulder. “Thirty-five to forty meters.”

“That’s what I estimate.” But Thompson looked again.

“What do you think?” I said.

“Wish to hell I had a couple of practice shots. There’s no wind. That’s good. Air resistance is slightly more than Earth’s. Gravity is less. The trajectory will be altered. The arrow will carry further.”

“Sounds like physics. You want I should get Melhaus’s opinion?”

“Sure … if you think you two can … what’s that damn word again?”

“Communicate?” I said, willing myself to smile.

“Yeah, that’s it,
communicate
.”

“Now what’s he doing?” I asked.

From our respective sides of the boulder, we both turned to look. We had an unhindered, oblique angle view of our adversary. His face drawn, appearance wild and unkempt; Melhaus probably had not eaten and slept in a couple of days. He was hastily tapping entries on the controller.

“Without question,” Thompson said, “that device also regulates the laser’s power supply. But look there, look what’s happening in the distance.”

Our attention had been centered on Melhaus and the nearby Orbs he was provoking. We had ignored the dozens of other groups, some of which had also coalesced and had grown to a most impressive size, nine meters in diameter, as tall as a house. The concerted activity was the clearest indication yet that what affected one group, was affecting all. This development was not the only thing attracting Thompson’s scrutiny, however, for his keen eyesight picked up additional movement along the horizon which I had failed to notice. The continued merging of Orb groups into progressively larger and larger entities. Didn’t Melhaus see this? Was it not a further warning for him to desist? If he saw, he chose not to care, the resumption of his invective making this abundantly clear.

“I have your undivided attention, do I? I see
everybody
is watching?!”

I whispered to Thompson, “Exactly who is he talking to, us or the Orb?”

Thompson just shook his head. “We’re running out of time,” he said. “Whatever happens after he fires again—”

“Twelve million little joules coming right up, a veritable bolt of purple lightning, yes indeed.”

“—whatever happens…” Thompson continued, talking through Melhaus’s rant while reaching for the quiver, withdrawing the two arrows, handing one to me. I looked at him questioningly.

“In due time. You’re nervous enough,” is all he said.

But just as Melhaus made final computations to boost and discharge
Desio’s
laser, the nearest merged Orb group (that which included the Orb he had been harassing) commenced to sink below the OceanOrb surface until, without so much as a ripple, it disappeared from sight.

This was the very last thing the physicist wanted to see happen. With his invented nemesis gone, together with hopes of a revelation, he began venting his frustration by repeatedly discharging the laser upon the placid surface left in the Orbs’ wake; to the empty sky he began shouting something resembling “test your theory” or “at best a story.” No, it was both. He was talking not just to himself, but to Paul and me.

What transpired next had me doubting
my
sanity.

The lasered ocean (for that’s all it was to Melhaus) came to life in a roil, upwell, and tumble. And yet the churning motion produced no surface foam or froth of any kind. In the turbulence, iridescent cords of color emerged, twisted, and intertwined as they caught the sunlight. I had seen the colors in the OceanOrb before; these were more intense and more numerous. The region affected, the area of a soccer field, but circular, was beyond that which could have been roused by the discharge of laser energy. Melhaus, realizing this, ceased firing—the overwhelming oddity of the phenomena temporarily captivating his interest and suppressing his single-minded rage.

Almost as soon as the disturbance began, the troubled area reverted to a tranquil, perfectly flat sheen.

The world, in anticipation, went dead calm.

“Be ready,” Thompson said.

Suddenly, a large, circular area of the OceanOrb smoothly
concaved
, then heaved and undulated, sending out a surge that crashed on the rocky shore; where the upwelling had been, now a dome—massive, shiny smooth, sparkling—broke through the surface.

Slowly, rising like a second sun, colossal as a giant oak, rose the Orb: Belying a watery birth, not a drop of liquid clinging to its textureless surface; belying gravity, floating on one tiny point as if light as a feather. In front of this mammoth stood Melhaus, diminutive, pathetically so, forced to gaze up in astonishment at what he presumed to have wrought.

Thompson was moved to action. He was standing next to me, bow in hand. Drawing back, letting an arrow fly….

A hypnotizing arc, a blur, went whooshing through the air. There was a loud clanging sound as the arrow, whizzing past Melhaus’s shoulder, clashed, deflected, and shattered against the metal shell of
Desio
.

A large splinter came to rest at the physicist’s feet.

Shaken from his trance, he stooped down, picked up, and stared at a wood stick with some feathers stuck to it.

“Arrow,” I heard Thompson say from above me.

A bewildered look showed on Melhaus’s face, then a dawning, a recognition. And fear.

“Arrow,” I heard Thompson repeat. “Missed high. Told you I needed a practice shot.”

“What?” I said. But I reflectively did as he bid.

Melhaus, realizing his danger, began wildly entering laser commands.

Thompson, exposed, remained standing. Ice water in his veins, he pulled the bowstring back until it rested against his jaw, sighted, held steady, held steady, and released.

I lost a second or two of my life. Then I noticed an arrow protruding from the side of Melhaus’s chest near the shoulder. For a second he looked at it in utter disbelief. His hand involuntarily opened sending the controller clanking onto rock. His eyes glazed and rolled to the back of his head and he slumped to the ground.

Thompson reached him first. To stem the loss of blood, he began immediately applying pressure to the wound. Anguish in his eyes, he turned to me. “He has a fighting chance. The tip has come completely through.”