The Web Between the Worlds

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.”

The giant squid had moved in right next to the transparent wall. It placed four long, suckered tentacles against the glass. Rob saw the great body flex with effort. The surface of the panel distorted, just a little, under the strain.

“He’s strong,” Regulo said. “Stronger than you’d believe.”

“But he’s changing color,” said Rob, watching the barrier that separated them from the creature move under the force of the long arms.

“Aye, he’ll do that.” Regulo looked on calmly as the skin of the squid darkened, becoming a uniform black. “That’s the chromatophores in his outer layer — he can change all sorts of different shades. He only goes black when he’s angry, though. I think Caliban hates Joseph more than anything or anyone in Atlantis. He’d just love to get in here.”

“He is an ingrate,” said Morel drily. “By rights he should be more than grateful. He should worship me as his god. I am his Maker. Before we began work on him he was no more than any other cephalopod; brighter than any other of the invertebrates, but no more than that. Now” — he pouted his rosebud mouth, incongruously small in the fleshy face — “in intelligence he exceeds all the creatures of Earth. He should be devoted to me.”

Rob had finally caught his breath. Until reason asserted itself, he could not get rid of the feeling that the great beast beyond the window would tear the shield free, hurl it away, and reach in for them with those muscular arms. And then there would be the savage beak, set in the center of the massive head…

He shook off the feeling. Regulo knew far too much about the strength of materials to permit any such danger.

“Are you implying that Caliban is actually intelligent?” he asked. “That you have created something you are able to communicate with — something that can think?”

“That’s a damned good question.” Regulo had watched Rob’s expression of alarm with apparent amusement. “Obviously, he can’t speak, and in spite of all those arms we’ve never been able to get him to take any interest in writing. I’m not sure if he’s intelligent or not.”

“Regulo is joking.” Morel did not look at all amused. “Caliban is certainly intelligent. Communication with him is naturally a complex procedure. He is electronically connected with Sycorax, the central computer of Atlantis, and receives from it constantly a signal stream. In return, he produces a modulation that returns to the computer. Sometimes that return signal contains significant changes. Sycorax decodes the result, and converts it to message form for our output terminals here.”

“And it’s gibberish, more often than not,” grumbled Regulo. “I’ll never deny that Caliban does something with the signal, and Sycorax gives us an interpreted version of it. But whether it’s Caliban or Sycorax that puts the meaning into it, there’s the real question.”

“Yet you do not deny that the combination displays intelligence,” Morel replied. “It is not human intelligence — how could it be? — and it is not easy to understand. I don’t deny that. I merely assert that Caliban possesses some type of high-order thinking processes. Higher, perhaps, than ours. I was not joking when I suggested that in intelligence he perhaps exceeds all the creatures of Earth.”

“All right.” Regulo waved a hand, unwilling to prolong an old argument. He turned to Rob. “He treats the outputs from that beast like some kind of oracle. When you’ve been here a few times, Merlin, you’ll find that Joseph will never do anything that Caliban doesn’t approve of. Right, Joseph?”

“Exactly right.” Morel’s manner was surly. “It is a pity that we do not all have enough wisdom to follow the same policy.”

Regulo chuckled. “Don’t take any notice of that, Merlin. Joseph is hung up on the fact that Caliban advised against using you on the skyhook project. We never found out why, and after today’s session I’m more convinced than ever that I was right to override that advice. You’re the man to build the beanstalk for us, no matter what Caliban says.”

Rob was still watching the huge form of the squid, hovering motionless now outside the windows. “But where does he live in the aquasphere?” he asked.

“Where?” Regulo rubbed at his cratered face and stared at the great eye, a foot across, peering in at them through the panel. “Don’t you know the old joke about the man with a small apartment who was given a gorilla for a present? `So where does the gorilla sleep?’ `Absolutely any place he wants to.’ That’s Architeuthis princeps out there, the top of the food chain. Caliban is king of the aquasphere, it’s his world and he comes and goes as he pleases.”

“Unless he is called.” Morel patted the communicator that he was still holding in one hand. “Then Caliban admits a master.”

“I don’t think he does.” Corrie spoke for the first time since the beast had appeared outside the windows. “I’ve read about the cephalopods, too, Joseph. They’re big, fast and ferocious, and they don’t come fiercer than that one. You should be careful. Caliban has learned where those shocks come from that force him to come here, or drive him away again. He knows it very well. Look at those eyes.”

The pale yellow saucer next to the window, lidless and glistening, had no interest in anything but Morel. It followed every movement that he made, especially when he put his fingers again on the communicator buttons.

“I hope that he knows me, and knows what I am to him.” Morel’s tone was dreamy, with a hint of something else: an echo of sensual pleasure. He kept his eyes fixed on Caliban, and quietly pressed two more keys on the device in his hand. There was a sudden convulsion of the great tentacles, obscured almost immediately by a cloud of sepia discharge from the ink sac at the end of the trunk. When it cleared Caliban was gone, vanished into the depths of the aquasphere.

“Thus I banish thee,” Morel said softly.

He nodded to Regulo, stood up, and left the room; but the memory of the great squid lingered on for at least one participant in the meeting.

Rob could not get the thought of those giant arms out of his head. The image stayed with him even during his work session with Regulo; all through the hours where they hammered out more details of the beanstalk, working on through the long night, cushioned deep in the warm water bosom of Atlantis; safe, even against the power of the Sun itself.

There would be one more encounter with Joseph Morel before Rob left for Earth and the work of planning the beanstalk tether. He had been wandering the smooth outer wall of the living quarters, marvelling again at the strange flora and fauna of the aquasphere, and hoping for another glimpse of Caliban. He had made his way half-way around the central sphere, past the maintenance areas, and past the exit locks that led from the air-filled interior out into the water-world. He was drawn on by what he thought was the shadow of a great tentacle, winnowing the green gloom, when he found his further progress blocked. A locked door with a red seal around it lay before him.

Rob was standing in front of it, wondering where it led, when Morel appeared, drifting in soundlessly behind him.

“What are you doing here?” Despite his soft voice, Morel’s manner was brusque. Rob turned from the locked door.

“I’m trying to get another look at Caliban before I leave. I can’t get past this point.”

“You shouldn’t be here at all.” Morel was edgy, running his tongue over his full red lips. “These are the labs. They are off limits to everyone except for me and my staff.”

“What are you doing in there, still modifying the salt-water forms? I was wondering how you do that — it’s not something that I’ve seen attempted back on Earth.”

Morel hesitated, opened his mouth to speak, then paused again.

“It’s not easy,” he said at last. “Some of the forms we’ve been using for a long time still need modification. That’s why we keep the labs closed. There’s DNA splicing going on all the time in there. We don’t want a repeat of what happened to Laspar’s group, back in Tycho.”

Rob nodded. He was watching Morel’s hands. They were clenched hard, white knuckles showing. “I’d have thought it was much less dangerous here, though. After all, you do have an isolated environment on Atlantis.”

“Less dangerous to the rest of the human race, you mean.” Morel smiled grimly. “I wasn’t thinking of it quite that way. I doubt if Laspar was, either, during that last couple of days before he got the newts and they got him. The welfare of the species as a whole is something you tend to lose sight of if you are personally threatened. Only fools take chances with recombination experiments like the ones that we’re doing here.”

The other man was beginning to relax a little, but he was far too tense for such a casual conversation. What was it that Howard Anson had said to Rob? “Whatever the connection is between those names, it’s something terrible.” And one of those names had been Joseph Morel.

“How long have you been working on these experiments?”

Rob kept his voice as casual as possible, but there was no doubt about it: Morel had tensed again, biting at his lower lip for a long moment before he answered.

“This type of research has been my life’s work. I have been engaged in it for many, many years.” He turned abruptly away from Rob to look out of the window into the still, green shadows beyond. “So. You are interested in Caliban, are you? He is a worthy subject for study. One of my oldest successes. I began to sense his potential more than thirty years ago, back when I was aware of no more than a few unexplained reactions from him in early experiments. We didn’t try for communication for a long time after that. Even at the beginning, I felt that anything we did would probably have to be through a computerized interface — we are too much mutual aliens for any direct communication. Except, one might say, on the basics.”

Morel had pulled the communicator again from his pocket and was holding it close to his chest. He pressed twin buttons on the side of it.

“Are you calling him?” Rob asked.

Morel nodded. “Through Sycorax. It is curious, our work went much faster once we had done the modifications for him to live in a fresh-water environment.” He was staring again out of the window. “Caliban will be at the display screens, out in the aquasphere. He does not like to leave those once he has settled by them. You knew, did you, that Caliban sees everything that we receive through any of the video links? Not just here on Atlantis, but all over the System. I’m drawing his attention now to the screen outside here.”

Morel nodded at the camera set in the wall above their heads. As he did so, Rob recalled other cameras, in Regulo’s office, on the aircraft that Corrie had first used to pick him up, and in the Space Tug. Thinking back, he could not recall a time when they had not been under some kind of surveillance. If Caliban could accept all those inputs, his data-handling capacity must be enormous.

“But how do you get the signals to him?” he asked. “As I recall, radio frequencies don’t pass through water.”

“Quite true. We use ultrasonics, and also communications lasers. The sound signals are received by piezoelectric crystals set into Caliban’s skin and converted to electrical impulses. They are fed straight into his brain. The laser data rates are much higher, but we can send stronger commands through the ultrasonics.” He shrugged. “The whole system is rather primitive. Some day we will no doubt update it — perhaps with design advice from Himself. Come, my pretty one.”

Out in the aquasphere, the dark form of Caliban was approaching, slowly, from the shadow of the screens of vegetation. Despite his size, the movement was graceful and flowing.

“And how does he send messages back to you?” Rob was unable to keep his eyes off the squid as it drifted towards them.

“Through display panels set in the walls of Atlantis. His replies all go through Sycorax, of course, for processing before we get them.” Morel was looking fondly out at the approaching animal. “They are never easy to understand, which is why Regulo calls Caliban my oracle. The way that Caliban and Sycorax think together is not as we think. There are non-Aristotelian elements to it. I believe that any serious student of formal logic would find his time well-spent if he could examine Caliban’s inferential processes for a year or two. Now, do you have more questions?”

It sounded like a dismissal. Rob suspected that Morel would not leave the area as long as he remained there also. He shook his head, and began to move away from the sealed door. “I’m sure I’ll get a chance to study Caliban in more detail, the next time that I am here. He’s quite a monster, isn’t he? I’m sure you are used to him, but I didn’t like the way he was straining at the partition the other night.”

Morel smiled, his first sign of real pleasure since their conversation began. “He becomes, shall we say, excited by my presence. He is very strong, stronger than you can imagine. I would not advise you to go out into the aquasphere with him.”

“I don’t intend to. But presumably someone does. How else can you gather the food from the sea-farms?”

“Caliban is controllable. I can give him shocks from the communicator, directly into the pain or the pleasure centers of his brain. There is no danger to someone in the aquasphere when I am present to manipulate him. I am obliged to use that control sometimes for other things. For instance, when he is reluctant to offer data on problems of interest to me, I stimulate him to answer. He does so, reluctantly. But there is no doubt that he does not like it.”

No, thought Rob. But you do, my friend. I see the expression on your face when you think about it. Right now, you’re gloating over the memory. Thank God you don’t have those electrodes wired into my brain.

He started to leave, heading back to his own quarters in the living area. But his mind remained uneasy with what he had seen, and at the exit he turned. Joseph Morel remained standing by the window, gazing out at the hulking shape of Caliban glaring in from the aquasphere. If Rob was thoughtful, it appeared that Morel was no less so.