The Web Between the Worlds

CHAPTER 13: The Masters of Atlantis

The evening meal was an uncomfortable affair, despite the astonishing array of edible products that Regulo had again conjured from the sea-gardens of Atlantis.

Rob knew that his own sensitivity to the atmosphere in the big dining-room was unusually heightened. He needed evidence that his trip through the aquasphere had gone unobserved. Even making allowance for that, he felt that he could sense quick looks of anger from Morel, directed towards him whenever his attention was diverted elsewhere. There was an unpleasant tension between the two men. Regulo was clearly suffering from the after-effects of Morel’s treatment — his “regular dose of poison,” as he put it — and did not have the energy to lead the free-ranging speculation that usually marked meals on Atlantis. And Corrie, for whatever reason, would meet no one’s eye. She sat, aloof and monosyllabic, and showed no appetite for her food.

It came as a relief when Regulo suggested that Corrie should take Rob up to the outer surface of Atlantis and show him the little asteroid, sitting all ready for the mining operations that were scheduled to begin in a few hours time.

“I don’t have the strength for a look at it myself,” he said. “But there’s always the chance that you will see something directly that doesn’t show on a holoscreen. You ought to put your head on that problem, Merlin — the holoscreen is supposed to carry all the amplitude and phase information for a reconstruction in here that’s good enough to fool the human eye, but somewhere along the line there’s an information loss.”

“Noisy transmission channels?”

“Not that I’ve been able to find. Take a look for yourself, and see if you think it’s all my imagination.”

Corrie’s manner changed as soon as they were in their suits and ascending the broad shaft that led from the living-sphere to the surface of Atlantis.

“What’s the problem with you and Morel?” she said.

“I don’t care for him.” Rob paused in their ascent at the observation panel where he had caught the first faint glimpse of Caliban on his initial visit to Atlantis. “You noticed the way he was looking at me, didn’t you?”

“And the way you were looking at him. I could feel you two throwing knives at each other across the table.” She began to lead the way up the shaft, heading for the outer air lock. “Look, if you’re going to spend much time on Atlantis, you and Morel will have to learn to work with each other. I wanted to get away from the living quarters so that we could talk about this. I think Regulo must have guessed that, when he suggested we take a look outside. You don’t like Morel, and that’s fine. I don’t like him either. But he’s immensely useful to Regulo.”

“He’s a brilliant man,” said Rob. “I know that, but I don’t trust him. How dependent is Regulo on Morel for treatment?”

“He could get another doctor, but that’s not the point. Morel happens to be the top man in the System for treatment of Cancer crudelis and Cancer pertinax. He pioneered everything that’s worth trying for the diseases. Regulo would be insane to accept another doctor, when Morel is willing to stay here and work on Atlantis.”

Rob looked at her in surprise. Corrie seemed to assume that he knew all about Regulo’s disease, despite her earlier reluctance to mention it. Her face was invisible behind the reflecting plate of her suit. “Do you think that Morel is getting close to a cure?” he said.

“Not for Regulo’s disease. Morel has had complete success with crudelis, and he has been able to arrest pertinax and even reverse it with drugs, in lab tests. But when he tried it on Regulo, the side effects were so bad that he had to stop after a few weeks.”

“But he’s still trying?”

“Of course. Morel had plenty of tenacity and works tremendously hard. But it’s a terrible and difficult disease.” She shuddered. “Have you ever seen pictures of Regulo as a young man? He was handsome. You would never recognize him from the way he looks now.”

They had reached the outer surface of Atlantis. The asteroid was floating about five kilometers above their heads, glowing a bright orange-red against the star field. The slight difference between its orbit and that of Atlantis was slowly reducing the distance between the two bodies. On one polar axis of the spinning asteroid, Rob could see the black outline of the Spider. Its elongated proboscis formed a long, thin line against the orange glow. The powersat, photovoltaic receptors turned to face the sun, hung like a huge sail at the other pole of the asteroid. Spin-up was finished, and in a few more hours the whole interior would be molten.

Based on the color of the rotating mass, Rob judged that it had reached about twelve hundred degrees. The jagged outline of the rock was already blurring as the materials softened and flowed in the sustained heat.

Corrie was hovering close by him in the entrance of the shaft. “Who was it told you about Regulo’s sickness?” she asked softly.

“Senta,” Rob said, and at once regretted his answer. He saw Corrie’s body stiffen in her suit.

“You saw her again, then, after we met at Way Down?”

“Through Howard Anson.” Rob wished that he had told Corrie at once of his earlier meetings with Senta Plessey, though he was still reluctant to mention the subject of those discussions. “You know Anson runs an Information Service,” he went on. “I’ve been one of his customers for years, but I didn’t make the connection until he told me what he did. He and Senta live together. She told me that Regulo was handsome, back before his sickness became worse.”

“How often did you see them?” Corrie’s voice was grim, and she was not about to change the subject.

“Oh, just a couple of times.” Rob thought that it was time for desperate measures. “I was surprised by one of the things she told me. She said that Darius Regulo is your father — that you were conceived when she was living with him. I wondered why you hadn’t mentioned it to me.”

Corrie’s reaction astonished Rob. She bent forward and the upper part of her suit began to shake rapidly, as though she were suffering from some kind of seizure. After a second or two he realized that she was laughing, gripped by genuine or simulated amusement. Nothing that Rob had said ought to be so funny.

“That again!” she said finally. “I thought I’d heard the last of it. Rob, you just don’t understand Senta yet. It’s not good to say this about my own mother, I know, but Senta lives in a pure dream world. She always has, as long as I’ve known her. Darius Regulo’s my father, is he? What did he say when you told him that?”

Rob stared at the asteroid in front of him, seeking any sign of wobble in its rotation. “I never managed to ask him. We started to talk about Senta, then he changed the subject. It’s not easy to make conversation with Regulo when he wants to talk about something else.”

“You still ought to ask him. Do it when he’s tired. You know that Senta’s a taliza addict, half the time she’s happy to escape the real world.” Corrie had moved in very close to Rob. “It’s quite true that she lived with Regulo for a long time, and it’s true that she conceived a child soon after they split up — me. When I was small, she would tell me about Regulo and say that I was his child. But after a few more years I began to understand Senta better. She would never admit to having a child by an ordinary father. Can’t you see that? She would have to believe her baby came from the richest, most powerful, most mysterious man in the whole System.”

“Then who was your father?” After his earlier glimpse into the labs, and the narrow escape from Caliban, Rob was beginning to feel that his own grip on reality was slipping. There was a limit to the number of surprises a man could absorb in one day.

“I don’t know. It could have been Regulo, I admit that. More likely, it was some rich parasite, or one of her soulful-looking society hangers-on. Senta has a weakness for good-looking young men. Remember how she made up to you, when you first met her.”

“She was on a taliza high.” It occurred to Rob that Corrie had almost no understanding of her own mother’s hopes and fears. Howard Anson played the part of the social man-of-leisure, but there was iron under the soft surface. Had Senta changed, since Corrie’s childhood?

“I don’t think the taliza would make much difference.” Corrie placed her hand on the sleeve of Rob’s aquasuit. “Look, Rob, if I’m not worried who my father was, why should you be? I’m me. I’m not Senta, and I’m not Regulo, and I’m not owned by either of them. Can’t you accept me for what I am?” She turned, and began to head back along the shaft towards the central sphere of Atlantis. Rob hesitantly followed her.

“If you’re wondering why I came here to work for Regulo as soon as I could do it legally,” she went on. “Try thinking from my point of view. I’d heard Senta’s stories about him, ever since I was old enough to understand a sentence. I wanted to meet him, and I took the Space Aptitude Test before I was ten years old. When I got the chance to apply for a job here, I grabbed at it. And I got it — without special help from Regulo or anybody else. And I’ve done well.”

Corrie was diving ahead of Rob, a silver gleam of suit against the dark walls. Her voice, earnest and upset, came clearly over the suit radio, but she was outdistancing him easily. Rob didn’t have the same familiarity with the inside structure of Atlantis.

“Hey, Corrie, what’s the hurry?” he called, trying to speed up his progress along the shaft.

“I’m tired of talking about this, that’s all.” She was through the second lock and swinging on towards the living-sphere. “I’ll be in my rooms. Come there if you choose to. But you have to promise there won’t be more chat about Senta and Regulo.”

Rob followed slowly. Now he was more confused than ever. Someone was lying to him, but the big question wasn’t who — it was why. He wished that he could discuss the whole thing with Howard Anson, but Howard was back on Earth, millions of kilometers away. Rob didn’t trust the privacy of the comlinks on Atlantis. Until he could get back to L-4 he would have to wrestle with it on his own. As he made his way to Corrie’s rooms, he mentally reviewed the list of questions that had to be answered before he could take Corrie’s advice and ignore the past.

Corrie’s rooms were up near the “pole” of the living-sphere, on the axis of rotation where the effective gravity provided by the spin of Atlantis was negligible. One entire wall of her main room was a transparent panel, looking out onto the brightly lit submarine garden. Shimmering schools of fish moved lazily through the green and purple weeds, like a living rainbow.

On previous visits Rob had sat there for hours, looking out and not speaking. Since Corrie had developed that scenery herself — admittedly with substantial aid from the robo-gardeners — Rob’s interest had pleased her. Then she learned that for Rob it merely formed an unseen and neutral backdrop to the design calculations that occupied most of his waking hours. Rob was blessed with a strong visual imagination. When he was thinking hard, he literally did not see the display of life outside the window. After a couple of tries, Corrie decided that it was hopeless. Rob’s interest in the beauties of Nature could not compete with his fascination for pipes, cables, caissons, pulleys and ballasts.

By the time that Rob was through the inner lock of the entry shaft and had made his way to Corrie’s quarters, she was already changed into one of her light leotards. She was hovering three feet off the floor, legs crossed and tucked up beneath her, watching the graceful parade of fish across the viewing panel. As Rob came in she turned her head and motioned for him to keep quiet. Her head was cocked to one side, listening. Rob moved to her side. After a few seconds he could hear it, too, a steady burst of drumming against the outer wall, followed a few seconds later by an irregular sequence of loud thumps.

He looked at Corrie questioningly.

“I don’t know,” she said softly. “It started as I was changing, and at first I didn’t take much notice of it.” She gestured to her left. “It sounds to me as though it comes from that way, farther along the wall.”

Rob leaned close to the panel and tried to see around the curve of the outer wall, but nothing was visible there. “Let’s go and take a look. We ought to be able to find another panel in that direction.”

“No need to. I think I can do better than that.” Corrie floated over to the elaborate control panel set into one wall of the room. She switched on the display screen that was mounted next to it. “When I first came here I found it was hard to know where people were in the living-sphere, and I wanted to look at the fish and the plants outside. I found an easy way to do it. Did you know that there are viewing cameras all over Atlantis, inside and out, so that Caliban can have data inputs about everything that’s happening? I tapped into the set that cover the living-sphere and the aquasphere. All we have to do is pick the right camera.”

Rob stared at the array of controls. Judging from the number of switches there must be several hundred cameras. So much for his “secret” trip to the aquasphere. It must have been purely a matter of luck whether or not he had been observed, and if Corrie could tap the camera net, so could anyone else. Had Corrie been up here when he was out there exploring? Rob suddenly recalled the unexpected appearance of Caliban. According to the usual schedule, the squid should have been engaged on the analysis of the data that had come in with Rob on the ship. If someone had interrupted that intentionally, Caliban’s sudden move to the central sphere was no accident. The “accident” was Rob’s own survival. Caliban found something of compelling interest to him in that central lab. Well, so did Rob — but the king of the aquasphere had time to watch the lab at his leisure.

Corrie was playing with the control switches, flipping them on and off quickly as she kept her attention on the display screen. “Nearly got it,” she said. The view was taken from a camera set out in the aquasphere. It looked back at the metal and plastic partition that surrounded the living-sphere. Corrie made a final adjustment to the setting, and the display changed to provide a split-screen image. They now had both a frontal and a side view of part of the living-sphere on the screen.

This section of the central sphere had been modified. Instead of a blank metal wall or a transparent panel, they were looking at a huge viewing screen set into the outer wall of the sphere. It showed an elaborate pattern of swirling and shifting colors. In front of it, tentacles flared into the arch of an “attack” posture, floated the colossal mass of Caliban.

As they watched, the squid moved forward to the screen and secured himself there with six of his powerful arms. After a few seconds the animal began to strike at the screen with his savage beak. They could again hear the heavy vibrations, transmitted through the outer wall.

Caliban was frantic. Rob saw the other four arms, their inner surfaces studded with suckers each bigger than the palm of his hand, flailing at the water. Powerful contractions rippled along their length, moving outward from the hulking body. After a few more seconds Caliban released his grip on the wall. In a flurry of convulsive movement, he coiled and uncoiled all ten of the great tentacles.

“It’s another fight with Morel,” whispered Corrie, almost as though the man could somehow hear them. “I’ve seen this before. He’s hitting Caliban in the pain centers. That’s the way he makes him cooperate on analysis of information. This time it doesn’t seem to be working.”

As she spoke, the great squid uncoiled itself completely and again moved forward to the big viewing screen. For the third time they heard the sound of the beak striking against the outer wall, and this time they could see the heavy partition flexing and twisting. The tentacles and suckers were capable of exerting enormous force.

“He knows that Morel is inside, behind the panel,” said Corrie softly. “He doesn’t know of any way to get at him. If Morel is right about Caliban’s intelligence, he ought to be worried. Some day Caliban will find a way to reach him.”

Although they could not see Morel, Rob realized that they were witnessing a true battle of wills. The man’s presence showed only from the kaleidoscopic patterns on the display screen and the periodic agonized convulsions of the giant squid. But he was there. Rob could visualize him, fair skin flushed with rage, trying to bend Caliban to his wishes. The animal was resisting desperately. At last, after four more attacks on the wall, Caliban withdrew and coiled all his tentacles loosely about his body. As he did so, the pattern on the viewing screen changed, to become a smooth and orderly movement of colored light.

“He’s given up,” said Corrie. “He’s doing what Morel wants. I’ve never seen a struggle like that before. Either Caliban is becoming more resistant, or Morel was trying to get something out of him that he really didn’t want to give.”

“Maybe Morel wasn’t after information,” said Rob. “Perhaps he was punishing Caliban, for something that the squid did.”

Or didn’t do. Rob thought back to his close shave earlier in the day. Why had Caliban suddenly appeared at the lab window? It was possible that he had been summoned there by Morel. If he had, was this Morel’s punishment for the squid’s failure to do what the man had expected? That would explain Morel’s envenomed looks at Rob during the evening meal, even if it would not explain why Morel’s hatred was so intense. It had to be tied to the secret lab.

Rob had already decided that there would be no more trips through the aquasphere until he knew far more about the workings of Atlantis. Regulo and Morel had made the whole asteroid a marvel of remote control, and there was no way of knowing what features of the water-world might be turned to a convenient instrument of liquidation for a prying visitor. Further investigation of the lab would have to be done from inside the living quarters, and that implied the use of equipment that Rob had not brought with him. He forced himself to accept the idea of patience.

Just before Corrie turned the outside window to its opaque setting and dimmed the room lights, Rob had one more fleeting and disturbing thought. The means for his disposal would not be confined to the aquasphere. If Morel wanted to kill him, there must be a hundred ways to do it in the living-sphere. Rob would be heading back to L-4 in a couple of days. Meanwhile, it might be a good idea to walk very carefully indeed.

After a couple of brief and typical last-minute hitches, the tap of the asteroid began. While Regulo handled the main controls, Rob kept his attention on the Spider. It was performing the high-temperature extrusion of materials adequately, but he was not at all happy with its performance. They were getting differential heating effects in the extruded cable, and that would weaken it.

“We can’t use the Spider this way on a big asteroid,” he said to Regulo, who was examining the assay of the latest length of cable. “I’ll have to make a few changes. I’m sorry, but I don’t see any way to do it unless I go all the way out to the Belt when you have the big one ready.”

Regulo was watching the cable as it snaked red-hot and sputtering out of the Spider’s glowing spinneret. “That’s fine with me. I was hoping you would be there anyway. We should have Atlantis all the way to the Belt by then.” He keyed out a spectrographic reading. “See, that’s the last of the volatiles, venting through the side port. Next time we’ll collect those and store them in a separate sphere. Once they’ve cooled off they’ll be useful reaction mass. Better than digging holes in the rock and hoping you’ll get the right veins, eh? Look at these.”

Regulo passed the assay results across to Rob, who took his eyes off the Spider long enough to make a quick assessment.

“We’re into the fourth layer,” he said after a few moments. “Eighty meters in. I expected the iron and the nickel, but the copper and the cobalt are a nice surprise. You know, I may have an alternative to your zone-melting idea. Why not begin the mining at the axis of rotation? If we put the proboscis straight in along the axis, we ought to get all the light elements out first. Once they’ve gone, we can squeeze the heavy stuff in to the middle and never move the proboscis at all.”

Regulo leaned back in his seat. The benefits of Morel’s treatment were apparent. There was no wincing with pain when he moved, no muscular spasms as he worked at the control board.

“It sounds nice, but I don’t think it will work,” he said at last. “We’d be pushing against the natural flow of materials. Once the ball is spinning, everything tends to fly outward and centrifugal acceleration does our work for us. If you start at the axis of spin, you’ll need some way of shrinking the ball as the tap goes on. I don’t see a good way to do it, not without wasting a lot of energy.” He shrugged. “There’s my top-of-the-head evaluation, but don’t take too much notice of it. We need options, and there’s more than one way to do most things. Think about it some more when you’re back with the beanstalk — and while we’re at it let’s tie our schedules together. Atlantis will be out in the Belt and ready for action with Lutetia two months from now. Can you fit that into your timetable?”

“We’ll be flying the beanstalk in from L-4 right about then.” Rob was watching the bright stream of metal as it squirted from the spinneret. Was it his imagination, or had the asteroid already shrunk enough to see a difference? “Once it’s in orbit around Earth, we’ll be locked into the landing and tether schedule. If you can have a ship ready for me, I can be here again either before or after we land the beanstalk.”

“Come here first. We’ll do Lutetia, then you fly back and take care of the beanstalk. Tight timing, but it will work.” Regulo was frowning. “Pity about the damned flight regulations. If they’d let me put a decent drive on some of the ships, I could halve your transit time. About a year ago I had Cornelia explore some financials for me. Did you know that half our resources are tied up all the time, just sitting and waiting for materials to get where we need them in the System? I’m not talking transportation costs, either. I’m talking about the effects of delays on budgets.”

Rob shrugged. “I don’t like the time it takes to travel around the System any better than you do, but we’re stuck with it.” Regulo was chewing on an old and familiar problem, and one where Rob could see little chance of changing the rules. His time would be better spent examining the changes they would need for the Spider.

“Trips out to the Belt aren’t too bad if you have plenty of work to keep you busy,” Rob went on. “You can’t buck the laws of dynamics. Unless you can come up with a matter transmitter, we’re stuck with transit times to match the drives. Your only other hope is the General Coordinators. Get them to change the laws on maximum permissible drive accelerations, and you’ll be able to cut the transits.”

It seemed to Rob like an unproductive conversation. He pulled a sketchpad input sheet towards him and began to draw in the schematic for the Spider’s extrusion process. He wanted to begin looking at the design modifications. Regulo regarded the younger man with a paternal eye.

“I’m not a theoretician,” Regulo said. “You won’t find a matter transmitter design inside my head. The only solutions I know how to offer are based on things we already understand — strength of materials, simple dynamics, and engineering design. Let me take a look at your drawing there. I still want to know more about the Spider, even if you hold all the trade secrets.”

Rob moved the sketchpad so that Regulo could see his work. There was a long silence, while Rob sketched in changes to the nozzle profile. While Darius Regulo looked on, the screen before the two men showed the steady shrinking of the molten asteroid as it was consumed by the mining operation.

The old man’s expressions were never easy to read, in a countenance so transformed by disease. All the same, there was something in his eyes that few people would ever see. It was a gleam of self-satisfaction and secret pleasure.